Space Development Agency

DoD Agencies to Invest Over $1 Billion in Low-Earth Orbit Space Technologies

June 12, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Sandra Erwin May 30, 2021 (spacenews.com)

• According to budget documents released May 28th, of the $1.2 billion defense budget proposed by the Biden administration for fiscal year 2022, $936.7 million is earmarked for the Space Development Agency’s communications network in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) known as the ‘Transport Layer’. The Missile Defense Agency is seeking about $292.8 million for space sensors, and the DARPA is requesting $42 million to deploy experimental satellites in LEO under the Blackjack program.

• These agencies report to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and are not part of Space Force, which has its own budget for research, development and procurement of new systems. But many of the LEO technologies developed by SDA, MDA and DARPA are expected to transition into larger Space Force programs.

• Of the $936.7 million for the Space Development Agency, $808.8 million goes for research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E), $53.8 million for operations and maintenance, and $74 million for procurement. This is a $600 million increase from 2021 and is the first time that SDA gets a separate funding line for procurement. With this budget, the SDA can move ahead with a demonstration of SDA’s first 28 satellites in the Transport Layer in 2022. This will be followed by the procurement of up to 150 Transport Layer satellites to launch in 2024.

• The $292.8 million for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) includes funding to allow hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor payloads to be launched to a low orbit in fiscal year 2023 as well as ground systems. This data would be used to track the trajectory of a maneuvering hypersonic missile so it can be intercepted. Two existing missile-tracking satellites in LEO that were launched in 2009 will be taken out of service. The MDA is also requesting $32 million for the Spacebased Kill Assessment (SKA) project, which uses a network of infrared satellite sensors to assess the performance of MDA’s interceptors.

• DARPA (the Defense Advanced research Projects Agency) is requesting $42 million to continue the Blackjack project to demonstrate the military utility of small satellites in LEO to provide communications, missile warning and navigation. Since 2018, the agency has awarded contracts to multiple vendors for satellite buses, payloads and an autonomous computing system to operate the constellation. DARPA wants to deploy as many as 20 satellites to demonstrate that a common satellite bus (launch) can be flown with different payloads and that a constellation can be operated autonomously.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration’s defense budget proposal for fiscal year 2022 seeks more than $1.2 billion for military space systems in low-Earth orbit.

According to budget documents released May 28, nearly $900 million of that investment is for the Space Development Agency’s communications network in low-Earth orbit (LEO) known as the Transport Layer. The Missile Defense Agency is seeking about $300 million for space sensors, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is requesting $42 million to deploy experimental satellites in LEO under the Blackjack program.

These agencies report to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and are not part of the U.S. Space Force, which has its own budget for research, development and procurement of new systems. But many of the LEO technologies developed by SDA, MDA and DARPA are expected to transition into larger Space Force programs.

**Biden sniffing out more money for the defense budget**

Space Development Agency

The Pentagon is seeking $936.7 million in 2022 for the SDA, about a $600 million increase from 2021. That includes $808.8 million for research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E), $53.8 million for operations and maintenance, and $74 million for procurement.
This is the first time that SDA gets a separate funding line for procurement.

The agency’s large spending boost was expected for 2022 as SDA prepares to launch the first batch of its Transport Layer satellites and moves ahead with the procurement of up to 150 satellites that would launch in 2024.

The 2022 request funds the demonstration of SDA’s first 28 satellites — 20 Transport Layer Tranche 0 satellites and eight wide-field-of-view space sensors to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles known as Tracking Layer Tranche 0.

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Space Development Agency’s Orbital Mesh Network

May 4, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Nathan Strout April 21, 2021 (defensenews.com)

• In 2019, the Space Development Agency (SDA) was charged with developing the National Defense Space Architecture for second generation US satellite communications in low earth orbit. “The whole idea is to be able to move data as rapidly as possible to get that tactical information directly to the war fighter,” said SDA Director Derek Tournear.

