Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Tuesday [March 12, 2019] officially established the Space Development Agency as a separate organization within the Department of Defense that will be led by Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin.
“The SDA will unify and integrate the development of space capabilities … to reduce overlap and inefficiency,” Shanahan wrote. The agency also will be responsible to promote “government-commercial relationships and international collaboration with key allies and partners, leveraging commercial and allies apace technology when practical.” It will also work with warfighters to “address operational requirements.”
The agency’s director will have special authorities as a “senior procurement executive,” said the memo, which includes the ability to enter into “transactions other than contracts, cooperative agreements, grants, research projects, and prototype projects.” The director also can exercise available special authority to hire civilian employees, including limited-term appointments of highly qualified experts.
That was from Space News.
Speculation was that the SDA would be set up as a separate service underneath the Department of the Air Force, just like the Marine Corps is a service under the Department of the Navy. The other option seemed to be creating a Space Force with its own Department and Secretary. Well, it appears that the SDA became more like the first, a service without a Department, but it was placed underneath USD(R&E) instead.
Shanahan seemed to have USD(R&E) Michael Griffin and SecAF Heather Wilson compete over who would run the Space Development Agency:
Shanahan in a Sept. 10 memo asked Griffin and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson to submit separate proposals for how to create a Space Development Agency. Wilson suggested it should be organized under existing structures, such as the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, and cautioned that a separate Pentagon agency would create inefficiency and would be disconnected from space operators in the field.
The Space Development Agency will appear to be treated much like the Missile Defense Agency, both directors serve the role of a component acquisition executive. Interestingly enough, the Department of the Navy only has one component acquisition executive for both the Navy and Marine Corps. SDA, therefore, will be something with more procurement autonomy than the Marine Corps, but perhaps less than a full Department, because its director will report to USD(R&E).
Discussion of organizational design.
It appears that USD(A&S), which is the Defense Acquisition Executive, is still ultimately in charge of the acquisition process. This means that component acquisition executives, such as for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and now SDA, must abide by the policies set by USD(A&S). Now, the formal chain of command for acquisition matters appears to be:
program manager → program executive officer (PEO) → component acquisition executive (e.g., SDA) → head of component [e.g., USD(R&E)] → defense acquisition executive [USD(A&S)] → DepSecDef → Secretary of Defense.
The Army acquisition executive’s direct line of responsibility is to the Secretary of the Army. Similarly, the Space Development Agency’s director reports to USD(R&E). But again, USD(A&S) is subordinate only to the DepSecDef and SecDef on acquisition matters. It appears that USD(A&S) does not need to send orders through the DepSecDef and back down to the component heads. It controls the creation of new ACAT programs over a certain threshold, decides whether to delegate authority, and maintains the ability to intervene if necessary.
For science & technology, a similar chain of authority could be drawn but USD(R&E) sets top policy under the authority of DepSecDec/SecDef. So rather than program executive offices following USD(A&S) policy, the technology labs under the component acquisition executives would follow USD(R&E) policy.
The formal hand-off between technology labs and the PEOs, mirrored by the hand-off between USD(R&E) and USD(A&S), is when the system is supposed to enter development with intention to enter operations. This is supposedly at Milestone A // RDT&E budget activity 6.4. For many space systems, that hand-off is probably closer to something like a Milestone B // BA 6.5.
Notice that all of the development in the “Space Development Agency” formally follows the policy of USD(A&S), in theory making it’s authority superior to USD(R&E) for most of its control of the SDA. Frank Kendall ensured that USD(A&S) had under its purview all of development, production, and O&M. If USD(R&E) stuck to basic research and experimental prototyping, Kendall said, “I’m fine with that.”
But clearly, Shanahan intended USD(R&E) to have a great deal of autonomy from the traditional acquisition processes under USD(A&S).
Now, often times USD(A&S) will delegate its responsibility for acquisition decisions to the component procurement executive, who will then take instructions from the component head (e.g., Secretary of the Army) on milestone decisions, funding, and so forth. USD(A&S) often retains for itself management of major “joint” programs, such as strategic systems, classified as ACAT ID programs.
For space acquisition, it seems that space will be “auto-delegated,” as it were, to the SDA. That would ensure that USD(R&E) will be responsible for milestone approvals and not USD(A&S), like what is done for ACAT IC and lower programs.
