The Defense Department’s Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance Integration Roadmap is missing some very important elements. Such was the testimony of Davi D’Ogistino, director of Defense Capabilities and Management Issues for the Government Accountability Office, during an ISR hearing of the House Armed Services air and land forces panel last week. While the ISR Roadmap sets strategic goals, objectives, and catalogs developing systems, it does not indicate funding priorities, ways to measure progress towards the strategic goals, identify future requirements, or define requirements for global persistent surveillance. As for DOD managing its current ISR assets, “Our ongoing work indicates DOD lacks adequate visibility to optimize the use of those assets and metrics to evaluate their performance,” she said.
The Space Force recently awarded SpaceX $739 million to launch nine missions for the Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office over the next three years. Five of the awarded launches will be to build out SDA’s constellation of missile warning and tracking satellites in low-Earth orbit.
