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i 

25–868 2017

[H.A.S.C. No. 115–46] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES HEARING 

ON

FISCAL YEAR 2018 PRIORITIES AND 

POSTURE OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY 

SPACE ENTERPRISE 

HEARING HELD 

MAY 19, 2017 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Vice Chair 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

RO KHANNA, California 

STEVE KITAY, Professional Staff Member 

LEONOR TOMERO, Counsel 

MIKE GANCIO, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Cooper, Hon. Jim, a Representative from Tennessee, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces ............................................................................ 2 

Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Strategic Forces ............................................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Buck, Lt Gen David J.. USAF, Commander, Joint Functional Component 

Command for Space, U.S. Strategic Command ................................................. 3 

Cardillo, Robert, Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency .................. 6 

Hill, John D., Performing the Duties of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Space Policy, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy ............. 7 

Raymond, Gen John W., USAF, Commander, Air Force Space Command ......... 2 

Sapp, Betty, Director, National Reconnaissance Office ........................................ 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Buck, Lt Gen David J. ...................................................................................... 50 

Cardillo, Robert ................................................................................................ 70 

Hill, John D. ...................................................................................................... 79 

Raymond, Gen John W. ................................................................................... 31 

Rogers, Hon. Mike ............................................................................................ 29 

Sapp, Betty ........................................................................................................ 63 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Bridenstine ................................................................................................. 99 

Mr. Franks ........................................................................................................ 91 

Mr. Hunter ........................................................................................................ 97 

Mr. Lamborn ..................................................................................................... 94 

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 91 

(1) 

FISCAL YEAR 2018 PRIORITIES AND POSTURE OF THE 

NATIONAL SECURITY SPACE ENTERPRISE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES, Washington, DC, Friday, May 19, 2017. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 7:59 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

STRATEGIC FORCES 

Mr. ROGERS. Good morning, and welcome to the Strategic Forces 

Subcommittee hearing, ‘‘Fiscal Year 2018 Priorities and Posture of 

the National Security Space Enterprise.’’ We are honored to have 

a panel of expert witnesses who are leaders in our national security 

space program to join us here today. And before I introduce them, 

though, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that, while I can’t 

imagine there being a better place to work than for the Strategic 

Forces Subcommittee on the House Armed Services Committee, apparently, somebody thinks there is a better job in Washington, DC. 

This will be the last hearing that Steve Kitay will be in his current 

position. He is leaving us to go work for the Secretary of Defense, 

he will be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. And 

our loss is the Secretary’s gain. So we are going to miss him. He 

has been with as long time and does a great job. But I know he 

will do a great job for our country in his new capacity as well. So 

good luck, buddy. 

Today we have some witnesses that are very familiar to this committee, and do a great job for our country: General John ‘‘Jay’’ Raymond, Commander, Air Force Space Command; Lieutenant General 

David Buck, Commander, Joint Functional Component Command 

for Space [JFCC Space]; Ms. Betty Sapp, Director of National Reconnaissance Office; Robert Cardillo, Director of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; and Mr. John Hill, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. 

After we finish this unclassified testimony and questions and answers, we will adjourn to a closed session to continue our oversight 

in an appropriately secure fashion. 

In Secretary Mattis’ confirmation hearing in front of Senate earlier this year, his official testimony stated, quote, ‘‘While our military maintains capable air, land, and sea forces, the cyber and 

space domains now demand an increasing share of attention and 
2 

investment,’’ close quote. And I fully agree with the Secretary’s 

statement. 

Our military and intelligence leaders have been clear in their 

warnings, some going back many years, that our use of space could 

be taken away from us in the next military conflict. However, we 

have not moved with the conviction and urgency to respond to 

these warnings. And this has left us with a growing crisis to confront in outer space. 

While I have the full faith and confidence in each of our expert 

witnesses here today, I do not have faith in the tangled bureaucratic structure they must work with. Meanwhile, China, for example, is advancing rapidly in space and counterspace and has established a new military organization to focus its space, cyber, and 

electronic warfare capabilities. Dr. John Hamre, former Deputy 

Secretary of Defense, eloquently stated in an earlier hearing to this 

subcommittee, quote, ‘‘We are not well organized to deal with the 

new challenges we face in space. The old structure may have been 

sufficient when space was an uncontested area of operations. That 

time has passed.’’ Again, I couldn’t agree more. 

Ladies and gentlemen, now is the least capable our adversaries 

will be in space. And now is the time for reform, even if it is disruptive today. 

With that, I look forward to hearing all your perspectives on 

space priorities and posture. I thank all of you for being here and 

working with us on this important topic. 

I now recognize my friend and colleague from Tennessee, the 

ranking member, Mr. Jim Cooper. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM COOPER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

TENNESSEE, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to add my 

note of congratulations to Steve, well done. And I thank you for 

this hearing, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate especially your focus on 

strengthening America’s space capabilities. There is no more important goal. 

There are many issues before us and before the Air Force in particular, but I am glad we are addressing them in a bipartisan, 

joint, and substantive fashion. I look forward to the testimony of 

the witnesses. 

Mr. ROGERS. Great. I now recognize our witnesses. The witnesses 

were asked to summarize. Their prepared statements will be submitted for the record. Without objection, so ordered. If you could 

take your statements and keep them to 5 minutes or less so we can 

get to questions, that would be awesome. 

General Raymond, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF GEN JOHN W. RAYMOND, USAF, COMMANDER, 

AIR FORCE SPACE COMMAND 

General RAYMOND. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Cooper. Let me also pile on and say congratulations to Steve 
3 

Kitay. We look forward to having you sitting here next to us next 

year. 

Distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you as the commander of Air Force 

Space Command. It is my distinct privilege to lead and represent 

nearly 36,000 professional and dedicated airmen providing resilient 

and affordable space and cyberspace capabilities for the joint force 

and our Nation. It is also a distinct privilege to testify with my 

friends and panel of experts and close partners. 

This is a very exciting year for both the Air Force and the Air 

Force Space Command. In 2017, September of 2017, our Air Force 

celebrates our 70th birthday, and Air Force Space Command celebrates a 35th birthday, although, as an Air Force, we have been 

involved in space since 1954 and since the beginning. 

We have come a long way and done a remarkable job integrating 

space capabilities into joint warfighting. Today, there is nothing we 

do, and I repeat, nothing we do as a joint force that isn’t enabled 

by space. Integration has been our strength. Nevertheless, we find 

ourselves at the intersection of high reliance and vulnerability in 

the space domain. Today, in no uncertain terms, space is a warfighting domain, just like air, land, and sea. Potential adversaries 

are developing capabilities to deny us access to and the benefits of 

the space domain. Let me be very clear, we do not want a conflict 

that extends into space, but one way to keep that from happening 

is to make sure that we are prepared for it and be able to fight 

and win that conflict if it were to occur. I think it shouldn’t be lost 

on anybody that our space program is the envy of the world. 

My near-term priorities are fourfold. First, in partnership with 

Betty Sapp, is to operationalize the National Space Defense Center, 

and provide them with command and control capability necessary 

to operate in a contested domain. 

Secondly, we must improve space situational awareness, transforming from a cataloging focus to a warfighting focus required of 

this domain. 

Third, we need to transition our space architecture into a defendable space architecture to provide resilient and defendable capabilities for the current strategic environment that we face. 

And finally, we need to continue to professionally develop Air 

Force Space Command airmen. 

I thank you for your support, I thank you for your active leadership, and look forward to continuing to work closely with you in the 

years ahead. I also look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Raymond can be found in 

the Appendix on page 31.] 

Mr. ROGERS. General Buck. 

STATEMENT OF LT GEN DAVID J. BUCK, USAF, COMMANDER, 

JOINT FUNCTIONAL COMPONENT COMMAND FOR SPACE, 

U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND 

General BUCK. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Cooper, and 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for your steadfast support of our men and women in uniform, the space enterprise, and 

this Nation. 
4 

As this committee is well aware, we have turned an educational 

corner of sorts. It is now widely acknowledged that space is critical 

to our way of life. This, coupled with an understanding of the compelling and compounding threats to our freedom of action in space 

is the burning platform to evolve our national security space enterprise. 

We don’t need a clean-slate approach, but certainly, an overhaul 

is necessary to guarantee our freedoms in, through, and from 

space. 

This is a challenge, because our national security space architecture and processes were largely conceived to provide services, or 

commodities, during an era when our most significant co-orbital 

threat was debris. Given the emerging threats, we no longer approach space with simply a service provider mentality. Our foremost responsibility is to gain and maintain space superiority. This 

is a prerequisite to protecting and defending the space joint operating area, and for providing space force combat engagement with 

the joint forces across the globe. 

Over the past year, we have made substantial progress, especially with respect to all-domain operations and our ability to protect and defend the national security space enterprise. We are better warfighters. There are, however, areas that require continued 

focus and vigilance. We must continue to normalize operations 

across the enterprise. This includes space situational awareness, as 

well as improving foundational intelligence, and the ability to provide robust indications and warning. We also must continue the 

full-court press to deliver a next generation battle space awareness 

and command and control capability. At the same time, we must 

review and update the associated authorities and rules of engagement for operations in space. And we must continue, we must continue to push on fielding required capabilities on operationally relevant timelines. 

Looking forward, we are focused on maintaining freedom of action in space. It is an imperative of our joint force. As a learning 

organization, we will continue to review and mature our approaches and organizational structures. We can accept no less, because the speed and complexity of future fights demands operationally agile organizations. 

Every challenge is an opportunity, and we have many opportunities in space. Freedom of action in space is not a birthright; it must 

be secured, and it must be preserved. This requires constant vigilance, strong partnerships, and active participation. I thank the 

committee for your leadership and for your advocacy. I look forward to our continued partnership. 

[The prepared statement of General Buck can be found in the 

Appendix on page 50.] 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank you, General Buck. Ms. Sapp you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF BETTY SAPP, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE 

Ms. SAPP. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Cooper, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you 

for the opportunity to be here on behalf of the National Reconnais-
5 

sance Office, or NRO. The NRO is responsible for developing, acquiring, launching, and operating the Nation’s overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance architecture. We are the 

foundation of the U.S. global situational awareness. We contribute 

to global intelligence, military and homeland security operations, 

while simultaneously assisting with the formation of national policy, and achieving diplomatic goals. We provide direct support to 

U.S. warfighters, help protect U.S. borders, and contribute significantly to the fight against ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] 

and other counterterrorism operations worldwide. 

The foundation of NRO mission capabilities and contributions 

are our people. Our people are behind every mission success, and 

enable the direct support we provide to the combatant commands, 

their service and functional components, and deployed tactical 

units. The NRO workforce is not just dedicated to mission, but talented and empowered to innovate. 

We instill a culture of innovation and risk tolerance in everything we do. NRO innovation comes in many forms to include using 

existing capabilities differently, developing new apps for our space 

and ground systems, and developing the new capabilities critical to 

closing intelligence gaps. 

We are also working with our mission partners to ensure we 

fully leverage commercial products, services, and capabilities. The 

NRO is a small, flat, end-to-end organization, fully capable of successfully delivering an increasingly capable, integrated, resilient, 

and affordable architecture. 

We have control of every function required, from the R&D [research and development] that enables us to stay ahead of targets 

and threats, to the acquisition of new space and ground capability, 

to the operations required to use, adapt, and upgrade those capabilities to respond to new and changing mission imperatives in the 

field. 

We are performing extremely well. All 15 of our major system acquisitions are ‘‘green,’’ meaning they are meeting or exceeding cost, 

schedule, and performance metrics. This year, we received our 

eighth consecutive clean financial management audit, demonstrating our ability to properly manage all resources entrusted to us. 

And we continue to improve our collection capabilities and the resiliency to stay ahead of targets and threats. But staying ahead of 

the adversaries who threaten our space capabilities is a challenge. 

Those adversaries are making space a priority, investing heavily 

and accepting the risk necessary for rapid progress. 

The U.S. has not been keeping pace. I believe we have not made 

the investment that would indicate space is a priority or fundamental to the U.S. Our requirements budget and acquisition processes are disconnected, and none of them moves quickly. Failure is 

not well-tolerated, even in the research and development activities 

required to keep our space capabilities relevant and vital, or to improve their resiliency. 

National security space is a team sport, and everyone on the 

team, those in the executive branch, and in the Congress, must do 

all they can to advance its capabilities and improve its resilience 

to threats. We must have processes that are integrated, that move 
6 

faster, and that demonstrate greater risk tolerance. We must recommit to space as a national priority and imperative. 

This committee has been out in front trying to drive the changes 

required. The NRO is inspired by this committee’s efforts to address the barriers to change and the pace of change required to advance national security space. The NRO, and the broader national 

space community, have people with the talent, commitment, and 

passion necessary to take us forward. We only need to empower 

and enable them to succeed. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for 

your continued support of the National Reconnaissance Office, its 

people, and its mission. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Sapp can be found in the Appendix on page 63.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Ms. Sapp. The chair now recognizes Mr. 

Cardillo for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT CARDILLO, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

GEOSPATIAL–INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

Mr. CARDILLO. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member 

Cooper, and members of the committee. I, too, am pleased to testify 

before you today with my distinguished colleagues as a member of 

the team of national security professionals. 

