“This is not going to be helpful over on the Hill,” one former congressional staffer said of SDA’s $11 billion, five-year draft budget. “In fact, it could put the final nails in SDA’s coffin.”

“We are the ones that say this is what needs to be done” to build a next-gen space architecture, says SDA Acting Director Derek Tournear. Except when they don’t.

Scrapping Boeing’s Redesigned Kill Vehicle program — which was put on hold in March — will kick off a new effort to build a modernized generation of ballistic missile interceptors.

“What I want to bet on is the ability of the United States and our Western allies to out-innovate adversaries,” says Mike Griffin, undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering.

Presumptive Deputy Defense Secretary Norquist pledged to “revise budget review timelines and data collection standards to maximize senior leader decision-making quality and timing.”

The RFI explains that SDA is looking to potential contractors to supply “concepts for rapid prototyping, risk-reduction efforts that could be demonstrated in less than 18 months” that link to its proposed architecture.

Insiders say dysfunction within Griffin’s office is creating concerns within the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

SDA Director Fred Kennedy steps down, amid turmoil within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin.

“My integrity and belief in SCO’s mission is more important to me than my friendship over many years with Mike (Griffin).”

CSIS’s Todd Harrison, who supports the proposal, says his odds on the Space Force being fully approved by Congress this year are currently “slightly less than 50 percent.”