Those polled said that resiliency and cyber protection are the two most valued requirements for future milcom systems. The survey also found that there is widespread agreement that the current acquisition systems in place across the Air Force, Army, Navy and DoD are too creaky.

The vision itself isn’t the only thing that is needed, industry sources say. A concept of operations is required for how the Air Force will manage different user needs and interact with different industry providers. “The vision is out, but there is no concept of operations,” said one source.

“A lot of the challenges we face in space are big data problems,” says Gen. John Raymond, who is dual-hatted as commander of Space Command and Air Force Space Command.

Let’s not get too carried away. “We’ve got to earn our way to cislunar,” Will Roper said with a chuckle. “We’ve got to prove we can do LEO and GEO well.” Still, “this isn’t too far fetched.”

JMS was supposed to revolutionize how the US tracks objects in space. Its billion-dollar bust means the Air Force must revive SPADOC, a widely reviled vestige of the 1980s.

After years of missed deadlines, cost overruns and underperformance the Air Force has split the requirements for the troubled Joint Mission System program’s Increment 3, dividing them between the Coalition Space Operations Center and the National Space Defense Center. In a separate but apparently related action, the Air Force has also partnered with the nation’s spy satellite builder to create a new Space Situational Awareness satellite.

OMAHA: Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten today confirmed, more than two months after news first broke of a shift, that he’s ordered a series of sweeping changes at STRATCOM. Basically, he got rid of the Joint Functional Component Commands for space, global strike, cyber, integrated missile defense, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and whittled them… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The big news on the 2018 Air Force space budget: it grew at least $1.5 billion. That’s a large increase considering the total budget request is $10.4 billion. For perspective, the entire Defense Department space budget last year — known as the space Major Force Program — was $22 billion. The Air Force oversees the vast… Keep reading →

UPDATED: Adds AFSPC Head Raymond’s HASC Statement Confirming JFCC Elevation CAPITOL HILL: Buried in the minutiae of the Senate Armed Service’s Committee’s space hearing is an important shift for space warfighting and acquisition. Here it is: “… AFSPC/CC has been elevated to the Joint Force Component Commander for Space (JFCC Space) … in essence a 4-star… Keep reading →

SPACE SYMPOSIUM: If war breaks out between the United States and a competitor like China, it will almost certainly be fought in space, just as it would be fought on land, at sea and in the air, the head of Air Force Space Command said in an interview. “Space is a warfighting domain just like… Keep reading →