NGA is the primary provider of geospatial intelligence, or 

GEOINT, for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. Our support to military services, combatant commands, 

and warfighters includes safety in navigation, precise targeting, 

disaster recovery, and tailored intelligence support, just to name a 

few. I also have the job of being the Functional Manager for the 

National System of Geospatial Intelligence. And I strengthen the 

overall enterprise by ensuring that those combatant command 

needs are met through future overhead architectures. More specifically, the GEOINT enterprise capability document which serves as 

a framework to translate those needs into the key enterprise functions and capabilities that our analysts require to resolve our most 

vexing intelligence challenges. 

Now, global persistent GEOINT provides an architecture to monitor these intelligence challenges, enables NGA to provide national 

and tactical leaders the intelligence and early warning needed for 

decision advantage. It leverages the exquisite capabilities of the 

National Reconnaissance Office to allow the combatant commands 

to hold strategic targets at risk. It also integrates the capabilities 

of our international partners to fill gaps in our enterprise. 

Now, the explosion of data has driven the GEOINT discipline beyond the limits of human interpretation and explanation. By combining all of the data now available to us, and with the use of algorithms, automated processing, machine-to-machine learning, and 

artificial intelligence, we believe we can automate as much as 75 

percent or more of the rote tasks we perform today. This will free 

our analysts to spend more time and focus on those hard intelligence problems. Getting to that point will require significant investments in our IT [information technology] architecture, as well 

as in our research and development. 
7 

Not only is that data exploding, conservative estimates over the 

next 10 years predict that over 9,000 commercial satellites will be 

launched compared to fewer than 1,500 in the last 10 years. Accordingly, NGA will partner with the NRO to engage with and access the most mature of these new space via the commercial 

GEOINT activity. Through it, we will identify and evaluate emerging commercial GEOINT data and services against those needs 

that we capture and maintain. 

In closing, the national security space enterprise is vital to 

NGA’s ability to provide advantage to warfighter commanders and 

policymakers, to give them the decision space and the operational 

time they need to do their job. Timely, relevant, and accurate 

GEOINT is only possible through the combined efforts of the IC 

[intelligence community], the Department of Defense, emerging industry, and allied partners. 

I am happy to address any questions you might have and I am 

pleased to be here. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cardillo can be found in the Appendix on page 70.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Cardillo. Mr. Hill, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN D. HILL, PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SPACE 

POLICY, OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

FOR POLICY 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Cooper, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for 

the opportunity to testify today here with my distinguished colleagues. 

In the months ahead, understanding and addressing the implications of the growing threats in space is critical as this administration prepares the President’s new national security strategy, and 

the national defense strategy, and as Congress carries out its responsibilities for oversight and funding of the programs and activities necessary to realize those strategies. 

No less important, strategic success requires increased resources, 

an end to defense budget caps, an end to the years-long pattern of 

extended continuing resolutions, and a return to strategy-focused 

resourcing. Today, we consider space security in an era when Russia and China present anti-access/area denial [A2/AD] strategies 

intended to prevent or counter U.S. intervention in crises or conflicts, and to undercut our ability to secure our interests. 

Diplomatic solutions remain our preferred option to settling the 

differences that divide nations. But American diplomatic influence 

rests on the credibility and capability of our military power, which 

is fundamental to deterrence and to the confidence of our allies in 

knowing that they do not have to submit to the coercive pressures 

of large and powerful neighbors. 

America’s space posture underwrites deterrence by enabling the 

U.S. military to project power globally, respond to crises rapidly, 

strike swiftly and precisely, and command forces in multiple theaters simultaneously. Potential adversaries know well our reliance 

on space systems that many perceive as vulnerable, leading to an 
8 

unstable situation in which some have concluded that in times of 

conflict, attacking U.S. military space systems may make an irresistible and most tempting choice. 

Disabusing them of such misguided notions is a strategic priority. That is why, in the Department of Defense, we are making such 

a concerted effort to strengthen the mission assurance of our space 

capabilities, and to deny aggressors the benefits of attacks in space. 

We are changing our investments and operations, and increasing 

our partnering with commercial entities and allies. More importantly, we are changing attitudes by recognizing that space is a 

warfighting domain and preparing ourselves to deter conflict in 

space and prevail if deterrence fails. 

Finally, I want to recognize this committee’s priority on strengthening national security space organization, management, and 

leadership. This question has the attention of the Secretary and 

Deputy Secretary of Defense. They expect to be presented with 

sound analysis and a full range of options, and they mean for us 

to meet the deadline of reporting to Congress this June. 

In conclusion, I want to thank this committee for keeping the 

challenges of securing space before the public. I look forward to 

working together to ensure that we have the right strategy and resources, and the necessary programs, posture, and organizational 

structures to sustain deterrence, to prevail if deterrence fails, and 

to increase the incentives nations have to settling their differences 

by peaceful means. Thank you. 

And I would add, as the person acting in the job that Mr. Kitay 

will be doing, nobody is happier to have him come in than I am. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill can be found in the Appendix on page 79.] 

Mr. ROGERS. I hear you. Thank you, Mr. Hill. 

I recognize myself first for questions. This will be a question for 

anybody who is willing to swing at it. We passed a law about 10 

years ago that directed how the Operationally Responsive Space 

[ORS] Office would be run. And I have heard instead of being 

streamlined, ORS options are still forced to go through the traditional Pentagon processes, including the Defense Space Council 

[DSC]. So rather than a small number of decisionmakers focused 

on moving fast with respect to operationally responsive requirements and acquisition, the recent decision meeting of the ORS program included over 60 attendees, with 54 more than we had envisioned. To me, this example is indicative of the extremely fragmented space organization and bureaucratic kudzu—my word—you 

have got to be from the south to know what kudzu is—that comes 

in and strangles out the life of the DOD space programs. It is a 

situation where everyone can say ‘‘no,’’ but no one can say ‘‘yes.’’ 

So how do we fix that? General Raymond, swing first. 

General RAYMOND. I will swing first. I am familiar with kudzu. 

Mr. ROGERS. You are recognized. 

General RAYMOND. Chairman, thanks for the question. Sixty people were not involved in that decision. As you stated, the ORS 

EXCOM [executive committee] law is pretty clear. There are six 

ORS EXCOM members by law. The PDSA [Principal DOD Space 
9 

Advisor] has the ability to designate others that are critical to that 

decision. 

In this case, I wasn’t in the room, but my understanding is that 

those six were the voting members, plus two or three others, that 

was it. It is under the framework of a larger DSC, but the decisionmakers were the eight- or nine-person level, those were the voting 

members and the decision actually went pretty quick. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, I understand that there were six voting members, but weren’t there 60 people in the room? 

General RAYMOND. Yes, there were 60 people in the room, but 

there is also some goodness in transparency of having others there. 

They didn’t vote, they didn’t influence the decision, they were 

there. I will tell you, after those folks make that decision, a lot of 

those folks then have to be the ones that go execute that decision 

to make sure they have a common understanding. So it was a very 

small number of folks that was consistent with the legislation that 

was passed for a small, tight decision-making process for ORS 

EXCOM. And I am pretty comfortable that it was a pretty rapid 

decision. 

Mr. ROGERS. So six people were the decisionmakers? 

General RAYMOND. As I mentioned to you, there were six that 

were by law, and then there was a couple others that added by 

the—— 

Mr. ROGERS. So there were eight people? 

General RAYMOND. I wasn’t in the room, but it was small numbers. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. Six to eight people? 

Betty Sapp, do you have to have six to eight people to make decisions on acquisition process programs with your organization? 

Ms. SAPP. I have at least two people to make decisions, one on 

the IC side and one on the DOD side. There are a lot of people, 

as you mentioned, who review the package of documentation for 

sufficiency before it gets to those decisionmakers. And, again, there 

is a whole lot of staff on the IC side, there is a whole lot of staff 

on the DOD side. So a lot of people look at it before it even gets 

on the calendar for the decisionmakers. 

Mr. ROGERS. The people that look at it, do they have the authority to stop it or say no? 

Ms. SAPP. Yeah, the authority to stall it. 

Mr. ROGERS. Is that the case with the ORS, General Raymond? 

Those other people, can they slow it down or stop it? 

General RAYMOND. My understanding is they do not have a vote 

in that process. They have the—as by law, the—— 

Mr. ROGERS. How about the lead-up process to get to that room, 

before it gets to that room for decisionmaking. 

General RAYMOND. The PDSA schedules the Defense Space 

Council, and it is done relatively routinely, and it was done pretty 

quickly in this process. I didn’t sense a slowdown on this. 

Mr. ROGERS. Anybody else want a swing at it? All right. 

Mr. HILL. Chairman, I will give you a comment as one of those 

nonvoting people who was in the room. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. 

Mr. HILL. What the Principal DOD Space Advisor also did was, 

she used that to tee up a decision that is also necessary, which is 
10 

the long-term solution for weather—so ORS is an important gap in 

the ORS program that was before us. An important gap [inaudible] 

that General Hyten had put forward and had been brought in the 

Air Force. That went pretty quickly. The discussion also then said 

to everybody are we also moving on the requirements process for 

the longer term, which she used that effectively in that respect. 

Mr. ROGERS. Great. In the testimony to the SASC [Senate Armed 

Services Committee] earlier this week, General Goldfein talked 

about the need to integrate space. The Joint Staff is who is responsible for overall space integration forces. On that Joint Staff, there 

are 11 Air Force general officers. Of those 11 general officers, how 

many space professionals are included? Anybody want to guess? It 

would be zero. Do you know how many are pilots? That would be 

nine. If we look at the specific combatant command, according to 

EUCOM [U.S. European Command] there are over 28,000 Air 

Force personnel supporting EUCOM. And how many of those 

28,000 are dedicated to work space issues? That would be two. 

We do need to integrate space. I completely agree with General 

Goldfein on that with the air, and our land and sea, and cyber obligations. It is what combatant commanders do. But they are also designed to fight and win wars in a joint manner. 

So General Buck, how do we integrate space capabilities better 

into our war plans and combatant commands? To me, that starts 

with people, and I am interested in your perspective. 

General BUCK. Thank you. I agree with you. I would like to get 

more space officers, general officers on the Joint Staff. But the 

chief’s very focused on developing joint officers, and I think that is 

a focus area for us as well. When we look across the enterprise, you 

look at United States Strategic Command, we have two space officers working in joint jobs at U.S. Strategic Command. I am in a 

joint billet myself as commander of JFCC Space. 

The way we—I serve as—my JSpOC [Joint Space] Operations 

Center at Vandenberg, serves as space coordinating authority for 

the combatant command, so they have reach-back authority back 

to get those space effects out to theater. 

As far as developing joint operations, General Raymond, I think 

we are doing a pretty good job, and that is a focus area as we go 

forward. 

General RAYMOND. I would say, Chairman Rogers, you bring up 

a great point. The challenges that we face as a Nation today are 

transregional, if not global, multidomain and multifunctional. They 

are not confined to a line on the map. It is not just one geographic 

commander’s responsibility; it is pretty much all the combatant 

commanders’ responsibility. Each combatant commander has what 

is called a coordinating authority for space. Each of those combatant commanders has delegated that authority down to the CFACCs 

[combined force air component commanders], or the air component 

of that. In the air components around the globe, we probably have 

a senior space officer called the director of space forces. We have— 

and General Goldfein testified to this. He was the space coordinating authority at CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] at the 

time. We have a senior space officer called the director of space 

forces. He has a staff of about five. And then in every single divi-
11 

sion in the AOC [air operations center], we have space professionals embedded in those divisions. 

So what we have done is prioritized putting the weight of effort 

in those AOCs where the combatant commander has designated 

that authority, too. And that is where we do that multidomain integration work, that is the hub of that multidomain integration work. 

Mr. ROGERS. You mentioned that General Goldfein, at one time, 

was the space advisor? 

General RAYMOND. No, sir, he was the CFACC, the Air Force’s 

component commander for CENTCOM. And in that role, the 

CENTCOM commander delegates to him the authority called the 

space coordinating authority. And his AOC, where he operated out 

of, is that multidomain center that integrates air, space, and cyber 

into that fight, and that is where we focus a significant portion of 

our space operations. 

Mr. ROGERS. General Buck, you were going to say something. 

General BUCK. I am sorry to interrupt. I will say that probably 

in CENTCOM, we have the preponderance of space officers in 

CENTCOM right now. That is our weight of effort. 

And if you look at CENTCOM right now, in the director of space 

force office we probably have 8, maybe 10 space officers in the director of space force offices there. But what is a real win for us, 

when not just we have a director of space force office there, but 

when we embed space officers in ISRD [intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance division] and COD [combat operations division] 

and CPD [combat planning division], that is a win; when we start 

not being an add-on, but we are baked into the processes over 

there. And I think we are doing better. Our focus right now is on 

CENTCOM, but I will tell you, sir, we are getting better in 

PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command] and EUCOM across the board. 

Mr. ROGERS. Great. The chair recognizes the ranking member for 

any questions he may have. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to focus in 

my questioning on how crowded space is and how it is going to get 

a lot more crowded. Mr. Cardillo mentioned in his testimony on 

page 5 that in the last 10 years, we saw something like 1,500 satellites go up, but in the next 10 years, something like 9,000. That 

is 21⁄2 satellites a day going up in space. That is amazing. But we 

have seen launches like in India recently that they put up 100 sats 

[satellites] just in one launch. So as space gets more crowded, it 

gets more treacherous. General Buck mentioned in his testimony, 

it used to be that the main threat we faced was debris; now we face 

traffic, we may face threats. So I am particularly interested in this 

idea of the nonmilitary space traffic management. Again, I understand, General Raymond, you embarked on a pilot program with 

the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] on that? 

