| | | | | |  | | By Bryan Bender | | | | — How the new Space Development Agency is changing Pentagon acquisition. — NASA asks a receptive Congress for billions in extra funding to modernize its aging facilities. — Boeing's Starliner faces its major test today on a cargo mission to the International Space Station. WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at bbender@politico.com with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @bryandbender. And don't forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As and more. Programming note: POLITICO Space will be transitioning to Pro-only coverage beginning next week. Please head to POLITICO Pro for more.
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Subscribe now | | | | | | 'BETTER IS THE ENEMY OF GOOD ENOUGH': The Space Development Agency was established in March of 2019 with the motto "Semper Citius," or "always faster." But it has been a challenge to convince military leaders and the space industry that an agency with only 138 employees and less than $2 billion a year can bypass the painfully slow acquisition process and acquire hundreds of new communications and missile-tracking satellites every two years. "When we first started there were a lot of folks in industry that were hesitant to really dive in and believe this market was there," Derek Tournear , SDA's founding director, tells us. "Now we have people that recognize and accept the fact that we're real and we're changing the landscape on how the department does national defense and space." But Tournear also acknowledged that while the agency has demonstrated it can launch a few prototypes, the real test will come next year when it puts aloft the first 28 of 150 small communications satellites to connect military formations in the air, on land, and at sea as part of the Pentagon's pursuit of a joint command and control system. "If we can do that then certainly that shows that this model works," Tournear said. "That's when we would show we can actually field a capability using this rapid approach." What's the acquisition strategy? "We are not creating a set of programs that people can win and be locked into for 10 to 15 years and kind of own it, which is what has happened historically," Tournear said. "We are creating a stable market, meaning that we will be acquiring these satellites and launching them every two years." 'The risk is on you': What is SDA seeking from vendors? "The unofficial motto is better is the enemy of good enough," Tournear said. "So we have a minimum viable product that we will field every two years and we will not increase cost and slip schedule. We will hit that two-year milestone. We take technology that is ready to go and field that every two years. We call those spiral tranches. "We don't want to do a lot of tech development," Tournear continued. "We want industry to do tech development based on what they would do for the commercial market anyway and tweak it: 'You — industry — have to bid something that you have confidence you will be able to deliver on time and on budget. The risk is on you because it is going to be a firm-fixed price.'" 'Control our own programs': But a major question is whether the agency can retain its independence so it can continue to move much faster than the military's traditional acquisition system, Tournear said. That means lobbying to retain key authorities once it gets folded into the Space Force as planned next year. "What we have now as an independent defense agency that we need to maintain — so that we can continue to go fast — is our ability to control our own programs, our ability to be our own milestone decision authority, have our own head of contracting activity, and essentially be our own senior acquisition executive. "If we have those authorities," he added, "that gives us the ability to decide when we start or stop programs, who we award programs to, and how we execute those programs. What we're working to ensure is all of the authorities that can be delegated … do get delegated to SDA because that will allow us to continue to move as quickly as we have been." Read our full POLITICO Pro Q&A.
| | | 'BEYOND THEIR DESIGN LIFE': NASA on Thursday made its formal pitch to lawmakers for $5.4 billion in additional spending to modernize its aging facilities, as Congress is in the throes of crafting the outlines of a massive government-wide infrastructure package. "The majority of NASA's physical assets date back to the Apollo era, with approximately 83 percent of facilities beyond their design life. Over time, this has led to a total of over $2.6 billion in NASA deferred maintenance," Robert Gibbs, NASA's associate administrator, testified before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, chair of the House Science Committee, said that while "the path forward in Congress may not yet be totally clear," she believes "it's clear that NASA's infrastructure challenges need attention now if NASA is to continue to lead and succeed in achieving its inspiring and ambitious missions." "That's why I am working hard to have Congress address NASA infrastructure as part of a larger investment in federal R&D infrastructure," she added. 'Holes in the roof': NASA Administrator Bill Nelson recently told POLITICO the agency sorely needs a facelift. "I have clearly articulated the need for $5 billion of infrastructure needs for all 10 NASA centers and an additional 10 NASA facilities," he said. "I have made clear in no uncertain terms that NASA is really hurting on the deterioration of its physical facilities. We've even got holes in the roof at the Michoud facility outside of New Orleans where they put together the core of the SLS rocket." The subcommittee's chair, Rep. Don Beyer, warned in Thursday's hearing that "NASA's foundational infrastructure is cracking, and I fear we're reaching a tipping point." Watch the full hearing. ON DECK: Separately, the House is taking up the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which funds NASA and NOAA. We're watching to see the fate of the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon, including the funding levels for the Human Landing System. Also on tap is an amendment led by Rep. Ed Perlmutter that would transfer $12 million from the NOAA operations, research, and facilities account "to move the Office of Space Commerce into the Office of the Secretary of Commerce to support OSC's missions including remote sensing licensing, the Space Situational Awareness pilot program, and partnerships with commercial industry." The bipartisan amendment is co-sponsored by Reps. Brian Babin, Chrissy Houlahan, and Donald Norcross. A vote is expected as early as today. ICYMI: The House Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces panel this week marked up the National Defense Authorization Act, including a number of provisions affecting the Space Force.
