Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for space acquisitions and integration, center, at Schriever Space Force Base, Sept. 7, 2022. (U.S. Space Force photo by Tiana Williams)
WASHINGTON — Space Force acquisition head Frank Calvelli is working on a “scorecard” to grade the progress of major programs as a next step towards improving space acquisition processes — with the ultimate goal of keeping ahead of surging Chinese and Russian capabilities.
The scorecard is “really to look at sort of the classic schedule, cost, performance, [the] project management metrics that I want to track at my level,” he told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview today. “I haven’t found exactly the formula yet — I’ve got my team looking at it. But I want to really kind of look, for all of our major programs, at a sort of red, yellow, green scorecard for cost, schedule, performance.”
He noted that he already has instituted quarterly reviews for all major acquisition programs, and the scorecards would be another tool for tracking program progress.
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But further, the grading process would help assess how well his acquisition workforce is following the new guidelines Calvelli issued today in an internal memo designed to keep US space technology efforts ahead of Beijing and Moscow. The memo, obtained by Breaking Defense, lays out nine “space acquisition tenets” for establishing new space system acquisition programs.
Among those are building smaller satellites and ground systems, avoiding over-classification of programs and holding industry feet to the fire in performing to contract specifications.
“Our top three priorities for space acquisition include driving speed into our acquisitions in order to deliver new capabilities faster to outpace our adversaries and maintain the technological advantage we get from space; making our space architecture more resilient so that it can be counted on during times of crisis and conflict; and integrating our space architecture with other war fighting domains and across the Department’s Operational Imperatives to give our warfighters a strategic edge,” says the memo, which was first reported by SpaceNews.
“For the government space acquisition workforce, I hope it really starts to drive and sink in that we’ve got to do things faster,” Calvelli said of the memo.
One of the keys, he said, is to pivot to buying smaller satellites and ground systems, following in the footsteps of the Space Development Agency, and working in increments to build capabilities.
“I really wanted to move to no more than two- or three-year development cycle, similar to what [SDA Director Derek Tournear] is doing.” Such “tighter development cycles, and more specific stages of work” allow managers to avoid the problem of having sunk so much money into an extremely expensive program that the only answer when it is failing is to “throw more money at it,” he explained.
However, he stressed that the tenets are not just aimed at the Pentagon’s space acquisition bureaucracy, but importantly, are also designed as a message to industry.
He noted that there has been a cultural paradigm within the Defense Department whereby managers “tend to think of industry as our partners and our teammates. And the reality is they’re not. They’re under contract to the government to deliver a particular service or product,” he said.
“I’m really messaging three things to industry — that I really want them to give me credible proposals, and I really want them to execute, and I’m not going to tolerate poor performance,” he added.
Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisitions and integration, serves as the first-ever Department of the Air Force space acquisition executive (SAE). His post was created by Congress in order to overhaul the sclerotic bureaucracy and processes that have been weighing down the acquisition of space systems for decades, resulting in massively expensive systems often plagued by cost and schedule overruns. As SAE, he controls the Pentagon’s key space acquisition agencies: Space Systems Command (SSC) and its five related “program executive offices” for various baskets of missions; the Space Rapid Capabilities Office; and as of Oct. 1 the Space Development Agency.
The nine tenets, Calvelli said, are in part aimed at changing the culture of DoD space acquisition — rather than creating new acquisition rules and/or tools.
“I’ve really taken a hard look at it, but I don’t believe there’s any kind of different authority or acquisition methodology that I need to go faster. I think I have all the tools,” he said. “It’s not like … there’s some new secret formula or some new magic wand. I don’t need that. I need the kind of topical bullets here [in the memo] to really drive future acquisition.”
According to the memo, the nine tenets are:
Build Smaller Satellites, Smaller Ground Systems, And Minimize Non-Recurring Engineering. This will help “shorten development timelines from many years to just a couple,” the memo states. Calvelli explained in the interview that one key will be acquiring software-intensive systems in smaller, more manageable increments to avoid getting bogged down.
Get The Acquisition Strategy Correct. “Establish good acquisition strategies up front including contract type and contract incentives for both speed, and performance,” the memo states. It advocates for “clear, specific, unambiguous Statements of Work (SOW), concepts of operations, and requirements for the request for proposal,” and use of fixed-price contracts to increase “program management discipline.” Calvelli told Breaking Defense that fixed-price contracts help avoid requirements creep and make it easier to hold contractors to task.
Enable Teamwork Between Contracting Officer And Program Manager. This includes collocation of program executive office teams and contracting officers, the memo states.
Award Executable Contracts. “Evaluate cost and schedule realism as part of the proposal evaluation to avoid low bids and buy ins,” the memo says. “Ensure companies have the correct skills to successfully execute the contract on cost, schedule, and meeting performance.”
Maintain Program Stability. This includes, the memo explains, establishing the contract cost and schedule baseline up front and managing to that baseline, as well as avoiding “year-to-year budget changes that drive rebaselining which diminish speed from acquisitions,” as well as piling on new requirements.
Avoid SAPs and Over Classifying. “Putting programs in a Special Access Program (SAP) hinders our ability to integrate space capabilities across other domains,” and using other classification levels judiciously, the memo says. Further, the memo urges PEOs to avoid the “NOFORN” designation that prohibits sharing with allies and partner nations. SAPs, Calvelli told Breaking Defense, make it much harder to integrate space capabilities into the joint force across the air, sea and land domains to ensure DoD’s “integrated deterrence” strategy.
Deliver Ground Before Launch. The mismatch between satellite and ground system development has been a plague upon Pentagon space programs for decades — for example, the infamously troubled OCX ground control system for the newest GPS III satellites, and efforts to build M-Code radios/receivers for troops, vehicles, planes and ships that remain far behind schedule. “It just takes some discipline,” Calvelli told Breaking Defense. “Cultural is the wrong term, but we’ve gotten to the point where it’s almost acceptable that we’re going to launch and not have the ground in place, and we really need to change that culture. So, I wanted to call that one out specifically. ”
Hold Industry Accountable for Results. “With the urgent need to provide new space capabilities faster and for architecture resiliency, do not tolerate bad performance that we have seen in some traditional large satellite and large ground cost plus contracts,” the memo exhorts. “Industry is working for you, so be a demanding customer.”
Execute – Deliver Capabilities that Work, and Deliver them on Schedule and on Cost. “This is our most important tenet. Success is measured by executing on plan,” the memo concludes.