General RAYMOND. Thank you, Ranking Member Cooper. We 

have. As I testified before to this panel, I share your concern; space 

is clearly congested and contested, but in this case, on the congested side. General Buck and his team track 23,000 objects a day, 

take about 400,000 observations a day to keep track of all that, act 

as the space traffic control for the world and keeps the domain safe 

for all. 
12 

It is very important, and I think General Buck will agree with 

me, I will pass it to him here, but it is very important, for national 

security purposes, that we have the ability to have radars, to task 

those radars, to collect the data for those radars, to be able to 

maintain the awareness that we need for that domain. However, I 

don’t think we need to be the organization that makes the notifications around the world and acts as the traffic cop. 

So I have met with the FAA administrator a couple months ago, 

and asked if he would join us in developing a pilot program, if you 

will, to see if we could inform this going forward. General Buck has 

the lead on pulling that together. And, David, if you want to give 

an update on where we are. 

General BUCK. Thank you, General Raymond. 

I am really proud of the team and how far we have come with 

the FAA. I have talked to Dr. Nield directly, and we have agreed 

jointly to begin that pilot program. I expect that pilot program to 

begin this summer, probably August timeframe. 

I do agree with General Raymond, there are some aspects of the 

space traffic management that are not military, inherently military. And we could load-shed them to a civil agency. Things—safety 

of flight, debris management, norms of behavior. I don’t think those 

are inherently military. I think it is important to make a distinction, too, between what is space traffic management and what is 

space situational awareness. For me, as a warfighter, I need space 

situational awareness; I need to know what an object is, where it 

is going, what its capabilities are, what its vulnerabilities are, 

those types of things. 

What I don’t need to be doing, I don’t think, are things like notifications for conjunction assessment and norms of behavior. And I 

think that is better suited for a civil agency, and I think that is 

where we are going, sir. 

Mr. COOPER. Let me add some color to your remarks. General 

Raymond said in a very calm fashion, we keep space safe, or something like that. We are protecting other countries’ $1 billion satellites from a piece of shrapnel that might be traveling at 33,000 

miles an hour, but could destroy the machine, and for that, we get 

not even a thank-you note. You know, it is kind of amazing that 

we provide this magnificent worldwide service and little appreciation. Plus, as you said, when we consider load-shedding, it is a burden on our folks that doesn’t necessarily need to be borne by them. 

General RAYMOND. Other people—not all countries—some countries do send us thank-you notes, do talk a lot more to us, others 

don’t. We are really doing it because we want to keep the space domain safe for all to use, including us. And so that is the emphasis 

behind that. We need to be able to operate in space, and it is our 

way of helping to make sure that we can do that. 

Mr. COOPER. But it is also an essential truth-telling function. 

Like, if you look at the downing of the Malaysian airliner over the 

Ukraine, there was worldwide debate and dispute over what 

caused that plane to crash. And even though we have excellent air 

traffic control in most parts of the world, there was still a significant dispute. And when it comes to separating news from fake 

news and propaganda, you know, I think in the space domain, it 

would be nice if we established a sort of gold standard of truth so 
13 

we would know if it was debris, we would know if it was something 

less benign than that. So I am worried that while I hope the pilot 

program gets off to a good start this summer, I hope it will soon 

be able to establish a standard, but even with air traffic, we are 

having difficulty isolating causes when it should be, with all of our 

plane radars and things like that, an easier thing to prove than it 

is in space. So I hope we will get on that task. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. The chair now recognizes Mr. Lamborn for any 

questions he may have. 

Mr. LAMBORN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

the great service that you provide for our country. And General 

Raymond, I am going to follow up on a question we touched on in 

our conversation yesterday. With BMC2 [battle management command and control], I remain concerned about the prospect of repeating the same mistakes we made with JMS [Joint Space Operations Center Mission System], whereby lab prototypes and custom 

government development efforts were prioritized over utilizing 

proven commercial capabilities, which, unfortunately, led to huge 

scheduling and cost overruns. Can I get your commitment that you 

will prioritize the utilization of commercial capabilities to the maximum extent practicable first, and then fill in with government development for the truly unique military requirements that don’t reside in the commercial marketplace? 

General RAYMOND. I am a big proponent of commercial data. I 

have said for many years in front of this committee that we need 

all sources of data. We need data from commercial, all the way up 

to the high-end intelligence data. And on what our strategy going 

forward on the battle management command and control system 

that you reference is to do just that, is to use commercial companies in a consortium to help us develop those requirements. 

It is analogous to the iPhone. You’ve got the iPhone and then you 

have apps. And we want to have open standards and open consortium so all players can play in feeding us that data and to do so 

quickly. We have to get it on the floor. We have to get it in the 

National Space Defense Center as quick as we possibly can. 

Therefore, what we did was, we switched the program, and I 

gave that to the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, who has already done this. They have already taken the capability, built an 

open-architected system, has a consortium approach, and it has 

worked very well. So we are fast-forwarding this capability by giving it to the folks that can move rapidly, that have already done 

it in another capability in the air domain. And what this will allow 

us to do is also get at that multidomain integration. 

So the whole purpose of this program going forward is to enable 

a lot of commercial data and other source data to be integrated to 

give General Buck the data that he needs to have to do the mission 

that he is responsible for. 

General BUCK. If I could just make a comment along the same 

lines. Ranking Member Cooper stressed the importance of domain 

awareness. It is really important that we ingest non-traditional 

data into our space surveillance network as well. That is a hard 

thing to do, but we are making progress. And I think this summer 

some time, we are going to bring out a capability called the non- 
14 

traditional data preprocessor that will begin to allow ingestion of 

commercial data into our space surveillance network. So I think 

that is a move in the right direction for domain awareness and 

non-traditional ingestion, like commercial sensors, if you will. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you both. 

Changing gears, I have heard some rumors about insufficient 

funding for GPS [Global Positioning System] III in the fiscal year 

2018 request. What are we doing to keep this important program 

on track? 

General RAYMOND. So Congressman, we have not submitted the 

2018 budget going forward. We have, in my opinion, a pretty 

healthy GPS constellation in that we have got 31 operational satellites on orbit. We actually have 37 on orbit, 31 are operational. 

We are moving forward with the [GPS] OCX [Next Generation Operational Control System] program. Although that, as many folks 

have testified previously, would not be the model program that we 

would hold up as the standard. And we are clearly not out of the 

woods yet. And I won’t be comfortable until that capability is operational on the OPS [operations] floor for General Buck’s team to be 

able to operate. 

So I am pretty comfortable where we are with a relatively 

healthy GPS constellation that is on orbit and progress being made 

on the ground control—— 

Mr. LAMBORN. What does that mean for the budget for next 

year? 

General RAYMOND. The budget is going to be released next week. 

And so, I would prefer not to speculate on what might be released 

in the budget until that gets released. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. Ms. Sapp, in 40 seconds, I am going to give 

you a huge question, but you referred to how we don’t have the 

commitment we need for space going forward. What can we do better as a country to show that commitment and that resolve? 

Ms. SAPP. I think we really need help on the budget side, not just 

investment in space, but the ability to use the investment. As we 

are fielding new things to improve our resiliency, it was very hard 

to move ahead with new things under our continuing resolution. It 

is not allowed. So that is just slowing the pace of progress, even 

after we get it out of the executive branch, which is no mean feat. 

So you could help a lot on that front. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you so much. 

General RAYMOND. I would echo that as well on behalf of Air 

Force Space Command. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you. 

Mr. ROGERS. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Garamendi, for any questions he may have. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am going to forego the usual GPS backup. I 

assume that is moving along, and if not, there will be a piece of 

legislation that will move it along perhaps even faster. 

Not exactly sure how far to go with this. I represent Beale Air 

Force Base. There are certain activities going on, I am not sure we 

should be talking about them here. But I would like to take that 

up, because I think it integrates with most of what is being discussed here. 
15 

Just in general, the integration of information from a variety of 

sources, I think this is something that is happening just in general. 

Your views on that progress? 

General RAYMOND. In general, I think it is going really well. And 

in fact, as largely the model that I use to make the decision to go 

with the approach that we talked about in the battle management 

command and control conversation we just had with Congressman 

Lamborn. I would be more than happy to talk more in the closed 

session with you. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. I think I will let it go at that point. Oh, no, I 

have one more. We picked this up yesterday in going on—a plan 

for the next decade of critical assets that need to be developed and 

deployed, and the approximate cost of those. I think we need to 

have a long-term vision here about where we are going to deploy 

perhaps the most essential asset of all, which is our financial resources. I have not seen such a display of those things that we— 

that you, the military in general, and certainly the Air Force specifically in the space area, need, want, must have. I think it is really essential that we look at that. There will be insufficient money 

for everything, particularly if the tax cuts are real. 

And, so, we are going to need to make some tough decisions 

about prioritization, and that means the long view, 10 years minimum, so that we can say, Okay, these things will be funded, those 

are not, or we are going to fund all of it and not fund something 

else. So Mr. Chairman, if we could move in that direction so we can 

have that long-term vision. 

General RAYMOND. Could I—I would welcome an opportunity to 

come back to you and walk you through the Space Enterprise Vision. That is our longer-term vision for space. It is done in very 

close partnership, it is an integrated vision with the NRO. I want 

to take a moment—I do this every time I can, and I am not saying 

it because Betty Sapp is here—Betty Sapp is a huge partner for us. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Two minutes, eight seconds. Go for it. 

General RAYMOND. But I would be more than welcome to come 

back and walk you through that vision, walk you through the priorities as we see them and inform you on that. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. We heard some of this yesterday from General 

Goldfein about different directions, or at least a different set of priorities for the future. Much of it involved your work, so I wanted 

to get a fix on that and other things that we may not, but is a priority. Thank you for that. 

I didn’t mean to cut you off, I really meant you had 2 minutes 

and 8 seconds to answer. 

General RAYMOND. No, I didn’t want to take your time. I wanted 

to see if you had more questions. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you. 

Mr. ROGERS. The chair recognizes Mr. Bridenstine for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When you think 

about the consortium, General Raymond, that you talked about for 

the BMC2 piece of the National Space Defense Center. That consortium, of course, is trying to rapidly develop a capability where 

we are currently maybe lagging behind. And, of course, I think everybody on this committee fully supports that effort. 
16 

In the meantime, is there an SSA [space situational awareness] 

gap that needs to be filled that could be—commercial could help 

with? And maybe General Buck, if you would like to answer that 

as well. 

General BUCK. Well, thank you, sir. Good seeing you again. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Always. 

General BUCK. I mentioned a non-traditional data preprocessor. 

I think that is a step in the right direction. I think you will agree 

with me, the ability to ingest some of those non-tradi—that helps. 

What also we have is, we have SBSS [Space Based Space Surveillance] that is online—on orbit right now, that is being extended. 

The life on that is extended past its—I think the dates are classified, but that is going to be extended, and plus ORS–5 [Operationally Responsive Space 5] gives us, provides us that gap-filler capability as well. So I think those three things together give us the capability to fulfill that gap. 

General RAYMOND. Just as a general statement, more data is better, from a South Carolina kudzu guy. More data is better. We 

need data across the full spectrum, and we do get that across the 

full spectrum. The other thing that we have done is develop partnerships, and we have got—don’t quote me on the numbers—over 

50 or 60 SSA sharing agreements with partners. It is largely oneway sharing, but there are two-way sharing pieces. I would like to 

make that stronger. When we get the new JMS system up with 

more capacity and more ability to ingest that data, that will take 

off. But more is better. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. More is better. I would like to maybe continue 

on what Ranking Member Cooper was talking about, this effort to 

create a partnership with the FAA for space situational awareness 

specifically. Can you share with us how that is being funded? And 

is it coming out of your budget? Is it coming out of their budget? 

Is there something Congress should do here to help? 

General BUCK. My understanding is there is going to be a fiscal 

year 2018 budget request coming out of the FAA. But I am hesitant 

to say that because I am getting in the FAA’s lane a little bit. But 

I think there is a funding request for 2018 that is coming out of 

the FAA, sir, but I don’t have the specifics on that. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. That is good to hear. Again, I know that is not 

your lane. I don’t want to get you in trouble, but I think this committee would be very supportive of that partnership. Right now, we 

have heard testimony over and over again how we are providing 

free situational awareness to the entire world, and to all the commercial partners, and at the same time, the tasking that it has imposed on our warfighters at the JSpOC has been problematic, to 

the extent I hear this from other Members of Congress that they 

want to—and I heard you use the word ‘‘load-shed’’—they want to 

load-shed the mission, but they do not want to load-shed the funding. And I want everybody on this committee to know, the Air 

Force was never funded to provide space situational awareness to 

the entire world and commercial operators for free. That has not 

ever been in your mission description. And yet, that is what you 

are doing by default out of goodness of your hearts. I say the goodness out of your hearts, but the reality is we need to protect our 

own assets, and we all know that. 
17 

So I just want to reiterate the fact that if we can create a space 

situational awareness environment that can be led by a civilian 

agency and free your manpower to actually be focused on fighting 

and winning wars, I think everybody on this panel would fully support that effort. And if we need to do an appropriation, I think that 

that is something we should be advocating for. So with that—go 

ahead. 

