Space Force Shakes Up Acquisition Again in Effort to Achieve Efficiencies
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
The Space Force confirmed that it will reorganize space acquisition and space policy authorities starting Oct. 18 in an effort to streamline decision-making in line with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s plan announced in August.
As first reported by Breaking Defense on Oct. 15, the Department of the Air Force described a plan to break out space policy from the as-yet unnamed space acquisitions chief. The move would reduce the number of personnel required to sign off on policy decisions by transferring space policy to the Chief of Space Operations and the Secretary of the Air Force.
In August, Kendall described his plan to consolidate the Space Acquisition Directorate from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, or SAF/AQ, into a new organization, Space Acquisition and Integration, or SAF/SQ. Space acquisition policy remains within SAF/SQ, while broader space policy moves to Space Force and responsibility for international affairs shifts to the deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for international affairs, or SAF/IA.
Kendall in August named Brig. Gen. Steven P. Whitney to head the space acquisitions office until an assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration is named. Whitney has managed the reorganization pending the appointment of that new civilian leader.
Congress has for months railed against the slow pace of space acquisitions reform and the absence of a civilian chief. In a July report, the House Appropriations Committee claimed the Air Force was dragging its feet.
“The committee remains concerned that the Air Force has not taken more aggressive action in addressing long-standing space acquisition issues,” the report read.
Lawmakers also said the Air Force had “made little progress in defining what the Space Force will be doing that is fundamentally different than when it was a component of the Air Force.”
On Sept. 20 at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber (ASC) Conference, both Kendall and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond expressed confidence in the reorganization of space acquisition, even though an assistant secretary had not yet been named.
“We’re actually interviewing people right now for the space acquisitions assistant secretary position,” Kendall said at the ASC media briefing, foreshadowing the office reorganization and personnel movement. “So, it’s moving forward. I’m reasonably happy with the pace.”
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org
Related Content
America faces the most severe security environment seen since World War II, and U.S. military leaders are working aggressively to develop new strategies, operational concepts, and technologies in response. As these efforts advance, it is imperative that new ideas and concepts be validated, designed with ample resilience and be flexible…
U.S. Space Force contractors are building an AI-powered tool to detect cyberattacks on satellites by directly monitoring the behavior and telemetry outputs of satellite systems in orbit, executives said this week.
The U.S. military launched 21 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., Sept. 10, carrying out the first phase of the Space Development Agency’s plan to put more than 100 operational “Tranche 1” data transport spacecraft in orbit over the next year.
The Space Force welcomed its first officers trained in a way far different from decades of Air Force practice late last month. Eighty-four space professionals graduated from the Space Force’s first Officer Training Course on Aug. 28, a yearlong program in which Guardians were trained in all aspects of the service’s…
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org The Space Development Agency is ready to start launching operational satellites—and...
Derek M. Tournear, the head of the Space Development Agency that spearheaded the trailblazing push to buy and launch small satellites at a speed and scale unseen in military space circles, is departing the organization for a job in academia just before a momentous launch.
The Space Force plans to rename Space Operations Command, one of its three field commands, to Combat Forces Command to emphasize its role in providing combat forces to different combatant commands. The change is not final but is expected to occur after the confirmation of a new commander, Maj. Gen.…
Guardians wondering when they can expect to receive the Space Force’s long-awaited new service dress uniform need wonder no further, as officials shared a timeline for rolling out the threads, starting in November.
The U.S. homeland is vulnerable to air and missile attack across the Arctic because the network of ground, air, and space-based defenses guarding those approaches have atrophied over time, according to a new paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
