“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.

The Space & Missile Systems Center’s Space Enterprise Consortium has been so successful at providing competitive prototypes, fast, that SMC wants to expand its scope dramatically.

Wallis Laughrey, Raytheon Vice President for Space and Airborne Systems, says it is possible that the Air Force will keep both Raytheon and Northrop Grumman as Next-Gen OPIR GEO payload providers “if funding is available.”

The Trump Administration argues the HASC’s cuts to the defense policy bill would hamper missile detection and defense priorities.

“We work both sides” of DoD’s upstairs-downstairs approach to missile warning architectures in both high and low Earth orbits, says Wallis Laughrey, vice president of Raytheon Space Systems.

Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems division is planning to hire more than 5,000 people. “Over 2,000 last year, and over 2,000 in the next 18 months, and that’s likely to continue for the next four to five years,” Roy Azevedo says in our interview.

Next-Gen OPIR program is moving right along as Lockheed and Raytheon keep their heads down amid funding discussions between the Air Force and Congress.

“I don’t trust the Air Force, on its own, given its existing structure to properly prioritize space,” Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith says.

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.”