General RAYMOND. I agree with everything you said. I just also 

want to make sure that we state the criticality that the national 

security space mission needs to make sure that they have the space 

situational awareness. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Absolutely. 

General RAYMOND. So I agree with you that there is a role here 

for others, but it is critical to our national security that we also 

maintain the capability to have that awareness. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. One hundred percent, Air Force must and will 

always do space situational awareness, and, of course, space defense; I 100 percent agree with that. It is the—not just the conjunctional analysis, but it is the warning that takes a lot of the manpower away from your—— 

General RAYMOND. I am with you. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Okay. All right. With that, Mr. Chairman, I 

yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. The chair now recognizes 

the gentleman from Washington State, Mr. Larsen, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I was going to jump in on 

this, but given that I am the ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee on Transportation, and we are writing an FAA bill, I 

guess would be reluctant to have the satellite-tragedy-to-be tracking dumped on the FAA as well. And you are not saying that is 

happening, General Buck, you are not saying that. I am more concerned that Congress gets out over the tips of its skis on this and 

assigns it without money or help; rather, negotiating out a solution 

is a better idea. I think it is probably a better place for it, in fact. 

But one question I am sure the FAA would have, I would have as 

the ranking member is, What advantage does the FAA—what can 

it get from it from actually doing the activity as opposed to just another set of activities? 

General BUCK. My discussions with Dr. Nield and his staff is 

that they see this as a real opportunity to do things that are more 

like air, air-centric, establishing norms of behavior, establish patterns for safety of flight in space. So they—not to speak for FAA, 

but my conversations with them have led me to believe that there 

is goodness, they see some goodness in this and they are anxious 

to take on specific aspects of the space traffic management mission. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, that is great. I look forward to hearing from 

Dr. Nield and from you at some point. I will talk to staff here about 

getting you all together to discuss this, so we have, I wouldn’t call 

it adult oversight on this, I would never accuse us of doing that 

sometimes, but certainly some oversight. There is a lot of debate 

going on right now in the FAA about reorganizing it overall. And 

tossing this into the mix is—it is going to get done, putting that 

in context of all the other things we are trying to do at the FAA 

is important. That is my main point. Thanks a lot. I yield back. 
18 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. The chair recognizes the 

gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Coffman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Raymond, the Air Force has specifically expressed that 

rocket system development is a better way to maintain our dominance in space. Therefore, is it still the Air Force’s approach to 

fund a rocket system versus only rocket components? Would you 

tell us how you see the government collaborating with industry in 

funding the rocket system development. What is your vision of how 

industry should meet the Air Force’s evaluation criteria? 

General RAYMOND. Thank you for the question. 

The Air Force’s strategy remains threefold. First of all, it is critical that we have assured access to space. You have to have that. 

The second component is that we would like to support competition. We see the benefits of competition in the launch industry. And 

the third aspect of that is we would like to get off the RD–180 engine. That strategy remains the same. We are investing in launch 

services. We don’t procure rockets, we procure launch services and 

that strategy remains the same and is on track. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, General. General Raymond, I understand that price is an important consideration in any procurement 

effort, but in my experience, other factors are also important. Given 

the cost of many of the payloads and how essential they are to our 

national security, can you discuss how the Air Force evaluates and 

includes, in its procurement decisions, qualitative items such as reliability or maintaining the industrial base? 

General RAYMOND. All that comes into play, it is not just cost 

based; it is a full-spectrum analysis. There is a pretty high bar that 

we go through for certification. We would not put on contract a 

launch if we didn’t think that that was going to be assured to get 

on to space. It is a full range, and it is mission by mission; some 

missions are more complex than others. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Anybody on this could answer this. It is my 

understanding that the Space Based Infrared System, SBIRS, is 

the current and primary method to detect ballistic missile defense 

threats, and we are dependent on SBIRS; we have been dependent 

on SBIRS since the 1970s. Are there other systems envisioned to 

complement SBIRS? That may be for the classified brief. How robust are those other systems that supplement SBIRS? How vital is 

Buckley Air Force Base and SBIRS to our space mission? 

General RAYMOND. Let me just say SBIRS is a national security 

priority. It provides strategic missile warning for our Nation. It is 

probably one of the most critical systems that we operate. The wing 

up at Buckley, the 460th Space Wing led by Colonel Dave Miller 

is a premier organization. It is extremely critical to the success of 

that mission area. 

I was just up there a month or so ago and they are doing great 

work. I would—as we look to the future, we look to make the constellations more resilient. And I would have further conversations 

with you in the closed session to get into more specifics. 

Mr. COFFMAN. General Buck, in your testimony, you reference a 

transition of training our satellite officers from a technician-based 

focus to a warfighter-based focus. I think this depicts the increasing counterspace efforts of our adversaries and the threats they 
19 

pose to our national security. Would you go into detail regarding 

the training to counter these threats, and the transition to a warfighter focus? 

General BUCK. What I was referring to was the Space Mission 

Force construct that we have implemented in the wings. The 50th 

Space Wing is complete with a Space Mission Force transition. 

Currently the 21st Space Wing and the 50th Space Wing are undergoing the same transformation. 

What this does in the Space Mission Force construct for 4 

months at a time, we have space crews that are in the fight, they 

are focused on the current fight, while the other portion of the crew 

force at these wings are focused on advanced training, tactics, techniques, and procedure development for the future fight, and how 

they can codify those into their doctrine. So that is what I was referring to. And I am really proud of the progress they have made 

and the way ahead and General Raymond, some of that is in your 

OT&E [organize, train, and equip] lane. 

General RAYMOND. I would also add, it is broader than just space 

for space sake. So we are also integrating our space operators into 

joint exercises, into exercises called Red Flag, into war games that 

are joint and international. We just developed a Space Flag construct. So it is developing depth of space expertise, but then also 

working the multidomain integration piece, because this isn’t space 

for space sake. This is integrating airspace and cyber for the goodness of our Nation and we are tackling both portions. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. The chair now recognizes 

the gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Hanabusa, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Raymond, I have got to admit, when I see Air Force, I 

have been thinking about missile defense as well as your role in 

the triad system. And reading your testimony, it has raised a different set of questions for me. First of all, what I couldn’t get past 

was this one paragraph, and if you could explain this to me, in 

your testimony at page 3, you talk about the first 7 months of your 

command, you aggressively pushed implementation of the—basically of the AFSPC [Air Force Space Command], and the National 

Reconnaissance—NRO Space Enterprise Vision with a new space 

warfighting construct. The warfighting construct is the framework 

for turning the Space Enterprise Vision into reality. What I am interested in is what is this warfighting construct that you are talking about in terms of space? 

General RAYMOND. Thank you, and it is nice to meet you. 

Ms. HANABUSA. It is nice to meet you. 

General RAYMOND. The Space Enterprise Vision is, as I mentioned earlier, is the vision that is a shared vision between us and 

the National Reconnaissance Office. And I will pass this over to 

Betty Sapp as well, but it is the shared vision for moving forward 

on how do you make the domain—our architectures more resilient 

to be able to survive the contested domain that we find today. The 

warfighting construct really talks about several things that we 

have talked about this morning. It takes that vision and builds a 

CONOPS [concept of operations]. How do we plan to operate together? And so that is the foundation of this. We have worked very 
20 

closely with the NRO to develop that CONOP, so we know how we 

are going to work together. 

There is another layer, that is also the part that we just talked 

about on developing and training our forces; the Space Mission 

Force construct is part of that. There is another layer on it, is how 

do you develop the partnerships that we need, both interagency 

with our commercial partners and with our allies, to be able to respond to the strategic environment that we face today. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Before you pass me on, let me explain to you 

why, why my curiosity. Because in Mr. Hill’s testimony—maybe I 

will bypass Ms. Sapp. No offense. But to ask and take it to Mr. Hill 

is, his testimony speaks about the, quote/unquote, our threats that 

we hear about all the time in here, Russia and China. He also 

speaks about A2/AD and the concerns that we have. 

And he says, ‘‘Both will continue to pursue a full range of antisatellite weapons as a means to reduce U.S. military effectiveness.’’ 

So what I thought you were going to tell me about the war construct was that it was in line of that—in other words, where we 

think about the oceans, the land, and so forth, this is another layer 

of, quote, war that we must be ready to fight. 

And I, quite candidly, I am not sure when you have Russia and 

China, they can undermine everything in terms of diplomatic—this 

nice kind of cooperation that we are all talking about here. I really 

would like to know, to the extent that you can tell me here today, 

what exactly does this all mean in terms of our military, and what 

do you need, when you come to see us, in order to fight that battle? 

General RAYMOND. First of all, we don’t talk about a war in 

space. We talk about a war that extends into space. We are not— 

this isn’t space for space sake. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Is that something that is unrealistic? I mean, is 

it conceivable that we could actually have, quote, ‘‘war in space’’? 

In other words, could our satellites be the first target? Because 

once you take out our satellites, you have basically destroyed our 

effective communication mechanism, so could they not be a first 

line of offense against us? 

General RAYMOND. If you look at what some of our potential adversaries are talking about, they are talking about a full range of 

capabilities that range everywhere from reversible jamming of communication and GPS satellites like we have seen, all the way up 

to the direct ascent ASAT [antisatellite weapon] that we saw from 

China in 2007. 

Our posture is, we want to deter that. We have no interest in 

fighting that fight, and as I said, one way to do that is be prepared 

for it. The space warfighting construct develops the partnerships, 

the plans, the concept of operations, the training needed to be able 

to respond. 

Ms. HANABUSA. In the minutes, seconds that I have left, Mr. Hill, 

would you like to comment on it, because it is your testimony that 

triggered my line of—— 

Mr. HILL. Certainly. And I say in my testimony, there is scant 

evidence that anybody is looking for a war in space. It is about the 

terrestrial issues that they have, political differences that countries 

have, and it is their conclusion that if they want a military option, 
21 

they have to be able to act in space as well. And as you are suggesting, that could be early. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentlelady. The chair now recognizes 

the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of 

you for being here and for just all you do for the cause of human 

freedom. 

General Raymond, just a quick, direct question. Do you believe 

it is fair to say that space has been weaponized? 

General RAYMOND. I believe it is fair to say that space is a contested domain just like—and it is a warfighting domain just like 

air, land, and sea. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you believe we need a more robust defensive 

space sensor layer to adequately identify the latest in emerging 

threats to our space assets? 

General RAYMOND. I think it is imperative that we have a level 

of domain awareness that is required to operate just like in any 

other warfighting domain. 

Mr. FRANKS. Should this U.S. space—should we treat space as a 

warfighting domain? 

General RAYMOND. Space is a warfighting domain just like air, 

land, and sea, and we need to treat it that way. 

Mr. FRANKS. Yeah. Should the U.S. develop defensive capabilities 

to counter kinetic attacks against our space security architecture? 

General RAYMOND. It is an imperative, in my opinion, that we 

develop resilient architectures to be able to operate in the contested 

environment that we face today. 

Mr. FRANKS. General Buck, do you have any thoughts on that? 

General BUCK. Space is a warfighting domain, and if you look at 

the other domains, air, land, sea, they have defensive capabilities. 

They have other capabilities. We can’t afford to treat space any differently. 

Mr. FRANKS. Is it fair to say that some of our near-peer adversaries’ offensive space capabilities have outpaced our ability to defend our space assets? And I might ask the two of you. 

General RAYMOND. I would like to have that conversation in 

closed. 

Mr. FRANKS. I got you. Makes sense. 

All right. Do you see—and I will throw this out to the entire 

panel. Do you see value in establishing an annual capstone training exercise, sort of the equivalence of the Red Flag, only, say, a 

Space Flag event for space operators? 

General BUCK. We have had our first Space Flag this year. Although it is nascent, we are having the conversation, and we are 

moving in the right direction. I see this first Space Flag as the first 

of many to follow. General Raymond. 

General RAYMOND. I agree. 

Mr. FRANKS. I sometimes—— 

General RAYMOND. As I mentioned earlier, that is important, but 

there is the other aspect of it that it has got to be, how do you integrate air, space, and cyber together, and how do you integrate it 

with not just air, space, and cyber, but with the land and the sea, 
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† FVEY is the abbreviation for ‘‘Five-Eyes,’’ an intelligence alliance involving Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

and so there is other opportunities, in addition to Space Flag, that 

provides that capability as well. 

General BUCK. And those are space-specific Schriever War 

Games. Those are the global series, on and on. The JSpOC and the 

NSDC [National Space Defense Center] participated in north of 70 

exercises last year, integrating space into the larger fight, so I am 

really proud of that effort. 

Mr. FRANKS. Mr. Chairman, I think I will probably leave the rest 

of my questions for the classified session. I thank all of you so 

much. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from California, Mr. Carbajal, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARBAJAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 

of you for being here today. 

I represent Vandenberg Air Force Base, and recently had the 

great privilege of joining General Buck on a tour of the facility, the 

JSpOC facility in addition to other facilities there. I guess, for my 

colleagues and just for me to—for it to sink in, you could never 

hear it enough, could you share, General Buck, the contribution of 

the Vandenberg Air Force Base JSpOC to our national space strategy and capability, and perhaps close with how that relates, or 

what the nexus is to the new JSpOC in Colorado? 

