Transmission #006 - The U.S. Space Force Cotillion
Announcements, acquisition reorganization, and a birthday dominated the Space Foundation’s 36th Space Symposium.
At the Rocky Mountain’s eastern foot, surrounded by an idyllic landscape and inside the historic Broadmoor Resort & Spa, the great and the good representing commercial, civil, and military space activities gathered to talk defense, exploration, and business at the Space Foundation’s 36th Space Symposium. This year’s event could have been dubbed The U.S. Space Force Cotillion.
While NASA’s Administrator Bill Nelson, the European Space Agency’s Director General Josef Aschbacher, and other representatives of national space agencies also spoke at the Colorado Spring, Colo. gathering, the conference was dominated by presentations focussed on the how and why the U.S. Space Force was now part and parcel of space-faring society.
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“This august group”
The organizers established the frame right from Monday’s opening ceremony, when Chief of Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond accepted, on behalf of the U.S. Space Force, the 2021 Space Achievement Award. The foundation said it bestowed the distinction because “in fewer than 18 months the U.S. Space Force, the newest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, has developed the doctrine, processes, leadership, organizational structures and operations of the world’s first independent space force.”
Raymond returned Tuesday morning to kick off the first full day and was soon followed by a roll call of the top civilian and military defense decision-makers: Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall; National Reconnaissance Office Director Chris Scolese; and U.S. Space Command Commander Gen. James Dickinson (Army). In the evening, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten (Air Force), a noted space domain expert and driving force behind the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) framework, headlined the Symposium’s Corporate Partnership Dinner.
Roy Azevedo, president of Raytheon Intelligence & Space, who introduced the vice chairman, called the diners he was addressing, “this august group.”
Themes you’d expect and announcements
Just as you would expect, the speakers offered examples of China’s and Russia’s anti-satellite activities, such as a the “nesting doll” which was observed stalking a U.S. spy satellite last year. There were also calls for working with like-minded space-faring nations to agree to legally non-binding norms of behavior in space.
They all emphasized that the Department of Defense’s space enterprise was iteratively evolving to at once protect the homeland, serve the needs of the warfighter, and ensure that commercial players would have unhampered access to operate in orbit and beyond.
To reach those goals four major announcements were made:
Raymond revealed the USSF, the NRO, and the USSC had inked an agreement to formally align their policies and activities. Later Scolese, the NRO chief, said, “This high-level document formalizes end-to-end operations between DoD and the [intelligence community] on everything from acquisition to operations.
“In practical terms, it defines and deconflicts each of our roles. It drives consistent and deliberate coordination at multiple levels.” He said, “It establishes crisis planning, and improves communication. And most importantly, it establishes an unprecedented level of collaboration on all space security matters.”
While the existence of the framework has been made public, the document has not. That’s not a shocker as the NRO is an intelligence organization, but that does make oversight and the measuring of progress against goals a challenge.
Kendal, who in his role as the new civilian chief of the Air Force, remained true to his background as the former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. His big reveal was that after roughly four weeks on the job he’s already breaking the Cold War china.
He has moved space acquisitions out of the Secretary of the Air Force Acquisitions directorate (SAF/AQ) into its own directorate for space acquisitions (SAF/SQ). He has a short-list of candidates for the new assistant secretary of the Air Force for space integration and acquisition position more than a year ahead of schedule.
He said, “My approach to any reorganization is to move quickly to get the big parts right, but be prepared to make adjustments as one learns from experience.”
Here’s a big part: Kendal said he is already working to get the Space Development Agency, known for speedy cutting-edge space acquisitions, re-organized into the Space Force.
Dickinson announced that his combatant command, the 11th, which was stood up in August 2019, had achieved initial operational capacity or IOC. He said the definition of IOC was, “the first attainment of capability to employ effectively a weapon, item of equipment or weapon system by an adequately trained, equipped and supported military unit.”
Dickinson added, “It's less about fielding a specific weapon system capability, or even reaching a specific set of criteria than it is about capability to produce effects.”
He did not say when Space Command would reach full operational capacity, but that a document outlining his concept on how to get there would be made public soon.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly when viewed against the backdrop of the political fallout from the withdrawal from Afghanistan in Europe and now in the Middle East, was Raymond’s announcement that during the symposium, he was hosting a Space Chiefs' Conference on the side with counterparts from 23 Allied militaries and NATO.
He said among the topics to be discussed were norms of space operations behavior, domain awareness, joint training, officer exchanges, launch logistics, and perhaps most critically interoperability.
He said during a roundtable with journalists, "We benefit from those partners. We are definitely stronger together."
The conference came a week after U.S. Southern Command hosted its annual South American Defense Conference, which brought a number of South American military leaders to Miami in person and virtually to discuss a variety of topics, that pointedly included the space domain.
A birthday and a controversy
Yesterday, August 29, marked two years since then President Donald Trump reconstituted Space Command, as the combatant command responsible for all military operations in space, starting 100 kilometers (62 miles) above mean sea level. Inside the symposium’s exhibition hall, Dickinson cut the cake with a sword.
It’s also nine days since the former president boasted on Rick and Bubba, a Birmingham, Ala. radio talk show, that he single-handedly chose to move Space Command to Huntsville from its present home at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Even before Trump’s revelation, the entire Colorado congressional delegation claimed the choice of location was politically motivated, rewarding Alabama for supporting the former president’s failed re-election bid, and punishing their state, which voted for current U.S. President Joe Biden. Both the Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office are conducting investigations into how the choice was made.
Random Signals
It turns out that the overall space industry is resilient against the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Space Foundation Senior Manager for Research and Analysis, and Editor of The Space Report Lesley Conn said, “When we examined the 2020 numbers based on commercial spending and government spending our total for 2020 was $447b for the global space economy.
“Even despite what has happened in 2019 and 2020, that still showed growth of 4.4% over 2019. Commercial sectors accounted for more than 6.6% of that growth.”
Conn, who speaking at a Space Symposium press conference on Monday, Aug. 23, said the size of the global space economy is up by 55% for the decade, and 178% since the foundation first started the report in 2005. She said that the analysis was based on spending and economic reporting from “three-dozen countries.”
The Department of the Air Force stood up the USSF’s third and final field command, Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM, in an Aug. 23 ceremony at Peterson Air Force Base. STARCOM’s mandate is to “build the USSF training enterprise, develop a domain-focused education enterprise, develop space doctrine and tactics, build the test and range infrastructure, and develop and reinforce Space Force culture.”
And yes. You would be correct in connecting Buzz Lightyear to STARCOM. There was a popular television cartoon called “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command,” which had one season on UPN and ABC.
Forbes’s Senior Contributor Rich Blake is arguing that a new space race is underway, but not between nations or billionaires. He calls it “a furious scramble of established players and startups looking to push the boundaries of “space logistics.”” Established companies like Nanoracks and start-ups such as Astroscale are investing into reaping profits from providing on-orbit repairs, de-orbiting dead satellites, refueling, or being a go-to company to organize and contract with others to provide a suite of on-orbit services.
The University of Colorado on Aug. 20, joined the USSF’s University Partnership Program, following North Dakota earlier this month. The USSF says nine more universities are “on track” to join the program, which is focused on research and the professional and leadership development of future and current Guardians. Those institutions include the likes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Howard University. The University of Colorado is home to the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.