{"id":59030,"date":"2020-09-16T18:11:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T10:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/air-force-is-developing-2-esats-service-acquisition-chief-says\/"},"modified":"2020-09-16T18:11:59","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T10:11:59","slug":"air-force-is-developing-2-esats-service-acquisition-chief-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/air-force-is-developing-2-esats-service-acquisition-chief-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force is Developing 2 eSats, Service Acquisition Chief Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The U.S. Air Force<\/strong> is developing two digitally engineered satellites \u2014 so-called \u201ceSats,\u201d Dr. Will Roper, service acquisition chief, told the Air Force Association virtual Air, Space, and Cyber (vASC) conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin the [U.S.] Space Force, we\u2019re already working on the first two eSats, hoping to bring this technology into space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Air Force declined to comment further on details of the eSat effort after Roper\u2019s address.<\/p>\n

In her kick-off address to AFA\u2019s vASC conference on Monday, U.S. Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett named the Boeing<\/strong> and Saab<\/strong> Red Hawk training aircraft as the first system to carry the \u201ce\u201d prefix designating digitally engineered systems. The plane will now be known as the eT-7A, though the service has said that an \u201ce\u201d designation may go away once a program moves into production. E-systems could range from aircraft and drones to satellites and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).<\/p>\n

Digital engineering, as used in the commercial world, such as designing Formula One racing cars, has been a stated priority for Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper, as the service seeks to save time and money through end-to-end computer testing before bending metal and as the service seeks to expand its industrial supply base beyond a handful of well-established primes to start-up companies as well. For years, DoD officials have lamented that sustainment of legacy systems robs modernization efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, 70 percent of every dollar we spend is trapped in a part of acquisition where we have yeoman airmen and space professionals that keep legacy systems operating, but it consumes our budget,\u201d Roper said. \u201cIt is such a big force that it limits our ability to create new and dominant things, and we\u2019ve been stuck here since the Cold War.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roper likened his office to a \u201ctechnology company we\u2019re running in the Air Force and Space Force, but it\u2019s a unique technology company that obeys different rules than the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne rule that we\u2019re currently obeying is this vicious circle we\u2019re ben trapped in especially in aircraft procurement since the late \u201970s,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t compete things very often. It\u2019s unusual for us to start a new program for a fighter, a bomber, or even a major weapon or a satellite. When the programs are so few and far between, they become must win events for industry. They put so much of their own money on the table so that they can win. In many cases, it\u2019s existential that they do. Once they put their own money on the table, they have to get it back in sustainment so we get sustainment-dominant business cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result, Roper said, is sole-source modernization and \u201ctail chasing threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not compete against nations like China and Russia, if we are trapped in this vicious circle,\u201d Roper said. \u201cWe have to find a way to break it and create a new circle where most of our work is in design and production, building a cutting-edge military that can deal agilely with all the forces that could come to bear on the battlefield.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published by our sister publication Defense Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Air Force is developing two digitally engineered satellites \u2014 so-called \u201ceSats,\u201d Dr. Will Roper, service acquisition chief, told the Air Force Association virtual Air, Space, and Cyber (vASC) conference on Tuesday. \u201cWithin the [U.S.] Space Force, we\u2019re already working on the first two eSats, hoping to bring this technology into space,\u201d he said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59031,"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-59030","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\/59030"}],"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=59030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}