Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing Examines National Security Space Assets 20170530

To join us here today and before i introduce them, though, i want to take a moment to acknowledge that while i cant imagine there being a better place to work than the Strategic Forces subcommittee apparently somebody thinks theres a better job in washington, d. C. We this is the last hearing that steve will be in the current position, he is leaving us to go to work for secretary of defense, to be the assistant secretary of defense for space policy. And our loss is the secretarys gain. So were going to miss him. Hes been with a long time. Did a great job and will do a great job for our country in the new capacity, as well, so good luck, buddy. Today we have some witnesses that are very familiar to this committee. General john jay raymond, Commander Air force Space Command. Commander ray buck for space. Betsy sapp, director of National Reconnaissance office and robert cardillo, director of national geospay shallintelligence agency. John heel for defense and space policy. And after we finish this unclassified testimony, and questions and questions, well adjourn to a closed session in an appropriately secure fashion. Secretary mattis confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Earlier this year, his official testimony stated, quote, while our military maintains capable air, land and sea forces, the cyber and space domains demand an increasing share of our attention and investment. Closed quote. Now, i fully agree with the secretarys statement. Our military and Intelligence Leaders have been clear in their warnings. Some going back many years. That our use of space could be taken away from us in the next military conflict. However, we have not moved with conviction and urgency to respond to the warnings and this has left us with a growing crisis to confront in outer space. While i had the full faith and confidence in each of our expert witnesses today, i do not have faith in the tangled bureaucratic structure they must work with. China is advancing rapidly in space and Counter Space and established a new military organization to focus the space, cyber and Electronic Warfare capabilities. Dr. John ham ri, former deputy of secretary of defense stated to this subcommittee, quote, we are not well organized to deal with the new challenges of space. The old structure may have been sufficient when space was an uncontested area of operations. That time has passed. Now again, i couldnt agree more. Ladies and gentlemen, nows the least capable our adversaries will be in space and nows the time for reform, even if its disruptive today. With that, i look forward to your perspectives and i thank all of you for being here and working with us on this important topic. I now recognize my friend and colleague of tennessee, mr. Cooper. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to add my note of congratulations to steve. Well done. I thank you for this hearing, mr. Chairman. The focus of strengthening americas space capables. There is no more important goal. There are many issues before us and the air force, as well. I have bipartisan, joint and substantive fashion. I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. Great. I now recognize our witnesses, the witnesses were asked to summarize their testimonies and so ordered. If you could take your statements and keep them to five minutes or less to get to questions that would be awesome. Genere monday, youre recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman rogers, Ranking Member cooper. Let me also pile on and say congratulations to steve kitay. We look forward to having you sit here next to us next year. [ inaudible ] disting wishled members of the b committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. Its my distinct privilege to lead and represent nearly 36,000 professional and dedicated airmen providing resilient and affordable space and cyberSpace Capabilities for the joint force and our nation. Its also distinct privilege to testify with my friends and panel of experts and close partners. This is a very exciting year for the air force and airSpace Command. In september 2017 our air force celebrates our 70th birthday and air force Space Command celebrates the 35th birthday. Although as an air force, weve been involved in space since 1954 since the beginning. Weve come a long way and done a remarkable job in bringing Space Capabilities in joint work fighting. Theres nothing we do in a joint force that isnt enabled by space. Integration has been our strength. Nevertheless, we find ourselves at the intersection of high reliance and vulnerability the space domain. Today in no uncertain terms, its a air fighting demesne just like air, land, and sea. Potential adversaries are denying us access to and the benefits of the space domain. Let me be very clear. We do not want a conflict that extends into space, but one way to keep that from happening is to make sure were prepared for it and be able to fight and win that conflict. If it were to occur. I think it shouldnt be lost on anybody that our Space Program is the envy of the world. My near term priorities are fourfold. First in partnership with betty zap as operational the National Space center and provide them with a command and control capability necessary to operate in a contested domain. Secondly, we must improve Space Situational Awareness transforming from cataloging focus to a fore fighting focus required of this domain. Third, we need to transition our Space Architecture to provide resilient capabilities for the current strategic environment we face. And finally we need to professionally develop air force Commander Airman. I thank you for your support, i thank you for your active leadership and look forward to continuing to work closely with you in the years ahead and i also look forward to your questions. Thank you. Chairman now recognizes general book. Chairman rogers, Ranking Member cooper, members of the sub committee, thank you for your steadfast support for our men and women in uniform, the space center and this nation. As this committee is well aware, we turned an educational corner of sorts. Its now widely acknowledged that space is critical to our way of life. This coupled with an understanding of the compelling and compounding threats to our freedom of action in space is the burning platform to evolve our National Security Space Enterprise. We dont need a clean slate approach, but certainly an overhaul is necessary to guaranteed our freedoms in, through and from space. This is a challenge because our National Security Space Architecture and processes were largely conceived to provide services or commodities during an era when our most significant coorbital threat was debris. Given our threats, we no larger approach space with a simple mentality. Our foremost responsibility is to maintain space priority. This is a prerequisite to protecting and defending this space joint operating area and providing space combat engagement with joint forces across the globe. Over the past year weve made substantial progress, especially with respect to all Domain Operations and our ability to protect and defend the National Security Space Enterprise. We are better war fighters. There are, however, areas that continue continued focus and vigilance. We must continue to normalize operations across the enterprise. This includes Space