General BUCK. Thank you, sir. Good seeing you again. 

We have two primary command and control centers. At Vandenberg Air Force Base, we have the Joint Space Operations Center. 

In this operation center, we have our commercial partners on the 

OPS [operations] floor, we have our allied partners, FVEY † partners on the OPS floor. They are doing the day-to-day, heavy lifting 

support to the terrestrial fight. 

When a combatant commander needs space support, space effects, they go to the JSpOC, and they provide military satellite 

communications, precision navigation and timing, all those space 

effects, and they do it better than anybody else. 

The National Space Defense Center located at Schriever Air 

Force Base is responsible for looking up, protecting the space joint 

operating area, if you will. So JSpOC at Vandenberg in the current 

fight right now, support to the terrestrial fight; the National Space 

Defense Center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, responsible for protecting and defending the space joint operating environment. 

General RAYMOND. And I would pile on today that JSpOC is the 

operational DOD space command and control facility, period, dot, 

and they do spectacular work. I have had the privilege of being stationed at Vandenberg four times. Second Lieutenant Jay Raymond 

showed up there in 1984, and they are absolutely wonderful airmen 

and joint—not just airmen, but joint partners that keep that domain safe for all, provide a critical capability to all of the warfighters around the globe, and is the only operational DOD space 

center that we have today. 

Mr. CARBAJAL. Well, it was extremely impressive, and I just 

want to thank General Buck for his being so hospitable and giving 
23 

me an opportunity to interface with many of the troops and many 

of your command team there. It was a great visit, it was a great 

learning opportunity, and I just really appreciate what you do. 

General BUCK. Sir, it is our pleasure. Thank you for joining us, 

sir. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. The chair would like to ask 

a few more questions before we go into closed session. Talk a little 

bit about launch. 

General Raymond, how long do you plan to maintain the Delta 

IV, and I would like for you to differentiate between Delta IV Medium versus Delta IV Heavy, and do you plan to keep the Delta 

IV Heavy specifically until a new launch vehicle is certified, and 

if so, how? 

General RAYMOND. Yeah. There is three Delta IV Mediums that 

are left. The final launch for the Delta IV Medium is scheduled in 

fiscal year 2019. We have seven more Delta IV Heavies. Six of 

those are national security space launches; one of those is a NASA 

[National Aeronautics and Space Administration] launch, and there 

is an option for one more. Final launch will be in fiscal year 2023, 

and we are comfortable that we will have a new capability on line 

to be able to support the requirements going forward. 

Mr. ROGERS. You just heard, Ms. Sapp, him make reference to 

the national security payloads. How important is it to your mission 

to have the Delta IV Heavy or an equivalent available? 

Ms. SAPP. It is essential to my mission that they are available 

in the near term. I tell you, General Raymond has mentioned the 

partnership between us in the NSDC and in operations. We 

couldn’t have better launch partners than we do in the Air Force. 

They have taken care of our mission. We buy on their contracts. 

They made sure we had Delta IV Heavy coverage with a lot of 

transition margin to get to a new booster, so we have just been 

very satisfied with their support. 

Mr. ROGERS. You heard General Raymond say that he believes 

that by 2023, we will have a replacement certified. I hope so, too, 

but if we don’t, do you believe that we should let the Delta IV 

Heavy go before we have an alternative certified? 

Ms. SAPP. I believe we have time to see how the new programs 

mature before we cannot go back on the Delta IV Heavy. I wouldn’t 

carry it in the near term. Again, we have got them funded through 

launches in 2023, so we have some time here to make the right decision for the Nation. 

Mr. ROGERS. That was a lawyerly response. As a lawyer, I appreciate that. 

Separately, General Raymond, since the Air Force originally developed its strategy to invest in the development of commercially 

viable launch vehicles, there has been another new entrant in the 

commercial launch market. Earlier this year, Blue Origin announced it has started to get commercial customers for their New 

Glenn launch vehicle, and maybe they will even compete for the 

launch service agreement funding. 

Has this changed your strategy, and do you think that government’s role—it is the government’s role to build a new commercial 

launch vehicle if they are already being built by the commercial 

sector? 
24 

General RAYMOND. Chairman Rogers, it doesn’t affect our strategy at all. Our strategy remains three things, as I mentioned: assured access to space, competition, and get off the RD–180 engine. 

Our acquisition strategy is flexible and it encourages multiple competitors for national security launch services. I don’t see it affecting 

it at all, and we are not building commercial launch vehicles. 

Mr. ROGERS. What do you know about the BE–4’s testing setback 

that we had in recent days? Was its powerpack completely destroyed, and how does this impact your schedule? 

General RAYMOND. My understanding, Chairman, is that Blue 

Origin has announced that they conducted a test that resulted in 

the loss of a powerpack test hardware. Obviously, that mishap is 

regrettable, but it isn’t unprecedented in the development of in— 

isn’t uncommon in development efforts. 

I think this adds credibility to our strategy to make sure that 

there is multiple engines being developed. I think we have visibility, pretty significant visibility into ULA’s [United Launch Alliance’s] processes, although it is ULA’s final ultimate decision, and 

then once that decision is made, obviously, the Air Force, as a significant customer of that launch service, will do its own independent review. 

Mr. ROGERS. Excellent. The chair now recognizes the ranking 

member for any final questions he may have. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Raymond, in your testimony on page 12, you mention 

that GPS III SV01 has been completed and is in storage, with an 

initial launch capability date set to occur in spring 2018. That 

struck me as an unnecessary mothballing of a perfectly good satellite. Why the delay? 

General RAYMOND. There is a couple of pieces that we are still 

working on. One, obviously, we are working on making sure we can 

command and control the GPS III satellite with OCX block phase 

zero, which will be up by then, and then also there is work to be 

done on—integration work to be done with the launch provider that 

will launch that satellite. 

Mr. COOPER. Is this customary to have a year or more delay in 

launching a satellite? 

General RAYMOND. There are satellites that have been in storage 

significantly longer than that. It is not uncustomary. We will 

launch it when it is safe and ready to do so, and we can get it onto 

orbit, and then command and control it. And as I mentioned earlier 

today, earlier in the hearing, that today we have a pretty significant GPS constellation on orbit as we speak. 

Mr. COOPER. So this is not an issue of assured access to space? 

General RAYMOND. It is an issue of making sure that we can 

command and control that capability when it is on orbit, and then 

working the final details of being able to—for them to integrate 

with the launch vehicle provider that we will launch it. 

Mr. COOPER. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the ranking member. The committee will 

now go into a brief recess as we move to a secure location for the 

classified portion of this briefing. 

[Whereupon, at 9:15 a.m., the subcommittee proceeded in closed 

session.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MAY 19, 2017 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MAY 19, 2017 

(91) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS 

Mr. ROGERS. General Raymond—there was a recent Washington Post article 

which reported on a company called Ligado, which prior to a restructure was called 

Lightsquared, and its plan to build a wireless network with ground and satellite 

based systems. Have the issues pertaining to GPS been resolved and what are the 

economic/national security risks if we get this wrong? 

General RAYMOND. No, the issues pertaining to Ligado and GPS have not been 

resolved. The bottom line is that the preliminary results of Department of Transportation’s Adjacent Band Compatibility Testing indicates that the proximity of the 

Ligado proposed network to the primary GPS L1 frequency band results in interference the Air Force, Department of Defense and other U.S. government agencies 

believe is unacceptable. If we get this wrong, the network will degrade the performance of numerous GPS-based applications to include but not limited to important 

national defense, science, transportation, agriculture, banking, communications (e.g., 

broadband wireless & cellular services), health and safety, and environmental systems. This will directly impact the economic well-being of the nation and severely 

limit the development of GPS applications in the future. The Ligado proposal is a 

direct challenge to those applications’ use of GPS technology and is inconsistent 

with the National Space Policy direction to sustain the radiofrequency environment 

in which critical U.S. space systems operate. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FRANKS 

Mr. FRANKS. Is it fair to say some of our near-peer adversaries’ offensive space 

capabilities have outpaced our ability to defend our space assets? 

Do you believe the Air Force as an institution has placed the appropriate amount 

of resources and focus on space commensurate to the current and emerging threats? 

Do you see value in establishing an annual capstone training/exercise, or ‘‘Space 

Flag’’ event for space operators (similar to Red Flag)? 

General RAYMOND. Near peer adversaries have not outpaced our ability to defend 

our space assets today, but I am concerned about the future. Our adversaries are 

rapidly developing capabilities that will be able to hold every U.S. space asset in 

every orbital regime at risk in the not too distant future. We need to take action 

now to address our vulnerabilities, so your assertion does not become a true statement in the future. 

Unfortunately, the Air Force is facing critical shortfalls in readiness and modernization in every one of its mission areas; space is one of them. At the same time 

we are trying to grow cyber capabilities and recapitalize fighters, bombers, mobility 

and nuclear forces, we must find a way to restructure our space architectures to create resilient systems that can be better protected and defended as an enterprise. All 

of these things are important national priorities. The Air Force is asking for a 20 

percent increase in space funding in the FY18 budget request and will need similar 

increases in future years. However, with all of the budget shortfalls the Air Force 

faces we have to consider the possibility that that the Air Force alone cannot afford 

to make the investment needed to transform our space enterprise to operate effectively in a contested environment; we may need to look at national funding sources 

that are beyond what the Air Force alone is able to provide. 

Absolutely, the effort is already underway to provide tactical-level training focused on evolving threats levering knowledge gained during rounds of experimentation at the National Space Defense Center. The first Space Flag was conducted 

17–21 April 2017 at Schriever AFB, CO. It was a successful, computer assisted exercise that included four operational space squadrons, the National Space Defense 

Center, the Joint Space Operations Center and several other associated organizations. Our vision and intent is to grow Space Flag to become the comprehensive, 

robust event that trains our Airmen similar to Red Flag. We will continue building 

upon the initial Space Flag to create an environment where the space enterprise can 

come together and exercise our toughest scenarios and challenges against a thinking 

adversary in a safe and realistic manner. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you believe it is fair to say space has been weaponized? 
92 

Do you believe we need a more robust defensive sensor layer to adequately identify the latest and emerging threats to our space assets? 

General RAYMOND. Space is a contested warfighting domain, just like land, air, 

sea and cyberspace. As a nation we need to embrace this fact. We need to be prepared to use multi-domain capabilities to protect our space systems. If we fall short 

protecting against threats in space, the effect will certainly be felt across all 

warfighting domains. 

Yes, we need a more robust defensive sensor layer to adequately address the 

threat to our space assets. This is one on my top priorities. Today we are leveraging 

our existing space surveillance capabilities and are developing new capabilities such 

as the Space Fence, as well as expanding our partnership with the NRO. We also 

continue to enhance situational awareness sharing partnerships to provide us additional space surveillance data. Finally, we are developing a battle management command and control system which will allow us to more fully leverage additional data 

sources from commercial capabilities to high end intelligence data. 

Mr. FRANKS. Should the U.S. treat space as a warfighting domain? 

Should the U.S. develop defensive capabilities to counter kinetic attacks against 

our space security architecture? 

General RAYMOND. Yes. I stand by my opening statement to the committee: 

‘‘Today, in no uncertain terms, space is a war fighting domain just like air, land 

and sea. Potential adversaries are developing capabilities to deny us access to and 

the benefits of the space domain. Let me be very clear, we do not want a conflict 

that extends into space. But one way to keep that from happening is to make sure 

that we’re prepared for it and be able to fight and win that conflict if it were to 

occur.’’ 

We are already investing in systems to improve the space situational awareness 

that is foundational for defense to include Space Based Surveillance System and 

Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program and Space Fence. We are 

also taking steps to build more on-board and off-board protection capabilities into 

our future systems to make them more resilient against both kinetic and non-kinetic 

threats. 

Mr. FRANKS. Is it fair to say some of our near-peer adversaries’ offensive space 

capabilities have outpaced our ability to defend our space assets? 

General BUCK. The pace at which potential near-peer adversaries are pursuing capabilities to deny US advantages in space is certainly concerning and I see no slowing in the future. Potential adversary capabilities have yet to eclipse our ability to 

defend; however, our architectures and systems were designed in and for an era 

without such threats. We must continue to train our forces and field new systems 

with an eye to maintain our edge in today’s contested, degraded and operationallylimited environment. And, we must do so faster than our adversaries can adapt, 

which means our acquisitions cycles must be nimble enough to bring capabilities to 

the fight on operationally-relevant timelines. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you believe the Air Force as an institution has placed the appropriate amount of resources and focus on space commensurate to the current and 

emerging threats? 

General BUCK. We are in the midst of a significant shift in the DOD space enterprise; moving from a service-provider mindset to operational warfighter mindset. As 

we make this shift, we have identified several areas that require added focus to ensure they meet the demands of maintaining freedom of action in space. Beyond organizational changes, these areas include space intelligence support, robust battle 

management command and control and space situational awareness capabilities and 

ensuring we have the right authorities and rules of engagement in place. We are 

making strides in these areas; however, the budgetary uncertainty driven by sequestration and past shortfalls makes addressing the challenges more difficult. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you see value in establishing an annual capstone training/exercise, or ‘‘Space Flag’’ event for space operators (similar to Red Flag)? 