| | | RETHINKING SPACE DETERRENCE: There's been renewed chatter in academic and strategy circles about the ability to deter conflict in space — or more pointedly, how to actually construct the right strategy to prevent a space war. A blistering critique of the current approach came from Rep. Jim Cooper, one of the intellectual fathers of the Space Force. "America needs better answers — and clearer thinking — fast or the Space Force and Space Command will be failures," wrote the chair of the House Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Avoiding a space war: This week the government-funded Rand Corporation released a detailed blueprint for how to fashion a more sophisticated deterrent strategy against what is widely considered the greatest threat to American space assets: China. Not the Cold War: One major takeaway is that space deterrence requires a far different approach — and a more potent mix of incentives and disincentives — than what was demanded to deter nuclear armageddon during the Cold War. "In rethinking deterrence in the context of space, we consider that both the nature of what is being deterred and the nature of the stakes if deterrence fails are fundamentally different," according to the study, "Tailoring Deterrence for China in Space." "When we think about space deterrence today," it adds, "we are no longer discussing how to deter the use of a specific capability, but instead how to deter the use of a variety of capabilities in a specific domain. Space deterrence is therefore defined by the nature of the target, not the nature of the weapon." It all really comes down to figuring out how to affect China's behavior. "A space deterrence strategy tailored specifically for China will consider the high value China places on space capabilities and information dominance," the report says. "If China perceives aggressive action in space as a means to achieve those objectives, the perceived cost of these aggressive actions will need to be high if China is to be deterred. If China does not care about the perceptions of the international community, or if it does care, but not enough to offset the perceived gains of aggressive action in space, then deterrence will be particularly challenging." Related: DoD calls for broader dialogue on space rules of behavior, via Space News.
| | | INFRASTRUCTURE IN SPACE: The Foundation for the Future, an advocacy group dedicated to creating public-private partnerships to build infrastructure in space, will convene a workshop on Aug. 10 on the space workforce. The organization, which is backed by a number of space start-ups, states in a preview that "the industrial base for space stands firmly on the ground, but no conversation about space infrastructure is complete without it," according to a preview.
| | | President Joe Biden has nominated John Plumb, the chief of government relations at the Aerospace Corp., the federally funded research and development center, to be assistant secretary of defense for space policy. Plumb, a Navy Reserve captain and former senior engineer at Rand, is steeped in space, missile defense, nuclear deterrence and submarine warfare, according to Space News.
| | | Congrats once again to Michael Ravnitsky, a space researcher, for being first to correctly answer that "moon" comes from the Greek name for the moon, Mene, and is also derived from Old English and Indo-European words meaning "month".
| | | — Weather key issue for Starliner launch: Space News — Bezos offers NASA billions in incentives for lunar lander contract: Space News — Blue Origin has a secret project named 'Jarvis' to compete with SpaceX: Ars Technica — ICYMI: NASA awards launch services contract to SpaceX for Europa Clipper mission: NASA — Lockheed second quarter profit misses even as space business boosts sales: Reuters — Harvard scientists kick off UAP survey program: Aviation Week — Tic Tac continues the excitement of the Tic Tac UFO Phenomenon with trip to space: PR Newswire — BOOK REVIEW: The Burning Blue: The Space Review — Hubble spied water vapor on our solar system's largest moon: Popular Science
| | | TODAY: Boeing's Starliner spacecraft launches aboard an Atlas V rocket on a cargo mission to the International Space Station. TUESDAY: The three-day ISS R&D Conference begins. WEDNESDAY: Maxar Technologies will report its second quarter earnings THURSDAY: Virgin Galactic will report its second quarter earnings. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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