Saltzman says U.S. Space Force will pursue ‘radical shift’ in acquisition, teases 2040 strategy
In the wake of a Pentagon-wide effort to speed up military acquisition, the head of the newest uniformed service outlined an aggressive vision to improve its acquisition policies.
Speaking Thursday at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said the Space Force would expand the decision-making power of a bolstered acquisition workforce and shift from seeking to buy a system’s end state to identifying a minimum viable product that can be steadily improved.
The current defense acquisition system, Saltzman said, works the way it was designed, but that design no longer makes sense.
“We’re in an era of exponential technological change,” he said. “The acquisition systems and practices we’ve used in the past are simply not suited to allow us to compete and win in today’s strategic landscape. It must change if we want to maintain our edge.”
Saltzman attended Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Nov. 7 address on acquisition reform, which he called a “unique window of opportunity” that emphasized change as a “composite team effort.” Saltzman noted there will be discomfort, particularly in cutting down testing requirements and doing away with established processes like the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System, better known as JCIDS, which the Pentagon formally dissolved in August.
“The way we field systems, in terms of testing, is going to create new levels of discomfort for assurance of mission. Are we ready to take on those uncomfortable feelings, take on the awkwardness of saying this is going to be done differently? We’re going to be unanchored, unmoored for a little bit as we explore a better way to do this,” Saltzman said. “This has to be a radical shift, a fundamental change, and it comes with a lot of uncomfortable situations.”
With the goal of eliminating the “end state” in requirements, Saltzman aims to field equipment more quickly while offering more latitude to Space Force acquisition professionals and contractors to “make trades and deliver quickly on systems that solve warfighter problems.”
That approach is at odds with how the Pentagon has historically purchased weapon systems.
“We say, ‘What’s the threat, what’s the grandest thing we can think of. How are we going to tackle this?’” he said. “We write these 20-year, visionary kinds of requirements for these systems, and then it’s really hard to put them in place. I’m trying to constrain the minimum number of requirements that, if satisfied, deliver incremental improvements on what we have now at a reasonable cost, and how do we get it in the hands of the operators faster.”
Space Force is preparing to release a 15-year strategy document, Objective Force 2025, that Saltzman said his staff is due to submit to him at the end of the year. On Thursday, he revived the previously teased concept of Space Futures Command as a center for threat analysis and identification of needs. That command, he said, would be responsible for updating the Objective Force strategy at regular intervals.
“Objective Force will be a very detailed document – think spreadsheets,” Saltzman said. “Here are the systems that we believe need to be in place in the next 15 years, now and into the future, in order to continue to do the missile warning that we want. It’ll be a list of the kind of systems, broad-based understandings of the systems — some that exist, some that are in development and some that haven’t started yet to get to a future state.”
The document, he said, would help Space Force determine whether it needs additional bases and squadrons to fulfill its mandate and allow industry to understand the service’s needs.
Saltzman added that industry capabilities in space are helping Space Force think differently about risk and the value of prioritizing speed over perfection.
“Once you say you’re going to tech-refresh your on-orbit constellation faster, you have fewer regrets if you get something a little wrong,” Saltzman said, “which allows you to think differently about the risk of putting something on orbit.”
