Space Acquisition - Air Force Space Command

• Establish quality program baseline/expectations and resources.
• Set minimum thresholds for technology maturity.
• Establish mission success as the guiding principle.
• Allow program managers to trade requirements if needed.
• Train and develop staff.
• Clearly define authority/accountability and responsibility
(including contractors).
• Develop robust systems engineering.
• Align contracts for success.
• Budget programs to 80 percent success.
• Schedule approaches to field needed capabilities rapidly.
• Utilize risk-based source selection.
• Pay attention to critical systems engineering processes
early in the program, before making key acquisition decisions.
• Reinstitute development planning.
• Establish key systems engineering/program manager personnel
experience and stability.
The recommended solutions generally address problems
at the resource level. Unfortunately, little has changed in response
to these studies and their recommendations. The collective
wisdom of these panels has been lost in the bureaucracy, or
“astropolitics,”—and quality recommendations have basically
gone unimplemented. 6 These well-meaning efforts have not
changed the environment in which program mangers operate.
This is unfortunate as most of the study panelists have been
recognized for leadership in their professions. They have had
a unique ability to shape their own personal and business environments,
creating conditions for tremendous success. The authors
have heard these leaders mention, in private conversation,
that they participate in an earnest and patriotic hope to improve
national space and defense efforts.
What should be done What should we study next Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates was on-target when he told
the Senate Armed Services Committee on 27 January 2009 that
repairing the defense acquisition system will take more than
another study. According to Secretary Gates, “Since World War
II, there have been nearly 130 studies [of procurement policy]
to little avail.” 7
Nearly all of the studies cite institutional and resource shortcomings,
inadequate budgets, insufficient institutional systems
engineering and engineering talent, weak program cost and
schedule reserves, volatile program funding, instable requirements,
and the like. While the studies addressed these issues
solidly and with sound prescriptions, they did not focus on
what program managers could do specifically to better acquire
a space system. A program manager must live with the reality
of resource issues, especially today when the Department
of Defense (DoD), US intelligence community, and National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) acquisition efforts
fight for priority with competing societal needs and a severely
damaged economy.
Limited Success of Tried Coping Strategies
Given the environment of long-standing resource limitations
and ever-evolving priorities, national space institutions have
explored various coping strategies, some of which achieved
modest success. However, these strategies did not solve the
over-arching issues partly because of their top-down resource
and management focus.
The early years of the National Reconnaissance Office
(NRO) provide a shining example of the establishment of a
lean, mean, and effective space acquisition program. The NRO
recognized the need for streamlined processes and procedures
that would enable it to speedily and effectively achieve its significant
national mission objectives. This produced intense
pressure to create tight, cohesive government management
teams. The rules for organizing these small management teams
were set out in Battle’s Laws, which, shown in figure 1, 8 were
crafted by the Corona/Discoverer satellite system director, Col
Lee Battle, as part of an early effort to achieve hard-hitting,
rapid success.
Battle's Laws
Listed more or less in their order of importance:
1. Keep the program office small and quick-reacting
at all cost.
2. Exercise extreme care in selecting people, then
rely heavily on their personal abilities.
3. Make the greatest possible use of space systems
development supporting organizations. You have
to make unreasonable demands to make sure of
this support.
4. Cut out all unnecessary paperwork.
5. Control the contractor by personal contact. Each
man in the program office has a particular set of
contractor contacts.
6. Hit all flight checkout failures hard. A fault uncorrected
now will come back to haunt you.
7. Rely strongly on contractor technical recommendations,
once the program office has performed its
function of making sure the contractor has given
the problem sufficient effort.
8. Don't over communicate with higher headquarters.
9. Don't make a federal case out of it if your fiscal
budget seems too low. These matters usually take
care of themselves.
10. Don't look back. History never repeats itself.
Figure 1. Battle’s Laws.
Battle’s Laws provided an important foundation for the
NRO’s early successes. A thoughtful examination reveals that
Battle’s Laws are all about organizing the government program
office. Early NRO management successes in acquisition, operation,
and sustainment of important satellite systems were
legendary, and they were accomplished through smart, lean,
well-funded, empowered program offices working together as
a tight-knit team with the best contractor teams in US industry.
The combined government and industry teams also had
the resources, gumption, mission, and the secrecy needed to
survive repeated failures until major successes were achieved.
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