Sustain and Surveil, Protect and Partner

Published May 12, 2009

Thank you for that warm welcome. This is a great forum for pulling together our diverse space community in one place, and I appreciate your efforts to hold this conference each year.

I grew up in southern California; many of our friends and neighbors worked in the space industry. So from rockets to satellites, I've always been fascinated with America's space programs. It's a real honor to be here today to talk about the next space age - especially when the "first" space age was so inspirational to me as a kid.

On the other hand, it's never easy to be the very last speaker on the very last day of the conference - so my strategy is to keep my remarks short and sweet. Hopefully we can get tonight's reception started a little early!

On the way here, I was reminded that it was exactly 50 years ago today that NASA selected our Project Mercury astronauts - all of whom were military officers. Cooper, Grissom and Slayton came to NASA by way of the Air Force; Schirra, Shepard and Carpenter by way of the Navy; and Glenn by way of the Marine Corps.

Could all of the astronauts who are here today please stand up? I know we have a few here today ... thank you for all you have done to advance space exploration.

Like those here today, our early astronauts formed a Joint team - and since they worked for civilian-run NASA, that Joint team had an interagency flair. From the very beginning, America's space enterprise unfolded as a domain of inherently Joint and interagency partnerships. The same holds true now. joint, interagency, commercial and International partnerships are crucial in the domain of space.

Leveraging the potential of space has come a long way since NASA picked America's first astronauts, and this symposium is a perfect example. This week, you've heard from all corners about "where we are" as a space community - and also "where we're headed." You've talked about the exciting opportunities that lay in front of us - and some of the hard work it will take to get there.

As you close out a productive week, I want to discuss the fundamentals that will underpin our collective journey into this next space age. Sustainment, surveillance, protection and partnerships are the four cornerstones of our collective space progress - and all are important.

Sustaining our current space enterprise means developing and fielding capabilities to continue today's space services. On this front, I am happy to report some "good news!"

Over the next two years, we will deliver several new satellites, such as Global Positioning System IIF, Advanced Extremely High Frequency, Space Based Space Surveillance, and GEO 1 Space Based Infrared System. Recapitalization and modernization programs like these are critically important, as they ensure that the United States and its Allies retain a strategic advantage in missions like missile warning; space situational awareness; protected and wideband communications; and positioning, navigation and timing.

Clearly, your "back to basics" approach is yielding results. And thanks to the dedicated efforts of many in this room, not only are we fielding new satellites, we are also experiencing great success in space launch. In fact, national security space just had its 60th consecutive successful space launch of a medium or heavy satellite with the launch of a GPS II R-M satellite on March 24, 2009.

As we move forward, we need to be mindful that the "spigot of defense spending ... is tightening." This means that affordability and technology maturity must be key attributes of all our acquisition programs - to include space. Affordability and technology maturity apply not only to satellites and payloads, but also to terminals and supporting infrastructure.

Of course, new space capabilities don't just show up on their own. Fielding space systems and supporting architectures requires a robust industrial base; an educated and well-managed military, civilian and commercial space workforce; and effective partnerships across Joint, interagency, and international seams.

For decades, our space industrial base has met the evolving needs of its military, civilian, commercial and international customers. And in the last 15 years, the landscape has changed dramatically -- several prime contractors have merged, and fewer sub-contractors are available. As a result, certain areas of our space industrial base need strengthening - especially when it comes to designing and manufacturing specialized components, as well as maturing key technologies. Mitigating risks within the industrial base is a cross-agency and national concern, and an area where we can work together to develop a cross-agency response. After all, a robust space enterprise depends on a robust supply chain. We're all in this together.

We also must ensure that we are attracting the right mix of technical and engineering savvy to our space workforce. As the stewards of today's space enterprise, it's up to us to help younger generations get ready to take the reins of our national space programs - and it all starts with robust science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, education programs. So Elliot [Elliot Pulham, Space Foundation chief executive officer] , I'd like to personally thank you and the entire Space Foundation team for your committed leadership in this arena. You are tireless advocates of STEM education - all the way from grade school to grad school! And you don't stop there - symposia like this one help the space workforce remain lifelong learners.

To each of you here today, thank you too for your tremendous mentorship of new and future generations of space professionals! Whether it's supporting youth rocket contests, helping our cadets design the next Falcon at or setting up brown bag lunch seminars at your workplace, your individual efforts make a tremendous cumulative difference. So thank you.