• The backbone of the architecture is the ‘transport layer’ – an orbital mesh network of hundreds of satellites connected through optical intersatellite links. The transport layer will be the glue that will connect the military services’ various combined networks allowing the DoD to rapidly move data through space directly to existing tactical data links on a weapons platform or on a weapon itself.

• SDA will use a ‘spiral development’ approach to build out the space architecture, putting up new satellites every two years. The first set of 28 satellites will begin launching in 2022. The next set of 150 satellites, to be launched in 2024, will be an operational system to provide a war fighter immersion capability. “That’s our initial war fighting capability,” said Tournear. “[W]e want those (communications) crosslinks to not only be satellite to satellite, but satellite to air, satellite to ground, and satellite to air and maritime assets…”

• The agency is working with several companies to ensure their satellites can connect to the transport layer via optical intersatellite links. Those commercial satellites will form the custody layer, an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability that will provide overhead satellite imagery for tactical targeting. The agency is also talking with commercial services that could provide high bandwidth data backhaul in case the architecture was disabled.

• On April 16th, SDA issued a request for information seeking industry feedback on an optical communication standard. The third set of satellites will “fold in the lessons learned … any new technology that’s been developed, and any new threats that have come online,” said Tournear. He expects Space Force systems to connect to the transport layer via optical intersatellite links, and commercial capabilities are expected to tie in even sooner. Responses to the optical communications RFI are due by April 30th, and the transport layer satellites are expected to be ordered this summer.

WASHINGTON — Before its first satellites are on orbit, the Space Development

Agency is reaching out to industry for feedback on how it should upgrade its communications standards for its second generation of satellites.

Established in 2019, the agency was charged with developing the National Defense Space Architecture, a proliferated constellation to eventually be made up of hundreds of satellites mostly operating in low Earth orbit. The backbone of the architecture is the transport layer, a mesh network on orbit connected through optical intersatellite links. The transport layer will allow the DoD to rapidly move data through space, and will be the glue that will connect the services’ various Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control networks.

“The whole idea is to be able to move data as rapidly as possible to get that tactical information directly to the war fighter,” said SDA Director Derek Tournear at the annual C4ISRNET Conference. “So what the transport layer consists of are hundreds of satellites that form a resilient optically interconnected mesh network that will pass data directly to existing tactical data links. So what that means to the war fighter is the following: I can now move data from a targeting cell that could be located CONUS or ideally that targeting cell will actually form a target onboard on the satellites and I can send that data down directly to an existing tactical data link on a weapons platform or on a weapon itself.”

SDA is using a spiral development approach to build out the NDSA, putting up new tranches of satellites every two years. The first set of 28 satellites — tranche 0 — will begin launching in 2022 and provide a war fighter immersion capability. Tranche 1 will have closer to 150 satellites and will be an operational system.

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Space Lasers Will Revolutionize Military Communications

February 28, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Patrick Tucker February 18, 2021 (defenseone.com)

• Satellites using lasers to exchange data has been around since 2011. Space-based laser communication is only possible with a very narrow beam, making it much harder than radio-frequency communication but also much more difficult for adversaries to jam or interfere with. Laser communication promises to make military communications faster and harder to intercept. But figuring out how to do it at the scale and reliability needed for practical communication poses a big challenge.

• Laser communication is potentially big money and a host of big tech companies are looking at its potential. The two-year-old Space Development Agency (SDA) has already released a communications standard to be used by four companies supplying the laser gear for a four-satellite trial experiment. SDA director Derek Tournear expects to soon release a request for proposals for a 150-satellite constellation the SDA plans to launch into low-earth orbit by September 2024.

• Tournear didn’t say what four companies were working on the project. He did say that he wants SDA to become the initial go-to market for such innovations in satellite communications. “We are actually trying to create a market,” he said at a recent Space Foundation event. “I want industry to view this as a way to develop a product that then they can sell into that market to try and win a portion of that market share. As long as we do that we’ll have a robust industry base.”

• The Space Development Agency is to be folded into the US Space Force by October 2022, according to the National Defense Authorization Act. But the law specifies that the agency will keep authorities for contracting, classification, etc autonomous. That autonomy is essential to help industry create new space-based technologies that may disrupt markets, said Tournear.

