CSO transition ceremony

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman speaks at the transition ceremony for the chief of space operations at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Nov. 2, 2022. (US Air Force photo by Andy Morataya)

WASHINGTON — The “compromise” version of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act released late last night by the Senate and House Armed Services Committees would pump up Space Force spending across the board — with one of the biggest boosts for classified research and development programs, where lawmakers added $333 million to the service’s already whopping $4.973 billion request, for a total of $5.306 billion.

However, report language accompanying the bill’s text shows that despite general support for the Space Force, Congress intends to keep a strong grip on the service’s reins — with a number of provisions aimed at steering service policy and organizational decisions.

The bill would authorize $3.63 billion in procurement funds for the service, adding almost $447.5 million to the Space Force request. The topline for research and development gets an even bigger boost, with lawmakers adding $769.7 million to the service’s request of $15.8 billion, for a total of almost $16.6 billion.

The NDAA sets department policy, as well as recommended maximum funding levels for the Pentagon. But it does not provide any actual money for the DoD and the services to spend — that is the job of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, whose annual defense spending bill currently is in limbo along with all other federal spending for this fiscal year. The question is whether appropriators can work out an omnibus funding deal before Dec. 16, when the current Continuing Resolution expires. The final defense topline could also prove a battle with appropriators, as the delta between the House ($762 billion) and the Senate ($850 billion) markups over the summer is significant.

In somewhat of a surprise, the HASC provision to force the service to create a Space National Guard — a move pushed by senior National Guard officers — was stripped from the bill in the negotiations between the two sides of Capitol Hill. The debate about the question of a Space Guard has been fierce, with advocates vociferously pushing back on the Biden administration’s rejection of the idea due largely to cost concerns. That battle it is not over yet: the Defense Department still owes Congress a study of the issue mandated in the 2022 NDAA that senior officials have promised prior to the release of its FY24 budget request.

In other policy areas, however, lawmakers were much more hands on.

For example, lawmakers demand that the service establish requirements “for defense and resilience” prior to any Milestone A decision for new satellite acquisition programs. Such requirements do not currently exist, and could be tricky to develop given the veil of secrecy that surrounds Space Force’s capabilities and systems designed to defend US military satellites.

In addition, echoing the House version of the FY23 NDAA, the bill mandates that “the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, shall make publicly available (emphasis ours)  a strategy containing the actions that will be taken to defend and protect on-orbit satellites of the Department of Defense and the intelligence community from the capabilities of adversaries to target, degrade, or destroy satellites.”

The provision is all the more interesting given that the administration’s recent Strategic Space Review, which was designed to flesh out what offensive and defensive space capabilities the service should be pursuing, was classified and no unclassified summary was released to the public.

The NDAA report language further calls upon the Air Force secretary and Space Force chief to submit an unclassified “comprehensive strategy” for the new service not later than June 30, 2023 that includes:

(1) A description of the strategic objectives for organizing, training, and equipping the Space Force, including objectives for achieving and maintaining:

(a) The capability to assert a degree of control in space that permits the conduct of operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from terrestrial or space-based threats;

(b) Global communications, command and control, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to the combatant commands and their respective components; and requirements.

(c) Space capabilities to satisfy joint requirements.

2) A specific and detailed plan for achieving such
objectives that includes:

(a) A funding plan;

(b) A ground-based infrastructure plan; and

(c) A space architecture plan.

The compromise NDAA would also add $100 million in R&D funds for “tactically responsive space” not requested by the service — a provision that was included in the HASC version of the bill but not the Senate’s. The provision expresses the “the sense of Congress that given the successful tactically responsive launch-2 mission, the Space Force should continue to broaden tactically responsive space efforts with a focus on rapid reconstitution and responsiveness.” The section also recommends the Space Force consider establishing a “Tactically Responsive Space” budget line.

Lawmakers further are questioning the Space Force’s decision to place the Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) as a “direct reporting unit” under Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, instead of aligning it under Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisitions and Integration Frank Calvelli’s shop, known as SAF/SQ. The NDAA report language says the Department of the Air Force has not provided adequate justification for the move. It further notes that “consideration of alignment to SAF/SQ does not appear to have been addressed” as was required by the 2022 NDAA.

Finally, the bill’s language includes a Senate provision that would require DoD to “review and make a recommendation” on exempting the Space Development Agency from the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS). JCIDS is the DoD’s much maligned process for setting and evaluating requirements for new weapon systems, that many critics say is too slow to allow the necessary speed in getting new capabilities to the field. The language makes clear that lawmakers would like to see such a waiver implemented.