President-elect Joe Biden\u2019s transition team has spoken with Chief of Space Operations Gen. John \u201cJay\u201d Raymond, as the incoming Biden administration faces important questions about a future path for military and commercial space capabilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have met with the transition team. I met with them this past week,\u201d Raymond said in a virtual question and answer session with reporters on Dec. 15. \u201cWe had a really good conversation. I was happy to chat with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raymond declined to speculate on how the Biden administration\u2019s space stance will differ from the current White House, but it looks likely that the U.S. Space Force,<\/strong> which will mark its first anniversary on Dec. 20, will continue into the new administration\u2013not only because Space Force officials have made a convincing argument that the offensive space capabilities of China and Russia mandate a separate service dedicated to pursuing untrammeled U.S. access to space, but because cancelling the Space Force would require congressional action to reverse the service\u2019s establishment in the Fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, P.L. 116-92.<\/p>\n Next year, the Space Force plans to establish Space Systems Command, a field command that will develop, acquire, launch, test, and sustain space systems, Raymond said on Dec. 15.<\/p>\n Some agenda items for the sixth military service appear to be on hold. Nominees for the U.S. Space Force service acquisition executive (SAE) and an assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration are unlikely before Biden assumes office Jan. 20.<\/p>\n For seven months, a final report on an Alternative Acquisition System for the U.S. Space Force has been stuck in what the Space Force said was \u201cinteragency coordination\u201d with the White House Office of Management and Budget, but Raymond said in October that the final report was in the final stages of that coordination.<\/p>\n The Fiscal 2020 NDAA directed the secretary of the U.S. Air Force<\/strong> \u201cto provide to the congressional defense committees a report on whether and, if so, how to implement an alternative acquisition system, due not later than March 31, 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe report should include an assessment of the feasibility of a new acquisition system specifically tailored for space systems and programs, including with respect to procuring space vehicles, ground segments relating to such vehicles, and satellite terminals,\u201d per the report.<\/p>\n Changing the acquisition process to allow rapid fielding of new space technologies to counter what DoD has said is the grave threat posed by Russia\u2019s and China\u2019s space technology advances has been a top priority for U.S. Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett and Raymond.<\/p>\n Barrett called reforming the space acquisition process \u201cmaybe the harshest fight there is and one of the most important fights there is.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t build technology on a slow, lethargic acquisition system,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to move fast.\u201d<\/p>\n In May, the Air Force took back a draft Alternative Acquisition System for the Space Force report to Congress within a day of its submittal. That draft report said that consolidating budget line items (BLIs) to manage the Space Force \u201cspace programs at portfolio levels is the most important recommendation in this report.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary benefits are enabling rapid responses to emergent threats in the year of execution that drive a need for realignment of funds and increasing overall space purchasing power through more efficient financial management at the portfolio level,\u201d the draft report said, adding that the Air Force \u201cshould consolidate BLIs based on mission portfolios (e.g. missile warning and defense, communications and navigation, offensive space control, defensive space control, launch and mission support).\u201d<\/p>\n The proposed portfolio approach to allow rapid re-programming for the Space Force would likely face a stiff challenge in Congress.<\/p>\n This article was originally published by our sister outlet Defense Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President-elect Joe Biden\u2019s transition team has spoken with Chief of Space Operations Gen. John \u201cJay\u201d Raymond, as the incoming Biden administration faces important questions about a future path for military and commercial space capabilities. \u201cI have met with the transition team. I met with them this past week,\u201d Raymond said in a virtual question and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49698,"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-58413","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\/58413"}],"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=58413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}