{"id":55451,"date":"2022-05-07T01:43:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T17:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/sda-official-were-not-going-to-pick-the-winners-the-winners-are-going-to-deliver\/"},"modified":"2022-05-07T01:43:44","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T17:43:44","slug":"sda-official-were-not-going-to-pick-the-winners-the-winners-are-going-to-deliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/sda-official-were-not-going-to-pick-the-winners-the-winners-are-going-to-deliver\/","title":{"rendered":"SDA Official: \u2018We\u2019re Not Going to Pick the Winners. The Winners Are Going To Deliver.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The Space Development Agency<\/strong> (SDA) wants to use spiral development to field small satellites for military use every two years \u2014 a fraction of the time required for large Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition programs, and SDA is using a biannual \u201cwarfighter council\u201d to inform evolving SDA requirements with the participation of military space operators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that SDA is trying to do that is so different is to meet the number one problem we hear from industry, which is that they don\u2019t know what the government wants,\u201d Paula Trimble, SDA\u2019s policy chief and legislative affairs director, told a virtual Atlantic Council forum on the use of small satellites for national security on May 5. \u201cWe broadcast regularly, not only what we want, but how often we\u2019re going to ask for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis spiral development approach is a real thing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are going to launch constellations of satellites every two years on schedule, and we\u2019re going to tell you how many satellites we need, what they need to do. We want to stimulate a market and capitalize on what is happening in every element of the commercial sector. The commoditization of satellite buses is something that the government benefits from, and we want to leverage that. It brings down the cost of our satellites. It allows us to do this quickly. It allows us to leverage manufacturing processes that are common in meeting commercial satellite orders, and then engage on the mission specific piece as something that might take a little bit longer, but we\u2019re going to leverage whatever we can to go fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole idea is that we\u2019re not going to pick the winners,\u201d Trimble said. \u201cThe winners are going to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SDA in August 2020 awarded Lockheed Martin<\/strong> and York Space Systems<\/strong> contracts to each build 10 small satellites as the initial element of the SDA\u2019s transport layer \u2013 a new constellation of spacecraft aimed at connecting satellites in low earth orbit to serve the tactical communications needs of U.S. forces more rapidly.<\/p>\n

The satellites will begin launching this September, and the constellation is to be on orbit early in 2023. The Tranche 0 satellites will essentially prove out the capability of the transport layer of satellites and are paving the way for subsequent tranches.<\/p>\n

Commercial space companies are assuming a larger role in aiding military forces, including SpaceX<\/strong>\u2018s integral involvement in National Security Space Launch and in the National Reconnaissance Office\u2019s use of commercial remote sensing imagery. Commercial imagery ferreted out preparations by Russia for its Feb. 24 assault on Ukraine, and SpaceX has sent communications terminals to allow Ukrainians to access information about the invasion without Russian interference.<\/p>\n

SDA\u2019s approach to use what works represents an opportunity for small, commercial companies and a possible model for DoD overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe traditional acquisition system actually ends up reinforcing failure because you get paid more when you don\u2019t deliver something,\u201d Paul Graziani, the chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania-based space situational awareness company, COMSPOC<\/strong>, said during the May 5 Atlantic Council forum \u201cThe commercial world is the opposite. In the commercial world, you don\u2019t get paid at all until you have something that works. Then you start getting paid, and the difference between those two models is why commercial just crushes at these things\u2013not stealth bombers, and not aircraft carriers, but the things that take a lot of rapid innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet focused on mission,\u201d Graziani said of DoD acquisition. \u201cAs you look at the traditional procurement systems, the most important thing is to keep the program sustained. It\u2019s a bizarre thing \u2026 As soon as you deliver the mission, the program goes away, but your entire system \u2014 tens of thousands of people and all these different organizations \u2013 are driven to keep the program going, and it starts in Congress with billions of dollars flowing down and goes all the way through the whole system, and that becomes the focus, not the mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Via Satellite sister outlet Defense Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Space Development Agency (SDA) wants to use spiral development to field small satellites for military use every two years \u2014 a fraction of the time required for large Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition programs, and SDA is using a biannual \u201cwarfighter council\u201d to inform evolving SDA requirements with the participation of military space operators. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}