General BUCK. Absolutely, yes. Training our space warfighters to operate in a contested, degraded and operationally-limited environment is vital. Such advanced 

training is foundational to our Space Mission Force construct and underpins our 

push to normalize operations. As we normalize space operations, we must also balance the need to stress and train our own space crew forces with the need to practice how we synchronize space operations and effects into large-scale exercise planning and execution. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you believe it is fair to say space has been weaponized? 

General BUCK. We have no desire to weaponize space and we are working hard 

to ensure no country believes they can gain an advantage by extending a conflict 

to space. A conflict which extends to space is in no one’s best interest and would 

have drastic and enduring second and third order economic effects, not just on the 
93 

U.S., but on the entire world. But, it is certainly clear that potential adversaries 

are developing systems with the sole intent to destroy, deny or degrade DOD space 

systems. It’s important to understand that like all nations we have the inherent 

right of self-defense, so purposeful interference with space assets vital to our national security will be met by all necessary means. No one wants a war in space. 

The best way to avoid such conflict . . . to deter future adversaries . . . is to always 

be prepared to protect and defend unfettered access in, through and from space. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you believe we need a more robust defensive sensor layer to adequately identify the latest and emerging threats to our space assets? 

General BUCK. Yes, and what is critical at this juncture is to ensure the enterprise on the whole is capable of responding to emerging threats. This includes the 

right architectures, the right CONOPS and definitely the capabilities necessary to 

identify threats in order to defend our space assets. This is where it is imperative 

to improve our capabilities for space intelligence and indications & warnings and 

battle management command and control systems. 

Mr. FRANKS. Should the U.S. treat space as a warfighting domain? 

General BUCK. Yes, space is a warfighting domain, fundamentally no different 

that land, air or sea. It is clear by potential adversary actions that we must be prepared to protect and defend the space joint operating area. But, there is no space 

war, just war and normalize space operations is critical to maintaining freedom of 

action in, through and from space. 

Mr. FRANKS. Should the U.S. develop defensive capabilities to counter kinetic attacks against our space security architecture? 

General BUCK. Yes, and space situational awareness capabilities are the cornerstone of defending our space assets. We must continue to pursue SSA capabilities 

that go beyond satellite catalog maintenance and move to joint warfighting battlespace awareness capabilities. 

Mr. FRANKS. Is it fair to say some of our near-peer adversaries’ offensive space 

capabilities have outpaced our ability to defend our space assets? 

Do you believe the Air Force as an institution has placed the appropriate amount 

of resources and focus on space commensurate to the current and emerging threats? 

Do you see value in establishing an annual capstone training/exercise, or ‘‘Space 

Flag’’ event for space operators (similar to Red Flag)? 

Mr. HILL. Russia and China are continuing to pursue a full range of anti-satellite 

weapons that are designed to reduce U.S. military effectiveness, and both countries 

are increasingly considering attacks against satellite systems as part of their future 

warfare doctrine. As such, maintaining the advantages U.S. forces derive from space 

requires unprecedented mission-assurance efforts. This must include more resilient 

architectures, measures to improve the defense of our space assets, and the ability 

to reconstitute lost capabilities on operational timelines. These counterspace challenges began to emerge in the late 1990s. Although the Department of Defense was 

initially slow to respond, efforts in recent years have greatly increased the focus and 

resources applied to the task. Nevertheless, we must all recognize that the growing 

threats to space systems and capabilities are an enduring condition of modern warfare, requiring that we sustain and reinforce those mission assurance efforts in the 

years ahead in order to sustain our advantages. 

Mr. FRANKS. Do you believe it is fair to say space has been weaponized? 

Do you believe we need a more robust defensive sensor layer to adequately identify the latest and emerging threats to our space assets? 

Mr. HILL. It is fair to say that the space domain and space-based capabilities are 

fully intertwined with the other domains in modern warfare, and that we must take 

the necessary steps to protect and defend the important assets deployed in space. 

Just as we place sensors in space and other domains to help us understand threats 

and to predict and attribute developments in the terrestrial battlespace, so too does 

defense of our space-based capabilities require that we improve our sensor networks, both space-based and terrestrial-based, to understand threats and to predict 

and attribute activities in the space domain. 

Mr. FRANKS. Should the U.S. treat space as a warfighting domain? 

Should the U.S. develop defensive capabilities to counter kinetic attacks against 

our space security architecture? 

Mr. HILL. Yes, the United States should and does treat space as a warfighting 

domain. The Department of Defense is taking appropriate measures to assure the 

missions that our space-based capabilities support in the face of growing counterspace threats, such as kinetic attacks. 
94 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN 

Mr. LAMBORN. I understand that there have been delays in the Air Force’s Pathfinder 2 initiative due to property management and appropriations law constraints 

related to the use of transponders and satellite bandwidth. To what extent could 

these delays be avoided with more flexible spending authority? What is the timeline 

for completion of Pathfinder 2 and Pathfinder 3? 

General RAYMOND. The flexibility to use Procurement funds for acquiring commercial communication services, in addition to the ability to buy a fully funded end 

item, would have been beneficial to awarding Pathfinder #2 earlier than currently 

planned. As a result of the appropriations law and property management challenges, several Pathfinder #2 objectives were deferred to Pathfinders #3 and #4. 

COMSATCOM Pathfinder #2 is on track to complete all award activities in 1QFY18. 

COMSATCOMM Pathfinder #3, which is utilizing an OTA, is on track to award in 

4QFY17. 

Mr. LAMBORN. As you know, satellite communications have never been more vital 

to the security of our nation or come under such assault. To address the cyber 

threats to our satellite communications and accelerate adoption of built-in cyber defenses, the Department developed information assurance requirements for commercial providers. To what extent does the Department use information assurance criteria in its evaluation and acquisition of COMSATCOM? What is the process for 

evaluating commercial suppliers’ information assurance capabilities? 

General RAYMOND. To address cybersecurity in our use of commercial providers 

for satellite communications, Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and Defense 

Information Systems Agency (DISA) efforts use DISA’s cyber Risk Management 

Framework (RMF) to assess risk during source selection. The RMF consists of an 

extensive set of cybersecurity questions that the bidder must address. In evaluating 

industry responses, a pass/fail assessment for information assurance is determined 

against the industry responses to the RMF questions. SMC invites a DISA member, 

familiar with their cyber RMF, to participate in the source selection and this member determines the pass/fail assessment. United States Strategic Command has appointed DISA as the Authorizing Official (AO) for DOD Commercial Satellite Communications (COMSATCOM) systems. DISA has extensive experience evaluating cybersecurity for leased COMSATCOM services and coordinates these assessments 

with their customers to ensure the customer is aware of any risks and can implement proper mitigations. SMC is leveraging DISA and National Security Agency 

(NSA) practices in the procurement of commercial products under the COMSATCOM Pathfinder and Pilot efforts. 

Mr. LAMBORN. What steps for the new EBMC2 program or other related efforts 

(e.g., market research, acquisitions, demonstrations, evaluations, exercises, experiments, prototypes, proof of concepts, pilots, numerical validations, operations, etc.) 

has the USAF taken to identify commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and 

services that can, in whole or in part, help satisfy the USAF’s needs for improved 

SSA and BMC2? 

General RAYMOND. Air Force Space Command has taken several steps to identify 

commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services that can, in whole or in 

part, help satisfy the USAF’s need for improved SSA and BMC2. First, the Space 

and Missile Systems Center released a Request for Information on a broad range 

of Enterprise Space BMC2 (ESBMC2) requirements in January 2017 that resulted 

in 26 industry responses. No single commercial company stated that they have the 

capabilities to address the full set of mission and infrastructure requirements for 

ESBMC2. Therefore, SMC is refining the acquisition strategy that will enable rapid 

integration of multiple commercial, defense industry, and government solutions to 

meet requirements. Our goal is to complete this overarching acquisition strategy by 

December 2017. The strategy will incorporate preceding operational prototype capabilities from the BMC2 Joint Emergent Operational Need (JEON) and Air Force 

Rapid Capabilities Office and create an enduring rapid application delivery process 

that will incorporate the best capabilities from commercial and defense industry. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Have any commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services 

been identified that will help satisfy the USAF’s needs for improved SSA and 

BMC2? 

General RAYMOND. Yes, Air Force Space Command has taken several steps to 

identify commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services that can, in whole 

or in part, help satisfy the Air Force’s need for improved SSA and BMC2. First, the 

Space and Missile Systems Center released a Request for Information on a broad 

range of Enterprise Space BMC2 (ESBMC2) requirements in January 2017 that resulted in 26 industry responses. While no single commercial company stated that 

they have the capabilities to address the full set of mission and infrastructure re-
95 

quirements for ESBMC2, commercial services exist that can address some of our requirements. Second, the Space and Missile Systems Center released a Broad Area 

Announcement (BAA) on 22 May 2017 seeking capabilities from Commercial and 

Defense Industry to address technology maturation concepts for the broad range of 

Enterprise Space BMC2 requirements. Third, AFSPC is independently validating 

and verifying several commercial data providers to augment the Space Surveillance 

Network via the Non-Traditional Data Pre-Processor (NDPP) program. Finally, SMC 

is also implementing several commercial SSA capabilities as part of the Joint Space 

Operations Center Mission System Increment 2 effort. 

Mr. LAMBORN. In all of its efforts, including the RCO program and consortium, 

what is the USAF’s plan to prioritize the use of commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services to the maximum extent practicable first before then filling 

in any remaining operational gaps with government prototyping and redevelopment 

for the truly unique military requirements that don’t reside in the commercial marketplace? How is this prioritization reflected in the USAF’s current FY17 funding 

plan as well as in the proposed FY18 budget going forward through the FYDP? 

General RAYMOND. In the USAF’s current FY17 funding plan as well as in the 

proposed FY18 budget going forward through the FYDP, the Air Force will first leverage, to the maximum extent practicable, commercial tools in all areas where they 

cost-effectively meet government requirements to include mission requirements, resiliency, supportability, and cybersecurity. This includes support for improved space 

situational awareness, satellite control, and event analysis. In the FY17 and FY18 

ESBMC2 execution plan, the Air Force is pursuing commercial and defense industry 

technologies via a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) which posted to Federal 

Business Opportunities on 22 May 2017. This BAA continues for five years. In FY17 

and FY18, efforts under the AFRL-led BMC2 JEON will continue to evaluate commercial and other applications that improve decision timeliness, decision quality 

and the ability to handle simultaneous adversary actions. Infrastructure elements 

and software applications, regardless of origin, that provide the most capability improvement will receive priority. Recent market research has identified numerous 

commercial solutions that address subsets of the battle management and command 

and control requirements. The Air Force plans to further work with the commercial 

vendors of these solutions to asses if they meet requirements and then rapidly integrate them into a multi-level, cyber defensible network to achieve initial capabilities. As we operationally identify improvements needed to the existing capabilities 

and gaps in overall capability, we will aggressively pursue Other Transaction Authority and other contractual vehicles that enable the Air Force to pursue a commercial DevOps software development model. This model will enable us to push 

commercial vendors to improve existing and build new products that satisfy known 

and evolving requirements for BMC2. In concert with the rapid software development and fielding, SMC will fulfill their enterprise management role by building the 

logistical tail required to support this construct. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Given that the USAF continues to not follow this prioritization on 

the JMS program, under the JEON, and with the NDPP, what steps are being 

taken to change this and ensure AFSPC, SMC, AFRL, RCO and all other supporting 

organizations follow through on this prioritization? 

General RAYMOND. JMS brought in commercial capabilities for event processing 

(reentry, closely-spaced objects, launch, deorbit, breakup), and event generation for 

training and exercises. JMS also evaluated commercial capabilities for catalog processing, but did not incorporate either commercial capability because they did not 

meet accuracy performance requirements. ESBMC2 will incorporate additional commercial processing as part of the planned multi-hypothesis event analysis capabilities. The AFRL JEON is planning to add additional commercial vendors to the team 

via a formal procurement process. This will allow additional commercial capabilities 

to be incorporated. The Non-Traditional Data Pre-Processor (NDPP) effort, once 

operationally accepted in July 2017, will be a conduit for accessing data sources to 

perform several functions. These include: 

1. Use of commercial data and non-traditional data (IC, commercial, academia, 

foreign, etc.) 

2. Establishment of data standards 

3. Application of cyber resilience and protection requirements 

4. Enabling of operational test for future sensors 

The RCO Prototype and SMC efforts are conducting market research for their activities. These efforts will consider all proposed commercial capabilities when making content decisions. These decisions will be made following evaluation of cost (procurement, development and sustainment), schedule, integration complexity and requirement satisfaction for multiple commercial and industry tools as well as newdevelopment options. 
96 

Mr. LAMBORN. How do you plan to train and incentivize people to follow this prioritization and then hold them accountable, as necessary? 

General RAYMOND. Training starts with an understanding of the threat environment. Adopting and improving commercial solutions that meet government requirements is one of the simplest ways to acquire capabilities on a timeline to outpace 

threats. Personnel are trained to look at all commercially available technologies and 

existing capabilities when building acquisition strategies to meet requirements, developing technical solutions, and issuing Requests for Information. Senior leaders 

provide oversight and hold organizations/personnel accountable for providing space 

capabilities to the nation. 