• The agency is asking businesses to take a risk in research and develop capabilities solely for the SDA. These new businesses must be autonomous enough to eventually find non-SDA uses for these technologies in order to expand the market into the space industry commercial sector. Otherwise, they have no long-term incentive to develop these technologies. “[T]he language in law is actually very good at trying to protect that from occurring,” says Tournear.

Satellites that use lasers to exchange data promise to make military communications faster and harder to intercept — if the Pentagon can figure out how to make them work.

With plans to launch a 150-satellite constellation into low-earth orbit by September 2024, the two-year-old Space Development Agency is on a deadline. It has already released a communications standard to be used by four companies supplying the laser gear for a four-satellite experiment called tranche zero, agency director Derek Tournear said Tuesday at a Space Foundation event. And by August, Tournear expects to release a request for proposals that will spell out key details for the “more robust” standard needed for the 150-satellite tranche one.

Laser communication between satellites has been around since 2011 but figuring out how to do it at the scale and reliability needed for practical communication is a big challenge. As engineer Allan Panahi’s seminal 2010 paper on the subject explains, space-based laser communication is only possible with a very narrow beam, making it much harder than radio-frequency communication but also much more difficult for adversaries to jam or interfere with. “The requirement for much more pointing accuracy, acquisition, and tracking…and the impact that this may have on the spacecraft that is moving at 3 [kilometers per second] for [geosynchronous orbit] to 7 [kilometers per second] for [low Earth orbit] is a formidable task,” Panahi wrote.

It’s also potentially big money. SpaceX, Facebook, Google and a host of other tech companies are looking at the potential of laser-based communications.

Tournear didn’t say what companies were working on his project. He did say that he wants SDA, which has plans to launch six additional satellite layers after tranche one, to become the initial go-to market for innovations in satellite communications, at a time when funding for some satellite startups has grown shaky. “We are actually trying to create a market,” he said. “I want industry to view this as a way to develop a product that then they can sell into that market to try and win a portion of that market share. As long as we do that we’ll have a robust industry base.”

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Pentagon Taps Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Track Hypersonic Weapons from Space

October 28, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Nolan Peterson October 6, 2020 (wearethemighty.com)

• The US Department of Defense has awarded Elon Musk’s ‘Space X’ a $149 million contract to build satellites to track hypersonic missiles, as part of the Space Development Agency’s planned “mega-constellation” of weapons-tracking satellites. Both SpaceX and L3 Harris Technologies Inc. will produce four satellites for the Pentagon each. The satellites will be equipped with ‘wide field of view’ ‘overhead persistent infrared’ (OPIR) sensors.

• The commercial-built satellites will form the first layer of a planned surveillance network to track hypersonic missiles. Under the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, the US will put into orbit a constellation of hundreds of satellites, primarily in low Earth orbit, to track maneuverable hypersonic missiles — a weapons technology currently under development by both Russia and China.

• In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new weapons that he touted would be able to defeat US missile defense systems. Among those new weapons was the ‘Avangard’ hypersonic glide vehicle, supposedly capable of flying at Mach 27. The Avangard reportedly went operational in December.

• In August, China tested a ballistic missile capable of carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle. The flight paths of intercontinental ballistic missiles can be easily predicted after launch. Hypersonic missiles, however, can be steered in flight, making them much harder to track and a more evasive mark for anti-missile defense systems.

• Some experts warn that the Pentagon’s ‘Hypersonic and Ballistic Missile Tracking Space Sensor’ program doesn’t have enough funding and is plagued with challenges when it comes to integrating with other missile defense systems and linking to advanced interceptors and directed energy weapons.

• The US Space Force already possesses missile-tracking satellites in high geosynchronous orbits. The new satellites will operate from much lower orbits and will therefore have a comparatively limited field of view, requiring the creation of a constellation of satellites that can effectively hand off tracking responsibilities as they follow the flight path of a hypersonic weapon from horizon to horizon.