Surveillance is the second cornerstone of the "next space age" - one that also requires our institutional emphasis and collective contributions. More than 40 different countries now have spacecraft, so it's in everyone's best interests for us to contribute to a robust, timely and integrated architecture for Space Situational Awareness, or SSA.

Today, there are about 19,000 objects in space. Many are in low-earth orbit where our most precious mission - manned space flight - operates. Yet our collective capacity for monitoring these objects and avoiding collisions needs strengthening - the recent conjunction is merely an example of a larger, more systemic problem.

The Air Force, along with our Joint partners, has several efforts underway to enhance our capabilities for SSA. Guiding our work is a need to move beyond today's capability of a static catalog to a "next space age" capability for tracking and classifying space objects. To move toward "what's next" in space, we must enhance sensor coverage and sensitivity, as well as improve data integration and delivery. We need to field more capable sensors into our SSA architecture and better integrate and manage data from existing sensors.

Programs like Rapid Attack Identification Detection Reporting System, Space Based Space Surveillance, the Space Fence, Integrated SSA and Self-Awareness SSA are all important contributors, and the Commercial-Foreign Entity Pilot Program is a key part of our vision. Our intent is to build an integrated SSA network - one that better maintains continuous custody of space objects, supports more robust assessments of capability and intent, and helps us to straightforwardly differentiate attack from anomaly.

Whether you hail from defense, civilian or commercial organizations, all of us have equity in space surveillance. So as we move forward with the CFE pilot program, we need to consider how to strengthen partnerships across the many organizations so that all can contribute their capabilities and expertise to a challenge that affects us as a community.

The third cornerstone of the next space age is protection, which focuses on the ability of the United States and its coalition partners to retain freedom of action in space.

Last year, for example, the Air Force worked closely with the National Reconnaissance Office to initiate the Space Protection Program. This program establishes a systematic process for reviewing the survivability of our spaceborne assets and supporting architectures - and then mitigating risks. Enhancing our ground stations, hardening our satellites, and continuing to improve our capacity for operationally-responsive space solutions are key elements of our space protection strategy, and additional solution sets are likely to emerge.

From the ubiquitous use of GPS to forecasting natural disasters to providing early warning, space capabilities are important. We simply cannot leave critical vulnerabilities unaddressed.

Space has always been a domain where cooperation has been critical to success, so I see partnership as the fourth and final cornerstone of the next space age. When we share best practices and resources, we strengthen the space enterprise as whole.

Our partnership with Australia on the Wideband Global Satellite constellation is an example how we can build greater levels of cooperation into national and International space enterprises - and we will build on this momentum for space situational awareness.

Similarly, we signed terms of reference on space cooperation with the United Kingdom in January 2009, and planning is underway for the first US-UK senior steering group. This builds on our existing partnership with the UK, Canada and The Netherlands for AEHF - and moves the goalpost of international space cooperation forward.

We are also in the process of developing terms of reference for enhancing space cooperation with Canada and France. All of these are important milestones in our efforts to strengthen international partnerships for space activities.

Air Force Space Command also recently completed its fifth "Schriever series" future wargame with allied participation. One of the objectives of "Schriever V" is to explore ways the United States can enhance cooperative efforts with our allies, coalition partners and commercial providers to assure space capabilities.

Today, over 10,000 Air Force space professionals ensure the viability and safety of our on-orbit systems and supporting infrastructure - including more than 1,900 Airmen who work in Joint and interagency positions. They are the primary providers and integrators of space-based capabilities for national leaders and combatant commanders, and the demand for their talent continues to increase. Our Airmen seek to be good stewards of the space enterprise, and they realize that good stewardship hinges on effective collaboration with the many DOD, interagency, federal, commercial and international partners with space equity. After all, it is only through robust and productive collaboration that our collective space community will be able to advance to the "next space age." The Air Force is fully committed to strengthening partnerships across the military, civilian, commercial and International space enterprises.

From sustainment to surveillance ... from protection to partnership ... many of you here today are already hard at work on the very building blocks of our next space age. I appreciate your contributions - you do the hard work of turning vision into reality.

As I close, I want to commend the Space Foundation for putting together a terrific event, and pulling together such as diverse set of perspectives about our collective space future. Whether you come from the military, civilian or commercial side of the space business, the work you do is vitally important not just for America or your home countries, but also for advancing the knowledge and progress of humankind. And although we have been operating in space for decades, space remains the "ultimate high ground," one that captures the imagination and hearts of all who have pondered its limits. You provide a tremendous service to the world - so thank you for all you do!