Mr. LAMBORN. I understand that there have been delays in the Air Force’s Pathfinder 2 initiative due to property management and appropriations law constraints 

related to the use of transponders and satellite bandwidth. To what extent could 

these delays be avoided with more flexible spending authority? What is the timeline 

for completion of Pathfinder 2 and Pathfinder 3? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command and General Raymond as to the specifics of Pathfinder acquisition. 

Commercial SATCOM is vital to the joint fight and we will continue to work closely 

with Air Force Space Command. 

Mr. LAMBORN. As you know, satellite communications have never been more vital 

to the security of our nation or come under such assault. To address the cyber 

threats to our satellite communications and accelerate adoption of built-in cyber defenses, the Department developed information assurance requirements for commercial providers. To what extent does the Department use information assurance criteria in its evaluation and acquisition of COMSATCOM? What is the process for 

evaluating commercial suppliers’ information assurance capabilities? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) as to the criteria related to COMSATCOM acquisitions. It is absolutely critical to ensure cyber 

protections are in place for space systems within the DOD space enterprise and we 

are confident AFSPC and DISA are the appropriate agencies to ensure appropriate 

criteria are applied to satellite communications acquisitions. 

Mr. LAMBORN. What steps for the new EBMC2 program or other related efforts 

(e.g., market research, acquisitions, demonstrations, evaluations, exercises, experiments, prototypes, proof of concepts, pilots, numerical validations, operations, etc.) 

has the USAF taken to identify commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and 

services that can, in whole or in part, help satisfy the USAF’s needs for improved 

SSA and BMC2? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command and General Raymond as to the specifics of SSA/ESMBC2 acquisitions. Based on recent requests for information, however, it does not appear that 

a single commercial company or commercial capability can address the full set of 

ESBMC2 requirements. ESBMC2 is a complex challenge to overcome; this is why 

we continue to work closely with AFSPC and SMC to ensure operational equities 

are accounted for in the requirements definition process and to guide the delivery 

of capabilities to address the most critical operational needs first. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Have any commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services 

been identified that will help satisfy the USAF’s needs for improved SSA and 

BMC2? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command and General Raymond as to the acquisition of commercial SSA/ 

BMC2 software capabilities. However, my team is in lock-step with both Air Force 

Space Command and the Space and Missile Systems Center as they work toward 

an SSA/BMC2 solution that meets warfighter requirements to include incorporating 

commercial data through systems such as the Non-traditional Data Pre-Processor 

(NDPP). In addition, when the JICSpOC began in July 2015, we realized early no 

one set of tools for space protection was available. With the help of the 50th Space 

Wing, we brought commercial SSA and Battle Management Command and Control 

tools into the JICSpOC, and leveraged other commercial data providers to augment 

our SSA picture during experimentation. The lessons from experimentation have informed follow-on ESBMC2 acquisition planning. 

Mr. LAMBORN. In all of its efforts, including the RCO program and consortium, 

what is the USAF’s plan to prioritize the use of commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services to the maximum extent practicable first before then filling 

in any remaining operational gaps with government prototyping and redevelopment 

for the truly unique military requirements that don’t reside in the commercial marketplace? How is this prioritization reflected in the USAF’s current FY17 funding 

plan as well as in the proposed FY18 budget going forward through the FYDP? 
97 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command as to the acquisition of commercial SSA/BMC2 software capabilities and services and associated Air Force budget plans. We continue to work closely 

with both Air Force Space Command, Space and Missile Systems Center and the 

Air Force Research Lab toward an SSA/BMC2 solution that meets warfighter requirements. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Given that the USAF continues to not follow this prioritization on 

the JMS program, under the JEON, and with the NDPP, what steps are being 

taken to change this and ensure AFSPC, SMC, AFRL, RCO and all other supporting 

organizations follow through on this prioritization? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command and General Raymond as priorities of AFSPC, SMC, AFRL and 

RCO. JFCC SPACE will continue to work closely and provide feedback on the JMS 

program. 

Mr. LAMBORN. How do you plan to train and incentivize people to follow this prioritization and then hold them accountable, as necessary? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to Air Force 

Space Command and General Raymond as priorities and accountability of AFSPC, 

SMC, AFRL and RCO. JFCC SPACE will continue to work closely and provide feedback on the JMS program. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. HUNTER 

Mr. HUNTER. The FY17 NDAA requires DOD to avoid the use of LPTA source selection criteria in inappropriate circumstances that potentially deny DOD the benefits of cost and technical trade-offs in the source selection process. And yet DISA 

continues to use LPTA for commercial SATCOM acquisitions for critical national security missions such as the Army’s Blue Force Tracking, the Navy’s Commercial 

Broadband SATCOM program, and Air Force’s Airborne Intelligence Surveillance 

and Reconnaissance SATCOM requirements. Each of these missions and more require mission assurance in their satellite communication yet are being awarded 

under LPTA procurement methods without technical discrimination of information 

assurance, availability, reliability, etc. 

What steps are being taken to ensure mission critical warfighting services, like 

Commercial SATCOM, are performance based acquisitions with proper technical 

trade-offs rather than LPTA? What process is in place to adjudicate and report on 

the correct application of LPTA methodologies by DISA and other agencies? 

General RAYMOND. Acquisition agencies utilize an array of methods along the best 

value continuum in executing competitive procurements based on the number of 

considerations. At one end of the best value continuum, LPTA can be appropriate 

where requirements are well defined, the risk of unsuccessful contract performance 

is minimal, agency needs can be satisfied by meeting minimum threshold levels, and 

where the agency does not require paying higher costs for higher performance. In 

addition, LPTA also takes into consideration the use of a firm fixed price type contracts. Contract type often takes into account factors such as the size of the effort, 

the type of effort, the complexity of the requirement, the maturity of technology, and 

availability of the supplies or services in the commercial market place. For AFSPC 

efforts, the Space and Missile Systems Center continues to examine the use of LPTA 

versus a broader best-value tradeoff as part of the review process associated with 

Acquisition Strategy Documents and Source Selection Plans. Approaches such as a 

Value Adjusted Total Evaluated Price are being considered as an alternative that 

may protect open competition while valuing more varied capabilities presented by 

COMSATCOM operators. Each acquisition examines a variety of items including industry capabilities, technology maturity, risk, requirements, and other acquisition 

related factors when developing the acquisition strategy, selecting the contract type, 

and determining the competitive method of evaluation to satisfy requirements. 

When the acquisition strategy is briefed to senior leadership, rationale for using 

LPTA (or not) is discussed, as appropriate. 

Mr. HUNTER. The FY17 NDAA requires DOD to avoid the use of LPTA source selection criteria in inappropriate circumstances that potentially deny DOD the benefits of cost and technical trade-offs in the source selection process. And yet DISA 

continues to use LPTA for commercial SATCOM acquisitions for critical national security missions such as the Army’s Blue Force Tracking, the Navy’s Commercial 

Broadband SATCOM program, and Air Force’s Airborne Intelligence Surveillance 

and Reconnaissance SATCOM requirements. Each of these missions and more require mission assurance in their satellite communication yet are being awarded 
98 

under LPTA procurement methods without technical discrimination of information 

assurance, availability, reliability, etc. 

What steps are being taken to ensure mission critical warfighting services, like 

Commercial SATCOM, are performance based acquisitions with proper technical 

trade-offs rather than LPTA? What process is in place to adjudicate and report on 

the correct application of LPTA methodologies by DISA and other agencies? 

General BUCK. As Commander JFCC SPACE, I respectfully defer to DISA as to 

the LPTA methodologies used. Commercial services are critical to joint warfighters 

worldwide. In fact, JFCC SPACE has found immense value in partnering with commercial entities through our Commercial Integration Cell at the Joint Space Operations Center. Such relationships are vital to ensuring a broad range of information 

is available for critical warfighting services. 

Mr. HUNTER. The FY17 NDAA requires DOD to avoid the use of LPTA source selection criteria in inappropriate circumstances that potentially deny DOD the benefits of cost and technical trade-offs in the source selection process. And yet DISA 

continues to use LPTA for commercial SATCOM acquisitions for critical national security missions such as the Army’s Blue Force Tracking, the Navy’s Commercial 

Broadband SATCOM program, and Air Force’s Airborne Intelligence Surveillance 

and Reconnaissance SATCOM requirements. Each of these missions and more require mission assurance in their satellite communication yet are being awarded 

under LPTA procurement methods without technical discrimination of information 

assurance, availability, reliability, etc. 

What steps are being taken to ensure mission critical warfighting services, like 

Commercial SATCOM, are performance based acquisitions with proper technical 

trade-offs rather than LPTA? What process is in place to adjudicate and report on 

the correct application of LPTA methodologies by DISA and other agencies? 

Ms. SAPP. The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) uses the best value trade 

off process for nearly all its requirements. The best value source selection process 

allows the NRO to place greater emphasis on technical and other non-cost categories 

and select the proposals that offer the best solutions in terms of technical performance and cost. This approach encourages industry to provide innovative, high performing systems and quality services. More specifically, multiple recent NRO source 

selections have used evaluation criteria that clearly state that non-cost factors are 

either significantly more important or approximately equal to cost or price and that 

the Government may select other than the lowest proposed cost. To emphasize this 

approach, the DNRO introduced the Executable Contracts Initiative to improve acquisition outcomes and award contracts with attainable schedules and realistic 

prices. This initiative emphasizes investing in early acquisiton planning to create 

tighter Statements of Work to clearly define requirements, develop incentives that 

clearly reflect NRO priorities, use all contracting tools available, conduct thorough 

market research to ensure industry has both the capacity and capability to perform, 

emphasize cost realism not proposed cost, and conduct overall risk assesments that 

evaluate past performance, capabilities, cost, and schedule. The lowest priced technically acceptable process is rarely used by the NRO and is generally reserved for 

acquisitions with less complex technical requirements such as commodity or commercial goods and services. 

Mr. HUNTER. The FY17 NDAA requires DOD to avoid the use of LPTA source selection criteria in inappropriate circumstances that potentially deny DOD the benefits of cost and technical trade-offs in the source selection process. And yet DISA 

continues to use LPTA for commercial SATCOM acquisitions for critical national security missions such as the Army’s Blue Force Tracking, the Navy’s Commercial 

Broadband SATCOM program, and Air Force’s Airborne Intelligence Surveillance 

and Reconnaissance SATCOM requirements. Each of these missions and more require mission assurance in their satellite communication yet are being awarded 

under LPTA procurement methods without technical discrimination of information 

assurance, availability, reliability, etc. 

What steps are being taken to ensure mission critical warfighting services, like 

Commercial SATCOM, are performance based acquisitions with proper technical 

trade-offs rather than LPTA? What process is in place to adjudicate and report on 

the correct application of LPTA methodologies by DISA and other agencies? 

Mr. CARDILLO. The National Geospatial-lntelligence Agency (NGA) conducts 

source selections in a variety of ways in accordance with the Federal Acquisition 

Regulation (FAR). NGA may uses FAR part 15, ‘‘Contracting by Negotiations,’’ FAR 

Part 12, ‘‘Acquisition of Commercial Items,’’ or FAR part 13, ‘‘Simplified Acquisition 

Procedures,’’ depending on which approach best meets the need of the Government 

for a given set of requirements. 

Every acquisition is viewed independently. Each Contracting Officer (CO) has the 

fiduciary responsibility to weigh all options to determine which is in the best inter-
99 

est of the Government. The CO presents and justifies their approach to the Contracts Review Board, chartered by the Senior Procurement Executive. The criteria 

for determining whether to use Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) or best 

value trade-off include the importance of the need and the complexity of the requirement. NGA’s Acquisition Plans, Acquisition Strategies, and Negotiation Memorandums capture the CO’s decision and why LPTA or best value trade-off was chosen. 

Although NGA periodically sends funds to the Defense Information Systems Agency via Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests for various efforts, including 

Comsat/Transport Services, NGA does not provide direction or guidance and has no 

insight regarding how DISA manages its acquisition activities. 

Mr. HUNTER. The FY17 NDAA requires DOD to avoid the use of LPTA source selection criteria in inappropriate circumstances that potentially deny DOD the benefits of cost and technical trade-offs in the source selection process. And yet DISA 

continues to use LPTA for commercial SATCOM acquisitions for critical national security missions such as the Army’s Blue Force Tracking, the Navy’s Commercial 

Broadband SATCOM program, and Air Force’s Airborne Intelligence Surveillance 

and Reconnaissance SATCOM requirements. Each of these missions and more require mission assurance in their satellite communication yet are being awarded 

under LPTA procurement methods without technical discrimination of information 

assurance, availability, reliability, etc. 

What steps are being taken to ensure mission critical warfighting services, like 

Commercial SATCOM, are performance based acquisitions with proper technical 

trade-offs rather than LPTA? What process is in place to adjudicate and report on 

the correct application of LPTA methodologies by DISA and other agencies? 