But it would seem that USD(R&E) and USD(A&S) are still not “separate but equal” undersecretaries. Almost all of USD(R&E)’s activities involve acquisition either directly (e.g., SDA, MDA) or indirectly (e.g., DARPA). That means USD(R&E) is only as independent as USD(A&S) is willing to allow it to be, or, however the political climate at DepSecDef and above may be. If USD(A&S) decides more coordination is needed on sustainment (such as how satellites interact with vehicles, ships, and drones), it could potentially overrule many of USD(R&E)’s decisions, or it can simply disapprove the progress of programs onto new stages.
The SDA activities seem a bit different than the other activities under USD(R&E).
One the one hand, the Missile Defense Agency looks more like a “single-service” program because it didn’t provide services (like satellite communications) to land, sea, and air forces. It doesn’t need the same central coordination over joint operations.
On the other hand, DARPA does require coordination with other components, but it focuses on science & technology prior to the initiation of the program of record, when it would come under USD(A&S)’s authority.
So most of USD(R&E)’s activities are prior to USD(A&S)’s involvement (pre-Milestone A), or do not require multi-stakeholder coordination. This has kept the policies of the two undersecretaries more clearly delineated in the recent past.
The SDA is something new. Shanahan stood it up in order to better coordinate joint service needs for space technology. But that coordination is required in satellite development in order to support future military operations across the DOD. If you put SDA underneath USD(R&E), who doesn’t otherwise participate in acquisition (sticking mostly to science & technology), then it would appear that the SDA may very well neglect the needs of its sister services unless USD(A&S) constrains USD(R&E).
For example, would the SDA be in charge of all user equipment and ground terminals as well as space vehicles? Wouldn’t that mean it is in charge of delivering GPS military user equipment to the Army’s JLTV, the Navy’s Burke destroyers, and the Air Force’s B-2 bomber? And doesn’t USD(A&S) have the primary voice on those platforms?
Inter-service rivalry.
The Air Force was broken off from the Army in 1947 because it promised greater efficiency, but then went ahead and completely neglected the close air support mission for the Army. The Air Force never wanted the A-10, and is trying its best to kill any reasonable replacement. If the Air Force was given control of naval aircraft, as it desired, then it is very likely that naval aviation would have suffered tremendously.
New agencies can build more efficient cultures and can avoid the previous pattern of biases that may stifle technology growth. However, new agencies eventually create biases of their own. And they also require additional control mechanisms in order to keep their operations integrated. Is that integration the responsibility of the DepSecDef, the Chief Management Officer, USD(A&S), or someone else?
The problem with organizational thinking in the Department of Defense is that they are always looking for straight-line hierarchies with zero redundancy. All space development should be handled by the SDA, for example. This means that the DOD wants to eliminate internal competition over missions and requirements. Only one agency can pursue any given mission or set of requirements.
Yet the problem is that when you have zero redundancy, you not only run the risk of falling into “groupthink” where perfectly valid concepts are rejected due to an honest disbelief of the efficacy. You also run the risk of not being able to recognize that you are making errors.
Having multiple separate agencies able to pursue competing projects, and bring them into fruition, is not wasteful. It generates new knowledge that wasn’t available in the planning stage. It also provides for an experimental control of sorts. The competing programs allow you to detect errors and bad programs, and shift resources into the good programs. As it happens now, because we have no relevant competitor (i.e., comparison), resources are shifted into the poorest programs in order to cover cost growth and performance deficiencies.
Setting up a Space Development Agency under USD(R&E) sounds like a good idea. However, placing all space development in the SDA sounds like a bad one. Just like the Navy was able to keep the Marine Corps from the prying hands of the Army, and its naval arm from the Air Force, I believe that the Air Force should be able to keep a limited capacity to do space work as a competitor to the SDA. The role of inter-service competition, however, must be clarified in relation to USD(A&S), whose association with USD(R&E) is still unclear.
It is not only on the supply side in the defense industry that we want to keep up competition. We need competition on the demand side. We need to forestall a monopsony in military space development, and ultimately, that may require USD(A&S) to tolerate conflicting or duplicative programs across services.
Perhaps the cleanest way about it is to provide USD(R&E) purview over the entire RDT&E process/funding, and allow USD(A&S) to select which programs enter production and operations. That way you avoid these awkward questions.
[Addendum: FY 2020 NDAA will create the Space Corps as a separate service underneath the Air Force; it will be separate from the SDA under USD(R&E) and will help equip US Space Command.]
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