Generally, DOD’s S&T community (which includes DOD laboratories and testing facilities as well as contractors and academic institutions that support these facilities) conducts research and develops technologies to support military applications, such as satellites or weapon systems. Like the acquisition community in DOD, the S&T community uses RDT&E funds, but the S&T community’s work precedes the acquisition cycle. Weapon system program managers, who receive most of DOD’s RDT&E budget, apply generic technologies to specific systems. Figure 1 highlights activities the S&T community is involved in along with the RDT&E budget categories, or “activities,” which are used to fund these efforts. More details on both are provided in appendixes I and II. The S&T community carries out its work within the first three categories of research and development listed above. DOD has specified that the work within the fourth category—testing and evaluation of prototypes of systems or subsystems in a high fidelity or realistic environment—involves efforts before an acquisition program starts product development. However, according to DOD officials, it is assumed that either the S&T community or an acquisition program may carry out this work, and traditionally, weapon system acquisition programs have taken on technology development within this stage. After this point, any additional development is to be completed as part of a formal acquisition or product development phase under the authority of the weapon system manager and apart from the S&T community. The DOD DDR&E is responsible for the overall direction, quality, and content of the agency’s S&T efforts. Each of the military departments— Army, Air Force, and Navy—has its own S&T programs, as do DOD organizations such as DARPA, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, MDA, and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The DOD Executive Agent for Space—who is also the space milestone decision authority for all space major defense acquisition programs, the Under Secretary of the Air Force, and the Director of the NRO—also influences S&T efforts for space since he decides whether significant investments in space systems are to move forward in the development process. There are mechanisms within the space community and DOD designed to ensure S&T efforts are coordinated and are focused on achieving broader goals and that redundancy is minimized. Within the space community, a forum called the Space Technology Alliance was established in 1997 to coordinate the development of space technologies with an eye toward achieving the greatest return on investment. Its membership includes the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, MDA, DARPA, and NRO. At the DOD-wide level, there is a Defense Science and Technology Strategy, which lays out goals for DOD-wide S&T efforts based on goals set by higher-level documents, such as the Quadrennial Defense Review. This strategy is used, in turn, to develop a DOD-wide basic research plan, which reflects DOD’s objectives and planned investments for basic research conducted by universities, industry, and laboratories and a DOD-wide technology area plan, which does the same for applied research and advanced technology development. There is also a Joint Warfighting S&T Plan, which ties S&T projects to priority future joint warfighting capabilities identified by higher-level documents. These overall plans, in turn, are used by DOD laboratories to direct investments in S&T. They are also used by the Office of the Secretary of Defense to provide guidance to the military departments and the defense agencies as they develop and vet their proposed budgets. In addition, DOD puts together teams of outside experts in 12 technology areas to assess whether particular investments across DOD’s S&T community are redundant or unnecessary. These are known as Technology Area Reviews and Assessments. The teams make recommendations to a board comprised of senior DOD S&T officials and chaired by the DDR&E for action to terminate, adjust, and/or enhance investments to better align the S&T program to comply with the planning document guidance. The DDR&E, which reports to the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), has oversight of the RDT&E budget activities used to research and develop new technologies, specifically, RDT&E budget activities 1 (basic research), 2 (applied research), and 3 (advanced technology development). Recently, the DDR&E was given oversight of RDT&E budget activity 4 (advanced component development and prototypes) in an effort to ensure this development had sufficient oversight from the S&T community. The act required DOD to develop a strategy for its space S&T efforts that identified short- and long-term space S&T goals; a process for achieving the goals, including an implementation plan; and a process for assessing progress made toward achieving the goals. The act also required DOD to coordinate its strategy development efforts. The strategy, yet to be delivered to the Congress at the time of our review, met four of nine requirements, and plans are in place to meet the remaining five. We found that the strategy provides a foundation for enhancing coordination among space S&T efforts since it does specify overall goals and that it establishes several mechanisms to help senior leaders gauge whether investments are focusing on those goals. However, since the strategy has only recently been issued, it is too early to assess whether the direction and processes outlined in the strategy will be effective in supporting and guiding future space S&T efforts. The strategy identified goals for space S&T along six main areas—assured access to space, responsive space capability, assured space operations, spacecraft technology, information superiority, and S&T workforce. Except for the goal of enhancing the workforce, the strategy laid out short- term goals (within 5 years) and long-term goals (in the year 2020 or beyond). Under spacecraft technology, for example, the strategy identified a short-term goal of on-orbit assessment of satellite servicing and repair and long-term goals of on-orbit assembly, deployment, repair, and upgrades. Under assured space operations, the strategy identified a short- term goal of detecting, identifying, and characterizing natural and man- made objects in space and a long-term goal of complete space situational awareness. According to S&T community officials we spoke with, the mere identification of goals should be useful in helping DOD laboratories and other S&T facilities to direct their investment as this type of guidance had not been provided for space previously. The strategy also establishes several mechanisms for implementation. Primarily, it calls for semiannual space S&T summit meetings to coordinate user expectations, highlight technologies, provide guidance, and establish priorities. DDR&E officials, agency S&T executives as well as Service Program Executive Officers for Space who will ultimately transition new capabilities, and major command leadership will attend these meetings. The strategy also implements an Industry Independent Research and Development coordination conference, where industry and government officials can come together to collaborate in their S&T planning activities. Details on both of these mechanisms are still being worked out, according to the developers of the strategy. The strategy also identifies some tools and measures that will be used to track progress in meeting goals. These tools and measures include “technology roadmaps,” which identify timelines, milestones, and transition dates for specific projects as well as interdependencies with other projects and “technology readiness level” (TRL), an analytical tool that assesses the maturity level of technology. Our prior work has found TRLs to be a valuable decision-making tool since it can presage the likely consequences of incorporating a technology at a given level of maturity into a product development. Appendix III details criteria for each TRL. In addition, DOD has plans in place to ensure that the strategy is reviewed and revised, as necessary, annually and that it be made publicly available for review by congressional defense committees. Other DOD S&T entities will be provided the strategy to support the planning, programming, and budgeting processes. DOD also plans to include the strategy as an annex to the National Security Space Plan, even though the plan is thought to be a lower-level tactical document and not a strategic document. The developers of the strategy worked with a wide range of organizations in establishing goals, measures, and implementation plans. These include military department laboratories, DARPA, intelligence agencies, MDA, the Air Force Space Command, NASA, the Space and Missile Systems Center, the U.S. Strategic Command, the National Security Space Office, and others. Officials within the space community we spoke with commented that it has historically been difficult to gain agreement from these organizations. Even though they all have ties to space, these organizations have different views as to what overall goals the space community should strive for and how they should be achieved. According to officials within the space community we spoke with, just getting these organizations to work together and to gain agreement was a significant benefit to the community at large since it helped foster more collaborative working relationships and greater knowledge sharing. In addition to the requirements specified by the act, we found that optimizing space S&T efforts also depends on whether (1) the strategy is clearly linked to other strategies and plans; (2) all DOD space S&T efforts are covered by the strategy; and (3) the strategy identifies metrics beyond TRLs that focus on success. Linkage to other strategies and plans is important to providing clear guidance to S&T laboratories and other organizations making investments since there are a number of DOD-wide “strategies” for S&T as well as a number of space-related higher level strategic plans as well as tactical plans relating to S&T. Coverage of all space S&T efforts is important since S&T is carried out not only by DOD laboratories but also by large acquisition programs and other agencies that have a large stake or investment in space S&T.