• SpaceX and L3 Harris are expected to deliver their first of eight satellites by fall of 2022. Initial operating capability is expected by 2024. The entire missile-tracking constellation is planned for completion by 2026.

• SpaceX has already launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, powered into orbit by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. It marked America’s return to active spaceflight operations after a nine-year hiatus following the last space shuttle flight in 2011. SpaceX was recently selected by the Space Force to carry out national security space launch missions over the next five years. SpaceX’s Starlink program is currently creating a mega-constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit to provide global broadband coverage for high-speed internet access. SpaceX anticipates Starlink will achieve “near global coverage of the populated world by 2021.”

SpaceX has won a $149 million Department of Defense contract to build satellites to track hypersonic missiles, marking the first government contract for building such equipment for Elon Musk’s groundbreaking commercial spaceflight company.

As part of the Space Development Agency’s planned “mega-constellation” of weapons-tracking satellites, both SpaceX and L3 Harris Technologies Inc. will produce four satellites for the Pentagon to track hypersonic weapons. The L3 Harris contract to build its four satellites is reportedly valued at $193 million.

The eight commercially produced satellites will be equipped with wide field of view (WFOV) overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. Those satellites will form the first layer of a planned surveillance network to track hypersonic missiles.

Under the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, the US will put into orbit a constellation of hundreds of satellites, primarily in low Earth orbit, to track maneuverable hypersonic missiles — a weapons technology currently under development by both Russia and China.

In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new weapons that he touted would be able to defeat US missile defense systems. Among those new weapons was the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, supposedly capable of flying at Mach 27. The Avangard reportedly went operational in December.

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The Perils and Promise of LEO Constellations

July 15, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Sandra Erwin July 4, 2020 (spacenews.com)

• Mike Griffin, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, says that the Pentagon must reduce its dependence on large, billion-dollar satellites in geosynchronous orbit that are vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons. As an alternative, the DoD’s Space Development Agency plans to deploy satellites in ‘proliferated low Earth orbit’ constellations, or ‘PLEO’, to put up a communications transport layer and a surveillance and tracking layer of satellites for hypersonic missile defense.

• The smaller satellites comprising the PLEO constellations provide a resilient space infrastructure that is cheaper and easier to replace than geostationary systems, should they be destroyed by anti-satellite weapons. A key question is whether satellites and launch vehicles can be made cheap enough to make the cost of taking down a LEO system not worth it. “Changing the “cost equation” for an enemy will be a key challenge for DoD and the U.S. Space Force,” said Michael Martindale, the Director of Space Education for Space Force.

• ‘Low Earth orbit’ (LEO) satellites are easier to hit from ground-based anti-satellite weapons. Sophisticated in-space weaponry is not required for LEO satellites, as it would be to take down satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO).

• A recent study by Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that China and Russia, despite their rhetoric about wanting to ban weapons in space, are building arsenals of ground-based anti-satellite weaponry. This sends a message to other countries that ground-based anti-satellite weapons are fair game. Says Harrison, “With its 2019 ASAT test, India made clear that it believes kinetic Earth-to-space ASAT weapons are a legitimate means of self-defense by deterrence.”

• In their respective space-arms control proposals, China and Russia do not prohibit ground-based weapons. “Their behavior says they’re only interested in banning the capabilities that they don’t already have,” says Martindale. With more LEO systems about to be deployed by the DoD, which are vulnerable to the ground-based anti-satellite missiles, American space superiority is now being contested.

• Space Force can’t possibly protect every satellite in Earth’s orbit, so it must figure out ways to deter countries from even attempting to take one down. The United States has more to lose than anyone else if satellites become targets in a war. The key is to make it too costly for an enemy to mount an attack. “You have to reduce the value of each individual target.” Says Martindale, “[I]f there are hundreds of targets, and the enemy knows that the U.S. can replenish those assets quickly, the cost equation changes and using missiles is not as effective.”

