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.

“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.”

The R3D2 spacecraft’s cutting-edge antenna is “compressed into a small volume and then blooms on orbit,” explains Northrop Grumman’s Scott Stapp.

The sea services have their own space specialists, but those personnel don’t only work on space — so who stays and who goes?

Large networks of small, cheap satellites derived from commercial technology would be harder for China or Russia to kill than a handful of expensive, exquisite military-unique birds. But who gets to build it?

As commercial activities such as mining expand from Earth to the Moon, there will be “a need for the equivalent to a Navy or Air Force” to protect that region of space, says SDA chief Fred Kennedy.

Venture capital funds are pouring money into space start-ups — including a number of firms being eyed by DoD –with investment in 2018 hitting a record high of $3.2 billion.