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  April 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  AF Seeks Freedom To Shift $$ Between Space Programs

  "[T]he way that the Air Force and now Space Force put their budget submissions into Congress, it puts all of the programs into individual program elements," Roper said, "and that's like locking [each] program into a little financial prison." By THERESA HITCHENSon April 16, 2020 at 4:28 PM WASHINGTON: The Air Force wants Congress to approve new powers allowing the service to fund space acquisition in ‘blocks' that would allow it more freedom to shift funds from one specific program to another, says service acquisition head Will Roper. The idea, he told reporters today, is to give the Space Force acquisition authorities that mimic those used by fast-moving and highly capable organizations such as the Special Capabilities Office and the NRO. The mechanism: putting multiple programs into one budgetary program element (PE) number so priorities can be juggled or monies shifted to ailing programs to help them cope with cost or schedule overruns. “One of the things that we are very passionate about for space acquisition is trying to consolidate the space portfolio into a few number of program elements,” Roper said, noting that when he headed the SCO “we funded almost all of our programs out of one program element. That's really important because it let me optimize the portfolio of programs, not just do individual programs,” he explained. “Well, the way that the Air Force and now Space Force put their budget submissions into Congress, it puts all of the programs into individual program elements, and that's like locking [each] program into a little financial prison.” Although it is true that other organizations with acquisition powers — including SCO, NRO and the Missile Defense Agency — have such flexibility, it is unclear whether Congress will acquiesce to the same for the Space Force. The 2016 NDAA created a new “major force program” — MFP 12 — for DoD reporting on the national security space budget precisely to overcome: a) the lack of transparency in DoD budgeting for space programs, and b) the long-standing Air Force practice to shift space funds to air power programs that were suffering setbacks. However, an MFP does not allow the Air Force or other space services to move money around without congressional assent. As late as the 2020 budget request, DoD admitted that it still had not sorted out how exactly to meet the MFP-12 requirement as it was still developing standard practices for determining what should be included or not. Joshua Huminski, director of the National Security Space Program at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC), said wryly that the Air Force request is likely to “require very artful selling to Congress.” He explained in a phone conversation today that congressional leaders already are keeping the Air Force on a short leash regarding space acquisition. Roper said the request for such new authorities will be included in the space acquisition report Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett is required to send to Congress under language in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). That report was due March 31 but has yet to be transmitted. Roper said the report is finished but is being reviewed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. As I've reported, Barrett's report will punt on the question of whether the NDAA-required Space Force acquisition executive will be a fully separate office or will be organized in some fashion as a subunit of Roper's current shop. It's no secret that Roper has strenuously opposed a fully bifurcated space acquisition office. Roper confirmed today that the pending report is concentrating on how the service hopes to use its current, and newly proposed, acquisition authorities to speed the often decades-long process of moving new space capabilities from design to procurement. He explained that the Air Force will wait until after Congress decides on its proposal for future space acquisition authorities before circling back to the organizational question — in effect, meaning that the service will not address the issue until after the 2021 NDAA is passed. “And then once we determine what will be given to us or not, then for round two, we'll look at what's the right way to organize with these new authorities, and at that point we'll take on the question of whether there should be one or two service acquisition executives,” he elaborated. The service has until October 2020 to establish the controversial new space acquisition post. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/af-seeks-freedom-to-shift-between-space-programs

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  August 14, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security

  DDoS Attacks Surge 46% in First Half of 2024, Gcore Report Reveals

  DDoS attacks surge 46% in 2024, with gaming and technology sectors hardest hit. Learn about evolving attack patterns and their impact

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  June 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Countering missile threats means addressing the present while planning for the future

  By: Ian Williams In 2017, I helped author the CSIS report “Missile Defense 2020,” a broad look at the history, status and future of the U.S. homeland missile defense system known as Ground-based Midcourse Defense. The report argued that the establishment of GMD had put the United States in an advantageous position relative to the North Korean missile threat, but this advantage would be short-lived if the United States failed to improve GMD through incremental milestones and regular testing. GMD has had some notable achievements with this strategy. The Pentagon, however, seems to be moving away from this proven approach to GMD, attempting great leaps rather than manageable steps. This riskier approach could make the United States less secure over the near and long term. Until recently, GMD had been following a well-defined road map, with good results. After a series of flight-test failures from 2010-2013, the Missile Defense Agency began a rigorous effort to root out anomalies within the system's Ground-Based Interceptors, or GBI. MDA carried out a successful intercept in 2014, followed by intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile-class target for the first time in 2017. In 2019, GMD engaged an ICBM target with a salvo of two GBIs, marking another first for the system. MDA also expanded the fleet to 44 GBIs and is constructing a new Long Range Discrimination Radar in Alaska to provide the system much-needed sensor support. These achievements were supposed to be followed by an incremental modernization of the GBIs. The plan was to incorporate a new Redesigned Kill Vehicle around the year 2020. The RKV would be similar in concept to those currently deployed but incorporate new technologies and nearly 20 years of lessons learned. Another part of the plan was to give the GBIs a new booster, one that gave the war fighter the option of using either two or three stages, thereby providing the system more time and space to engage incoming missiles. MDA also set its sights on a set of longer-term objectives. These goals included a space-based sensor layer for tracking missile threats, and a GBI equipped with multiple kill vehicles that would greatly expand the capacity of the GBI fleet. While the volume kill concept had great appeal, MDA recognized the need for a developmental step between the current kill vehicles and a more advanced, unproven concept. Historically, U.S. missile defense has done best when pursuing steady, achievable goals. The highly successful Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program, for example, has consistently adhered to the mantra: “Build a little, test a little, learn a lot.” The RKV program, however, ran into delays. Yet, rather than continue trying to fix the program, the Pentagon opted to abandon it and skip directly to a more advanced, multi-kill vehicle approach called the Next Generation Interceptor. NGI is an ambitious, 10-plus year endeavor that carries significant risk. In the near term, it means that the president's goal to add 20 more GBIs to the fleet will go unmet, as those GBIs were supposed to be capped with RKVs. Any expansion to the GBI fleet before 2030 will require the design and construction of a modernized unitary kill vehicle of some kind. Absent any effort to expand or modernize the GBI fleet, homeland missile defense will likely fall behind the North Korean missile threat while NGI matures over the next 10 years. The decline will increase U.S. vulnerability to coercion by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a time when the U.S. military is scrambling to address Chinese and Russian aggression. Furthermore, a major delay of NGI a decade from now (or worse, a failure for NGI to materialize at all) would leave the United States with a fleet of GBIs falling rapidly into obsolescence, squandering decades of resources and effort. To be clear, the United States should continue developing NGI. Missile threats to the U.S. homeland continue to grow at an alarming pace, in quantity and complexity. But the Pentagon and Congress should support these longer-term efforts while still investing in nearer-term options that keep U.S. homeland defenses current to North Korean missile capabilities, hedge against NGI failure and preserve U.S. investments in the GMD system. A potential path forward may lie in the Senate's version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which contains draft language that would require the deployment of 20 additional GBIs equipped with an interim, unitary kill vehicle by 2026. Three years ago, we titled our study of GMD “Missile Defense 2020” because we believed that this year would be the start of a new chapter in U.S. homeland missile defense. Obviously, much has changed with the cancellation of RKV. Yet, despite all its challenges, this year may still provide the opportunity to make the kind of decisions that will strengthen our national security in the near and long term. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/24/countering-missile-threats-means-addressing-the-present-while-planning-for-the-future/