Mr. HILL. DOD is complying with the referenced requirements of section 813 of 

the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (Public Law 114–328) 

(NDAA for FY 2017). The evaluation criteria for each commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) lease are considered independently based on a review of 

the requirement and consultation with the customer organization. The use of lowest 

price technically acceptable (LPTA) is determined to be appropriate when: the minimum requirements are clearly definable; the Government would realize minimal to 

no value from a proposal exceeding the minimum requirements; varying technical 

approaches would require little to no subjective judgment for acceptability; proposals 

would not result in the identification of factors that could provide value or benefit; 

and the price reflects full life-cycle costs. The LPTA source selection process is appropriate when best value is expected to result from selection of the technically acceptable proposal with the lowest evaluated price. (FAR 15.101–2(a)). Thus, in certain cases, this approach can yield great competitive value for the Government in 

meeting its well-defined requirements. Approximately 85 percent of the current 

COMSATCOM contracts procured through the Defense Information Systems Agency 

(DISA) are for transponded capacity, or pools of bandwidth supporting diverse missions over specific regions. Transponded capacity requirements are well-defined with 

established service-level agreements providing high availability and reliability 

standards that do not allow for value from a proposal exceeding the minimum requirements. The Government has been very well served by the highly competitive 

use of LPTA in appropriate cases. For example, in the specific cases of Blue Force 

Tracking and the Commercial Broadband Satellite Program (CBSP) Satellite Services Contract (CSSC), the basic requirement was for large amounts of satellite capacity, teleport services, and terrestrial backhaul. The specific performance standards, such as coverage and availability, continued to be well-defined as stated above. 

The competitive award of Blue Force Tracker in 2013 resulted in an estimated life 

cycle cost (LCC) savings of approximately $169.2M when compared to the predecessor contract. Similarly, the competitive award of the CSSC in 2016 resulted in 

an estimated LCC savings of approximately $139.5M. Performance on both of these 

contracts remains acceptable. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BRIDENSTINE 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Will JMS Inc 2 Full Deployment satisfy growing processing requirements associated with increased observations from new SSA sensors like Space 

Fence, ORS–5, etc, prior to delivery of ESBMC2? 

General RAYMOND. Yes, JMS Inc 2 will be able to support 3 million observations 

a day, 50+ million observations accessible in the database and a catalog of 100,000 

objects as required in the JMS Capabilities Development Document. These requirements were set for JMS to ensure it can handle the catalog capacity that is expected 

in the future. 
100 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Do you anticipate that JMS Inc2 Full Deployment will fulfill 

all SSA processing requirements from implementation until delivery of ESBMC2? 

If not, what is the USAF’s plan to mitigate this gap? Will COTS capabilities with 

mature TRLs be considered for timely and cost-effective implementation? 

General RAYMOND. No, JMS Inc 2 will replace legacy space situational awareness 

(SSA) capabilities and also includes SSA enhancements to include a TS/SCI catalog, 

increased system throughput to support Space Fence and other future sensors, and 

automation of many legacy capabilities. Other SSA enhancements such as an 

Electro-magnetic Spectrum Common Operating Picture and a Special Access Program enclave will be completed by ESBMC2. To facilitate the transition from JMS 

Inc 2 to ESBMC2, AFSPC initiated the Global Sensor Watch (GSW) program. GSW 

integrates the Space Surveillance Network by leveraging Element Sets produced by 

legacy C2 at Dahlgren, VA (current) and JMS Inc 2 in the future (once JMS is operationally accepted). The GSW architecture was built within the JMS AFRL ARCADE development environment and will directly connect to JMS and the BMC2 

Joint Emergent Operational Need (JEON) Spiral Capability sets. Collaboration has 

already begun between the SMC and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office 

(AFRCO) to ensure that these evolving SSA processing capabilities will continue to 

align with the future ESBMC2 architecture. Yes, the USAF will consider COTS capabilities with mature Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) for timely and cost-effective implementation. The Air Force will balance urgent operational needs with lifecycle costs, since JMS Increment 2 has shown that COTS capabilities may require 

significant time and investment in order to become an integrated piece of a comprehensive solution. The plan to mitigate the gap between the JMS Increment 2 

Full Deployment Decision and full delivery of ESBMC2 includes JEON ST–0006 and 

the AFRCO Operational Prototype. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The FY17 Defense Appropriations Bill appropriated $5M for the 

Commercial Weather Data Pilot Program. What is the status of the program? What 

is the anticipated overall timeline and budget for the pilot? 

General RAYMOND. The Air Force has appointed the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center as the Systems Programs Office to oversee the pilot program. The program is scheduled to initiate in July 2017, pending initial distribution of FY17 appropriations. Current plans are to leverage available space weather data sources to 

assess the viability of commercial satellite weather data in supporting DOD operations. The Air Force intends to complete industry solicitations by this summer and 

evaluate data quality and impacts to existing models used to characterize the natural space environment. This effort is expected to be completed by October 2018, 

using the FY17 funds. If funding were to be available in FY18 and beyond, additional evaluations could be initiated on commercial data sources from airborne and 

ground based sensors and their potential to improve global battlespace awareness 

and numerical weather prediction capabilities. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. How does your recent Space Flag exercise enhance our space 

warfighter capability? 

General RAYMOND. April 2017, we conducted a proof of concept exercise, Space 

Flag 17–1, with involvement from the 50th Space Wing, NSDC, JSpOC and Air 

Force Warfare Center. As a first event and proof of concept, we had modest goals 

for the exercise. However, the event was a huge success. We were able to exercise 

multiple crews from one of our operational space wings in a realistic threat scenario. 

They were able to develop new tactics, work on intelligence integration but most importantly, focus on fighting our systems in realistic threat environment. Our intent 

moving forward is to build on this success and have Space Flag events tied to each 

Space Mission Force training cycle. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The ability to provide responsive launch is a crucial aspect of 

space resilience. What efforts are being undertaken to ensure the nation has a range 

of flexible and responsive launch options that include expendable, partially reusable, 

and completely reusable assets? What funding levels are necessary to get a responsive launch capability demonstration program initiated? 

General RAYMOND. Flexibility and responsiveness are key parts of the Space 

Warfighting Construct. The foundation of our current architecture is fully expendable launch systems. Looking forward, the Space and Missile Systems Center has 

been actively engaged in continuing to expand the launch options for National Security Space. It is pursuing a number of initiatives including: new requirements for 

increased capabilities; multi-manifest (rideshare) opportunities in partnership with 

NASA; research and development of reusable launch systems; beginning to evaluate 

how to certify previously flown hardware and systems for future National Security 

Space launches; moving towards an Autonomous Flight Safety System; and leveraging allied capabilities in a contingency role for National Security Space launches. 

SMC is also partnering with NASA on a demonstration called Orbit Transfer Ele-
101 

ment to investigate a concept of operations to leverage lower cost launch capabilities 

by launching spacecraft to a Low-Earth Orbit and using other more efficient and 

cost effective technologies to move the spacecraft into a Geosynchronous Earth 

Orbit. We identified a Launch-on-Demand (LOD) system as a part of the Space Enterprise Vision architecture. However, a defined requirement for a demonstration 

program and associated funding cannot be established until an achievable roadmap 

to a future end-state and key enabling technologies are developed. The Small Payload Rideshare Association (SPRSA) held a workshop with SMC and the NRO to 

discuss rapid launch and LOD initiatives in April 2017. The workshop included industry members Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab, Orbital ATK, and X-Bow (pronounced 

Cross-Bow) Launch Systems. The goal of this workshop was to gain awareness of 

industry capabilities and timelines required to execute small Launch-on-Demand 

missions. The Air Force Launch Enterprise Directorate at SMC will independently 

meet with each company to discuss costs and planning required to meet DOD responsive/rapid launch concepts and desired capabilities. Additionally, Congress increased the Space Test Program’s budget this year by $15 million to explore procuring a Venture Class Launch service. The SMC team will work with the current 

Venture Class providers to demonstrate a rapid commercial launch of DOD research 

and development payloads to low earth orbit by the first quarter of FY19. This demonstration will provide insight into cost and capabilities available for future Launchon-Demand missions. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. As the SATCOM Pathfinders continue to progress are there any 

contracting obstacles that can inhibit success? For example, would a shift to multiyear contract authority (or another) help? If so, how? 

General RAYMOND. Currently, there are no contracting obstacles that inhibit Pathfinder success. Use of multi-year contract authority should not be a consideration 

as this time. It may be a consideration in the future if decisions are made to acquire 

all transponder communication capacity on several commercial satellites as a block 

type buy to meet warfighter protected tactical communication needs. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. What benefits would a NATO ally launch back-up provide? Are 

efforts underway to explore such options? What is the necessary funding to study 

the feasibility of back-up launch capability with NATO allies? 

General RAYMOND. Having a NATO ally launch capability could potentially provide access to space for critical national security space assets in the event of catastrophic incidents occurring within the United States that affect U.S. launch capability. Beginning in 2013, the Space and Missile Systems Center conducted an initial study into the possible use of allied launch systems by means of publicly available information. In the past 2 years, after deciding on Arianespace as a candidate 

ally launch system, SMC pursued an exchange of technical information with 

Arianespace in order to perform a study on the feasibility of their ability to provide 

a potential backup launch capability. The study is nearly complete and its findings 

are awaiting Air Force review. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Will JMS Inc 2 Full Deployment satisfy growing processing requirements associated with increased observations from new SSA sensors like Space 

Fence, ORS–5, etc, prior to delivery of ESBMC2? 

General BUCK. We look forward to JMS increment 2 reaching full operational capability, especially as new sensors come on-line. JMS Inc 2 is critical to incorporating data from these new sensors. As an example, we expect the Space Fence 

to provide a ten-fold increase in capabilities—moving from cataloging 23,000 object 

to over 100,000 objects—and a fully-operational JMS Inc 2 will be absolutely key 

in leveraging these new capabilities. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. Do you anticipate that JMS Inc2 Full Deployment will fulfill 

all SSA processing requirements from implementation until delivery of ESBMC2? 

If not, what is the USAF’s plan to mitigate this gap? Will COTS capabilities with 

mature TRLs be considered for timely and cost-effective implementation? 

General BUCK. JMS Inc 2 replaces our legacy space situational awareness (SSA) 

capabilities, some of which have been operational since the early 1990s, while also 

improving system throughput and automation. This is especially important as we 

look toward the IOC in early 2019 of the Space Fence and the projected increase 

in capability. ESMBC2 will expand upon JMS Inc 2 to include higher security levels 

and an enhanced common operating picture. The Air Force will certainly consider 

commercial capabilities to mitigate any gaps between the full delivery of JMS Inc 

2 and future ESBMC2 capabilities. We would expect to see similar possible solutions 

to that of the non-governmental SSA contract we are currently using to support the 

NSDC experimentation to address possible gaps between JMS and ESBMC2. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. How does your recent Space Flag exercise enhance our space 

warfighter capability? 
102 

General BUCK. Space Flag is a critical tool for providing advanced training under 

our Space Mission Force construct. Unlike a ‘‘Red Flag’’ multi-domain exercise, 

where space forces are typically employed in support of a larger air campaign, Space 

Flag allows space crews to learn how to fight their own weapon systems. Space Flag 

give crews specific, realistic, threat-based scenarios to ‘‘fight through.’’ Focusing on 

fighting their specific weapon systems helps operators move from an engineering, 

or service-provider mindset to a warfighting mindset. We intend to build and mature Space Flag events within the Space Mission Force construct. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The ability to provide responsive launch is a crucial aspect of 

space resilience. What efforts are being undertaken to ensure the nation has a range 

of flexible and responsive launch options that include expendable, partially reusable, 

and completely reusable assets? What funding levels are necessary to get a responsive launch capability demonstration program initiated? 

General BUCK. The ability to provide responsive launch is a crucial aspect of space 

resilience. What efforts are being undertaken to ensure the nation has a range of 

flexible and responsive launch options that include expendable, partially reusable, 

and completely reusable assets? What funding levels are necessary to get a responsive launch capability demonstration program initiated? Answer: As Commander 

JFCC SPACE, I would respectfully defer to Air Force Space Command and General 

Raymond on the acquisition and funding of space launch systems. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. The ability to provide responsive launch is a crucial aspect of 

space resilience. What efforts are being undertaken to ensure the nation has a range 

of flexible and responsive launch options that include expendable, partially reusable, 

and completely reusable assets? What funding levels are necessary to get a responsive launch capability demonstration program initiated? 

Mr. HILL. In light of the enduring and rapidly evolving threats to our space capabilities, we need to continue to improve operational responsiveness and resiliency 

across all space mission areas, including launch, to provide overall space mission assurance. DOD acquires space launch services from U.S. commercial providers, which 

are making many innovative investments to reduce costs and diversify options, including partially reusable capabilities and more responsive systems. DOD’s Fiscal 

Year 2018 investments focus on maintaining assured access to space by investing 

in the U.S. commercial launch base, and funding Research and Development, such 

as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Experimental Spaceplane 1, to mature and transition key technologies and operational processes for less 

expensive, responsive next-generation launch systems. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. What benefits would a NATO ally launch back-up provide? Are 

efforts underway to explore such options? What is the necessary funding to study 

the feasibility of back-up launch capability with NATO allies? 

Mr. HILL. The Department of Defense is required by statute and policy to launch 

National Security Space (NSS) payloads on U.S.-manufactured launch vehicles, unless the Secretary of the Air Force determines that there is a national security issue 

that precludes the use of U.S. commercial providers. Pursuant to the NDAA for FY 

2017, Section 1604, DOD is developing a plan to use allied launch vehicles to meet 

the requirements for achieving the policy relating to assured access to space set 

forth in section 2273 of title 10, U.S. Code, in the event that such requirements cannot be met, for a limited period, using only launch vehicles of the United States. 

Work on this plan is ongoing, is funded, and is on schedule for submission to Congress in September 2017. 

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