The Air Force is reorganizing its space acquisition office to better support the Space Force and other new space entities, but there are still questions surrounding exactly how the Pentagon will consolidate its space procurement.
Earlier this month the Air Force revamped its space acquisition shop by splitting it into three directorates.
“We have gone from an organization that was largely focused on policy and providing advice and counsel to the Air Force secretary to one that is now focused on, or will be focused on, acquisition, architecture, and then policy and integration,” Shawn Barnes, who is performing the duties of Air Force assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration, told reporters last week.
The three directorates are each run by a colonel and will focus on the three areas Barnes mentioned: acquisition, architecture, and policy and integration.
“Underlying those three key directorates,” Barnes said. “I have a number of subject matter experts that effectively work for all three of those directorates. They’re set up into different teams based on mission areas. We have a mission area related to precision navigation, timing and communications. We have a team that is focused on space control, a team that is focused on launch in space logistics, and then a team that’s focused on space control.”
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However, data GAO collected and aggregated from multiple DoD space acquisition organizations show that at least 8,000 personnel in multiple locations nationwide were working on space acquisition activities at the end of 2017.