• Such a deterrent strategy would require a ready supply of replacement satellites and rapid access to launch services so constellations can be replenished quickly and inexpensively. Right now, it generally takes years to get a DoD satellite off the ground. Space Force needs to bring this equation down to days or weeks to launch and replace a LEO positioned satellite.

The Pentagon has already created an acronym — PLEO — for its plans to deploy satellites in proliferated low Earth orbit constellations.

DoD’s Space Development Agency is leading the way as it prepares to put up a communications transport layer and a surveillance and tracking layer for hypersonic missile defense.

The Pentagon’s staunchest proponent of PLEO, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering Mike Griffin, has argued that the Pentagon must reduce its dependence on large, billion-dollar satellites in geosynchronous orbit that are vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons.

The case for proliferated constellations in low Earth orbit is based on the idea that it provides a resilient space infrastructure. Smaller satellites would be cheaper and easier to replace than geostationary systems if they were destroyed by anti-satellite weapons. That approach should work in theory. A key question is whether satellites and launch vehicles can be made cheap enough to make the cost of taking down a LEO system not worth it.

Changing the “cost equation” for an enemy will be a key challenge for DoD and the U.S. Space Force, says Michael Martindale, a former U.S. Air Force space operator and currently the director of space education for the Space Force Association.

As much as DoD worries about GEO satellites becoming targets of China’s orbital weapons, LEO systems are much easier to hit — no sophisticated in-space weapons required. So-called direct-ascent weapon such as ordinary surface-to-air missiles and anti-ballistic missile interceptors are far more likely to be used against low-orbiting satellites than space-based weapons, Martindale says.

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New Pentagon Strategy to Defend U.S. Dominance in Space

June 26, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Sandra Erwin June 17, 2020 (spacenews.com)

• On June 17th at a Pentagon news conference, the DoD’s unveiled a ten-year Defense Space Strategy to replace an Obama-era 2011 space strategy based upon the Trump administration’s 2018 national defense strategy that calls for the U.S. military to prepare to compete with rising military powers such as China and Russia.

• China and Russia have developed capabilities to challenge U.S. access to space and “present the most immediate and serious threats to U.S. space operations.” “Both countries consider space access and denial as critical components of their national and military strategies.” Threats from North Korea and Iran are also growing, the document states.

• “DoD has to confront the new reality that adversaries have more advanced weapons designed to target U.S. military satellites and deny the United States a key military advantage,” according to the new strategy paper. “Now we have to defend U.S. and allies to secure the domain.” The DoD will work with allies and with the private sector to ensure space superiority.

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Steve Kitay said that the DoD has taken significant actions to stay ahead of other powers, such as the establishment of a) the U.S. Space Force as a new military service; b) the U.S. Space Command as a unified combatant command; and c) the Space Development Agency to help accelerate the acquisition of new technologies. The DoD recognizes there’s a space technology race underway and the United States has to accelerate the pace of innovation. Part of the strategy will be to “leverage commercial technological advancements and acquisition processes.”

• The DoD will focus on these key priorities: a) to protect and defend U.S. and commercial space capabilities; b) to deter and defeat adversary hostile use of space; c) to deliver advanced operational space capabilities; d) to bolster the domestic civil and commercial space industry; and e) to uphold internationally accepted standards of responsible behavior.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has released an updated space strategy that replaces the 2011 document issued by the Obama

administration.

The Defense Space Strategy unveiled June 17 provides broad guidance to DoD for “achieving desired conditions in space over the next 10 years,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Steve Kitay said at a Pentagon news conference.

The space strategy builds on the Trump administration’s 2018 national defense strategy that calls for the U.S. military to prepare to compete with rising military powers such as China and Russia.

DoD will work to maintain space superiority, provide space capabilities to U.S. and allied forces, and ensure stability in space, the strategy says.

“DoD has to confront the new reality that adversaries have more advanced weapons designed to target U.S. military satellites and deny the United States a key military advantage,” says the strategy. “Now we have to defend U.S. and allies to secure the domain.”

