SPACEPOWER 2025 — The Space Force is nearing the “end game” on its acquisition reform plans, with a focus on a “cleanup” of how missions fit into the new Pentagon-mandated “portfolio” management structure, according to Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy.
“[Y]ou could argue the Space Force is kind of already in portfolios,” Purdy, acting space acquisition executive at the Department of the Air Force, told reporters Dec. 12 on the margins of the Space Force Association’s Spacepower 2025 conference in Orlando, Fla.
Purdy explained that while he doesn’t see the need for a large remodeling of the service’s acquisition organization, there does need to be “some cleanup clearly within these portfolios.”
“For example, I have … the same mission scattered across multiple PEOs [program executive officers]; we have multiple examples of that. So we’re looking to clean up some of that activity so that we have a true portfolio manager of different mission areas and whatever the collection of stuff that you have, you truly own all of it,” he said.
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The Space Force has six PEOs that fall under Space Systems Command: Space Combat Power; Battle Management, Command, Control and Communication; Assured Access to Space; Military Communications and Positioning, Navigation and Timing; Space Sensing; and Operational Test and Training Infrastructure. Another two acquisition shops — the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office — report directly to Purdy in his current acting assistant secretary role.
“So, I think you’re going to see something that’s not too dramatically different,” Purdy said. “I’m certainly not looking to create additional layers or anything like that. But the specifics, we’re still kind of going through that.”
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Purdy stressed that the PEOs have had “strong input” over “multiple weeks of detailed discussions” on the Pentagon-directed makeup of the new portfolio acquisition executives (PAEs), with “hot and heavy debate” about where programs should “fit” under the new offices.
Indeed, he said that “over the last month or so, the kinds of PAEs we’ve had [put together] have been wildly varying as we debated about different ways that you can go about and solve the problem, and the number have increased and shrunk, increased and shrunk,” he said. “And so that has finally kind of calmed down, and we’re kind of getting to an endgame here, and kind of adding … some fidelity.”
Purdy acknowledged that there still would be “a bunch of seams” in the organization.
“[N]o one can possibly own an entire kill chain, an entire element. There’s data, there’s cloud, there’s transports, there’s all sorts of elements. And so there’s going to have to be strong seam management,” he said.
Purdy said there have been “early discussions” though “not formal briefings” with the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Space Force progress, including “on requirements trade offs [and] budgetary flexibility trade offs.” However, he said, the process is not yet complete.
“We got to finish that with the secretary so he’s happy with everything,” he said.
Purdy expressed confidence that the service can meet Hegseth’s rapid timelines for action. This in part because the Space Force for the past year had already been undertaking “a lot of these major kind of reforms on our own,” and in part because the service is “pretty small” compared to the Army, Navy and Air Force.
“And so I think we can make those timelines. It’s a little tougher for the bigger services. They have a lot more people, a lot bigger programs,” he said.
Purdy said in his view one of the biggest opportunities for “benefit” but also one of the biggest challenges will be allowing the services to move money between programs.
“I will tell you from a risk-reward posture perspective, the one I would just wish for the most, and I think the one that will be the most challenging to actually get, is … funding flexibility,” he said.
“There are a lot of strong, vested interests in funding and movement of funds and flexibility, and a lot of people have a lot of strong thoughts on that topic, to include all the way up through the [financial management] communities, the comptroller, CAPE [the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation], OMB [the White House Office of Management and Budget], and even the appropriations committees on the Hill,” Purdy explained.
“So if I had like a Christmas wishlist, that would be number one: funding flexibility. But that’s going to be a very long set of difficult discussions, and it’s hard to let that go if you’re sort of controlling the purse strings at different levels,” he said.