DAF shakes up space acquisition leadership, Purdy takes ‘senior advisor’ role
Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhageh has taken over Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy's former role of military deputy to the Office of Space Acquisition and Integration.
Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhageh has taken over Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy's former role of military deputy to the Office of Space Acquisition and Integration.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, who is the Department of the Air Force acting head for space acquisition, said the OCX ground system for GPS satellites has now made it through testing of 97 percent of its requirements.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R.-Ala., also advocated for growing the Space Force in order to meet the increasing threats from China and Russia — suggesting that both the Air Force and Office of the Secretary of Defense "transfer" billets to the newest military service.
Brig. Gen. Jason Cothern, Space Systems Command deputy commander, said that the new deltas will be organized along the same lines as SSC's current Acquisition Deltas.
"The good news about this approach is this really fits my priority of speed, speed and speed," Frank Calvelli, space acquisition czar at the Department of the Air Force, said of the plan to have NRO take the lead with Space Force oversight and some funding.
If contractors are put on the Contractor Responsibility Watch List for failure to meet cost and schedule performance goals, the Space Force has "the ability at that point not to award them any new contracts."
In addition to providing new "tenets" for Space Force officials, "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," Frank Calvelli told Breaking Defense.
When SDA joins Space Force in a couple weeks, their more agile acquisition cycle could spread to other Space Force offices.
Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, as head of SSC, has enormous responsibility for space acquisition programs, but lacks direct financial control.
Frank Calvelli says he will use the congressionally mandated Space Acquisition Council to herd the various Space Force acquisition cats.
In 2022, the Pentagon will need to see real movement on acquisition reform to reduce long understood vulnerabilities that have been essentially ignored for many years.
US leaders this year faced difficult decisions against a backdrop of rapidly growing challenges from potential adversaries, and a booming commercial space sector that innovation-wise is leaving the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community in the dust.
"We made it clear when we stood this up that it is going to be an evolutionary process, and that we just stood up the bare bones in the first year — because it's hard enough to do that," Rep. Mike Rogers said. "And we're putting the flesh on the bones each year trying to mature it in a slow and pragmatic fashion, and do it right."
"Congress can hold politicals accountable -- not so much with the uniformed officers," one former DoD official said.