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The Pentagon’s Plan to Pepper Space With Surveillance Satellites Takes Shape

February 2, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by George Dvorsky January 22, 2020 (gizmodo.com)

• The first major initiative from the DoD’s new Space Development Agency (SDA) to to build the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). The NDSA will consist of seven layers, or “constellations” of the U.S. military. Launched in March 2019, the stated mission of the SDA is to unify and integrate the military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S. technological and military advantages in space, and to detect and knock out surface-to-air and hypersonic missiles on the Earth below. The SDA will become a part of the US Space Force in 2022.

• Speaking at a Pentagon briefing on January 21st, the director of the Space Development Agency, Derek Tournear., announced that the first layer of the NDSA, the ‘Transport Layer’, will consist of hundreds of surveillance satellites that will attain full global coverage by 2026. By as early as 2022, however, the Transport Layer should be capable of ‘regional coverage’, pinpointing targets on the ground or at sea and tracking advanced missiles.

• The seven NDSA ‘constellations’ are described as follows:
• Transport Layer: to coordinate global military data and create a full range of “warfighter platforms”
• Battle Management Layer: to facilitate mission command and data control
• Tracking Layer: to provide global-tracking and targeting of missile threats
• Custody Layer: to constantly track enemy missiles and missile launchers
• Navigation Layer: to provide an alternative back-up to GPS navigation
• Deterrence Layer: to deter hostile actions up to lunar distances
• Support Layer: to enable integration between ground and space-based assets

• Under the plan, one new satellite will be constructed per week. Each satellite will be relatively small, weigh a “few hundred kilograms,” cost around $10 million, and have a life expectancy of around five years. To that end, the SDA issued a broad agency announcement that it is looking for commercial partners to help develop and implement these technologies. The SDA will be soliciting bids for the first batch of satellites in late spring 2020 and awarding contracts in the summer.

• The entire National Defense Space Architecture system will eventually involve thousands of satellites. Each layer will perform a different function, such as detecting incoming missiles, alerting ground forces of potential threats, keeping tabs on potentially hostile weapons systems, and augmenting navigational capabilities, among other important defense roles. Considering that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink megaconstellation may deploy up to 45,000 internet satellites, low Earth-orbital space is quickly becoming cluttered.

New details have emerged about the Pentagon’s ambitious plan to build seven different defense constellations, the first of which will include hundreds of surveillance satellites that are expected to attain full global coverage in just six years.

Known as the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), it’s the first major initiative from the newly hatched Space Development Agency (SDA), a part of the Department of Defense.

Once it’s built, the NDSA will consist of seven constellations, or “layers” in the parlance of the U.S. military. Each layer will perform a different function, such as detecting incoming missiles, alerting ground forces of potential threats, keeping tabs on potentially hostile weapons systems, and augmenting navigational capabilities, among other important defense roles.

Launched in March 2019, the SDA is “responsible for unifying and integrating [the Department of Defense’s] space development efforts, monitoring the department’s threat-driven future space architecture and accelerating the fielding of new military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S. technological and military advantages in space,” according to a press release from the DoD. The agency is on track to become part of the U.S. Space Force in 2022.

Speaking at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, Derek Tournear, who was appointed director of the SDA in October 2019, said the first of these layers, the Transport Layer, will consist of several dozen satellites by the end of 2022, reported SpaceNews. Once at this early threshold, the system will “show that we can operate a proliferated constellation and that the constellation can talk to weapon systems,” said Tournear.

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Pence Briefed on Space Force Proposal at Pentagon Meeting

December 22, 2018
ExoNews Editor

by Sandra Erwin December 19, 2018 (spacenews.com)

• On Tuesday December 18th,Vice President Mike Pence announced President Trump’s Pentagon directive to establish a four star U.S. Space Command. While at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on Tuesday, Pence said, “We’re working as we speak with leaders in both parties in Congress to stand up the United States Space Force before the end of 2020.”

• On Wednesday, VP Pence was at the Pentagon to receive a briefing on space operations and cyber defense. One of the topics was the Pentagon’s draft proposal, named SPD-4, establishing a Space Force as a sixth separate military branch. The directive is being finalized and could be signed by the president shortly after the new year.

• The SPD-4 directive would instruct Department of Defense to submit a legislative proposal on how the new service would be organized and a budget request. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said to reporters, “We’re right now in final coordination in the building on the legislative proposal.”

• The Space Force will most likely be initially organized under the Department of the Air Force. This approach would be less costly and more likely to get congressional support, experts said. The Air Force had already included an Air Force Space Command. Under this construct, Space Force would still meet the criteria to be considered a sixth service, said Thomas Taverney, the former vice commander of the Air Force Space Command.

• The Pentagon could keep costs under control by making the Space Force a leaner organization that does not require multiple layers of bureaucracy to get things done, Taverney said. “Maybe we can come up with a more efficient way to set up the organization.”

• One part of the plan that is still unresolved is the establishment of a preliminary Space Development Agency to accelerate innovation and insertion of commercial technology into space programs. Its functions and makeup have not yet been decided. A study team will have 60 days to complete this task. “What is it going to be? An overarching policy organization? A separate acquisition organization? Or a new acquisition organization that takes pieces from the others?” Taverney asked.

• Air Force brass is pushing for Fred Kennedy, the director of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) Tactical Technology Office, to head the Space Development Agency. Kennedy has past experience working at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center and has ‘space acquisition’ expertise.

• [Editor’s Note] It now appears that the Deep State tentacles of the Air Force and DARPA are creeping into the creation and control of this supposedly “separate sixth branch of the military”. Is this the ‘Space Force’ that President Trump intended?

Vice President Mike Pence visited the Pentagon on Wednesday to receive a briefing on space operations and cyber defense. One of the topics was the proposal the Pentagon is drafting to establish a Space Force as a separate military branch.

Speaking with reporters shortly before Pence arrived at the Pentagon Wednesday morning, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the establishment of a Space Force was one item on the agenda. “We’re going to talk to him about a number of projects going on here in the building,” Shanahan said, according to a pool report.

Pence came to the Pentagon one day after announcing that President Trump directed the Defense Department to establish U.S. Space Command as a four-star combatant command. Speaking on Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, Pence said Trump will also sign a new space policy directive in the coming days that will lay out plans and a timeline to create a U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the armed forces. “We’re working as we speak with leaders in both parties in Congress to stand up the United States Space Force before the end of 2020,” said Pence.

The new space policy directive, named SPD-4, is the fourth major space policy action by the Trump administration. According to sources, the directive is being finalized and could be signed by the president shortly after the new year. The policy memo would instruct DoD to submit a legislative proposal on how the new service would be organized and a budget request. The National Space Council, led by Pence, has been in back and forth coordination with DoD on the legislative proposal.

Shanahan told reporters on Wednesday that the legislative proposal has not yet been shared with Congress. “We’re right now in final coordination in the building on the legislative proposal,” he said. “I think we’re still on the timeline. We’ve kind of all talked about it.”

DoD sources said the Space Force proposal will likely recommend organizing the new branch initially under the Department of the Air Force. This would make the Space Force comparable to the Marine Corps, which is part of the Department of the Navy. This approach would be less costly and more likely to get congressional support, experts said.

Organizing the Space Force under the Department of the Air Force is “probably the most logical way to solve this in the near term, said Thomas Taverney, a retired Air Force major general who served as vice commander of Air Force Space Command.

The Space Force under this construct would still meet the criteria to be considered a sixth service, Taverney told SpaceNews.

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New Pentagon Memo Lays Out Action Plan to Establish Space Force by 2020

September 20, 2018
ExoNews Editor

by Sandra Erwin September 13, 2018 (spacenews.com)

• A September 10th memo issued by Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan entitled “Space Reorganization and Management Tasks” outlines a detailed plan of action to be taken to establish Space Force as the sixth independent branch of the United States military by the year 2020.

• The first order of business is to establish a ‘Space Command’ and the subordinate unified command by the end of 2018. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood are responsible for leading this effort.

• Next, the DOD will establish a Space Development Agency, led by Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. This agency “will initially focus on rapidly developing and fielding new space capabilities that leverage commercial space technology and access in support of warfighter and U.S. Space Command… consolidating space development efforts under the SDA as the equipping arm for the space warfighter, with an initial operating capacity in calendar year 2019”.

• A “Space Operations Forces” office will be set up to “produce a complete inventory of all forces and functions conducting or directly supporting space operations and designating space operations forces.”

• A new office of “Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space” will be established to consolidate civilian oversight of space and outline how it could evolve into the future headquarters of the Space Force.

• The Pentagon’s director of cost assessment and program evaluation will develop a five-year cost estimate. The memo says the budget should include the cost for the Space Force, the Space Development Agency, the Space Operations Forces, U.S. Space Command and the path for transferring space budgets to the Space Force.

• The establishment of the Space Force as a military branch must be approved by Congress and written into legislation. These reorganization and management directives will ultimately be written into a legislative proposal.

• A “Space Governance Committee” led by Shanahan will have the final word on any reorganization action and on the legislative proposal before it goes to the White House. Shanahan’s orders have short deadlines. Many of the tasks are due in the coming weeks, and the legislative proposal could arrive at the White House as early as Dec. 1, 2018.

• The Air Force, which owns 90 percent of the military’s space programs and functions, will have only a limited support role in shaping the transition to the future Space Force.

• [Editor’s Note] The President is taking the authority of space defense out of the hands of the Deep State controlled Air Force and into the hands of the Alliance-friendly Pentagon.

WASHINGTON — Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan this week issued a detailed plan for how the Pentagon will move forward to create a Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces by fiscal year 2020.

The plan, laid out in a Sept. 10 memo titled “Space Reorganization and Management Tasks,” includes actions that the Pentagon will pursue using executive branch authorities — standing up a unified command for space, a Space Development Agency and Space Operations Forces. These proposals were presented to Congress in a report on Aug. 9. The establishment of the Space Force as a military branch must be approved by Congress and written into legislation. Shanahan’s Sept. 10 memo, a copy of which was obtained by SpaceNews, explains the steps DoD will take to develop a legislative proposal.

The memo makes it clear that the space reorganization is being led from the top down. Shanahan is overseeing the entire effort, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the undersecretary of defense for policy also have significant roles. The Air Force, which owns 90 percent of the military’s space programs and functions, only will have a limited support role in shaping the transition to a future Space Force.

The changes directed by Shanahan only apply to DoD and not to the intelligence community, even though organizations like the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency have key responsibilities in national security space. “Only DoD space functions would move into the Space Force,” the memo says. “National security space components outside of the DoD should not be included in the legislative or budget proposal, but will be considered in an interagency process.”
The Director of National Intelligence is cc’ed in the memo.

Shanahan’s orders have short deadlines. Many of the tasks are due in the coming weeks, and the legislative proposal could arrive at the White House as early as Dec. 1, 2018. To avert concerns that a new service will saddle the military with billions of dollars in added overhead costs, the memo says the Space Force should have a “lean” bureaucracy.

A “Space Governance Committee” led by Shanahan will have the final word on any reorganization action and on the legislative proposal before it goes to the White House. Shanahan also will establish and designate the leader of a “working group” to help with the implementation that will include representatives from all military branches and relevant DoD agencies.

Upcoming steps in the reorganization

The first order of business is to stand up U.S. Space Command, a unified combatant command responsible for space. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood are responsible for leading this effort. A U.S. Space Command “should be established by the end of calendar year 2018,” the memo says The Joint Staff will draft an amendment to the Unified Command Plan to establish U.S. Space Command and the subordinate unified command, and a detailed plan will be developed to “transfer requisite authorities and capabilities.” Rood and Dunford will be responsible for “identifying any operational authorities that are needed for U.S. Space Command.”

The creation of a Space Development Agency also could happen relatively soon. Shanahan directs Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson to “each develop a concept for establishing the SDA.” The draft concepts are due to the governing committee by Sept 14.

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Tag: Space Development Agency