Situational Awareness as well as improving space intelligence and providing well and robust warning. We also must continue the full court press to deliver next generation aware nls and command and control capability at the same time we must review and update the associated authorities and rules of engagement for operations in space. And we must continue we must continue to push on, fielding required capabilities on operationally relevant time lines. Looking forward we are focused on freedom of action in space. It is imperative on our joint force. As a learning organization we will continue to review our mature our approaches and organizational structures. We can accept no less because the speed and complexity of future fights demands operational agile organizations. Every challenge is an opportunity, and we have many opportunities in space. Freedom of action in space is not a birthright. It must be secured, and it must be preserved. This requires constant vigilance, strong partnerships, and active participation. I thank the committee. For your leadership and your advocacy. I look forward to our continued partnership. Thank you, mr. Buck. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairman and Ranking Member cooper and distinguished members of the sub committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here from the national recog nins innocence nro. We are the foundation the u. S. Global situational awareness. We contribute to global intelligence, military and Homeland Security operations while simultaneously assisting with the formation of National Policy and achieving diplomatic goals. We provide director support to u. S. War fighters, help protect u. S. Borders and contribute significantly to isis and other Counter Terrorism operations worldwide. The foundation of nro and our contributions are our people. Our people are behind every Mission Success and provide the direct support we provide to the cadet and commands, their service and functional components and deployed tactical units. The integral work force is not just dedicated to mission but empowered to innovate. We instill a culture of innovation and risk tolerance in everything we do. Invasion comes in many forms including using existing capabilities differently, developing new apps for our space and ground systems, and developing the new capabilities critical to closing intelligence gaps. Were also working with our Mission Partners to make sure we fully leverage capabilities. The nro is a flat organization fully capable of successfully delivering an increasingly capable, integrated, resilient and affordable architecture. We have control of every function required for the rnd that enables us to stay ahead of targets and threats to the acquisition of new space and ground capability to the adaptations used to respond to capabilities to respond to new and changing Mission Imperatives in the field. Were performing extremely well. All 15 of our major acquisitions agree, meaning theyre meeting or exceeding cost performance metrics. This year we received our eighth clean management audit. And we continue to improve our collection capabilities and the resiliency to stay ahead of targets and threats. But staying ahead of the adversaries who threaten our Space Capabilities is a challenge. Those adversaries are making space a priority, investing heavily and accepting the risk necessary for rapid progress. The u. S. Has not been keeping pace. I believe we have not made the investment that indicates space is a priority, are fundamental to the u. S. National security space is a failure is not well tolerated. Or to improve their resiliency. National security space is a team sport, and everyone on the team those in the executive branch and in the Congress Must do all they can to advance its capabilities and improve its resilience to threats. We must have processes that are integrated, that move faster, and demonstrate a greater risk tolerance. We must recommit to space as a National Priority and imperative. This committee has been out in front trying to drive the changes required. The nro inspired by this committees efforts to address the barriers to change and the pace of change required to advance National Security space. The nro and the broader National Space community have people with a talent, commitment, and passion necessary to take us forward. We only need to empower and enable them to succeed. Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for your continued support of the National Recognizance Office its people, and its mission. Thank you. We now recognize mr. Car delo for five minutes. Thank you, Ranking Members of the committee. I too am pleased to testify before you today with my distinguished colleagues as a member of the National Security professionals. Nga is the primary provider of the space intelligence and the intelligence community. Our support to military services, combat and commands and war fighters include safety to navigation, precise targeting, disaster recovery, and tailored intelligence support just to name a few. I also have the job of being the functional manager. And i strengthen the overall sbe prize by ensuring those combatant needs are met through future ventures. More specifically, the capability document which serves as the frame work to translate those needs into the key sbe prize functions and capabilities that our analyst require to resolve our most vexing intelligence challenges. Now global provides an monitoring these challenges and provide national, tactical leaders the intelligence and Early Warning needed for decision advantage. It leverages the exquisite capabilities of national to hold strategic targets at risk. It also integrates the capabilities of our International Partners to fill gaps in our enterprise. Now the explosion of data has driven the discipline beyond the limits of human interpretation and explanation. By combining all of the data now available to us and to use with the use of algorithms, automated processing, machine to Machine Learning and artificial intelligence, we believe we can out mate as much as 75 or more of the rote tasks we perform today. This will free our analysts to spend more time and focus on those hard intelligence problems, getting to that point will require significant investments in our i. T. Architecture as well as in our research and development. Not only is that data exploding, conservative estimates over the next ten years predict that over 9,000 commercial satellites will be launched compared to 1,500 in the last few years. Nga will partner with the nro to engage with and access the most mature of these new space via the commercial activity. Through it, we will identify and evaluate emerging commercial, data and services against those needs that we capture and maintain. In closing, the National Security Space Enterprise is vital to ngas ability to provide far fighter and policymakers. To give them the decision space and operational time they need to do their job. Timely relevant and accurate is only possible through the combined efforts of the i. C. , the department of defense emerging industry and allied partners. Im happy to address any questions you might have and am pleased to be here. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Cardelo. Mr. Hill, you have five minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today with my distinguished colleagues. In the months ahead understanding and addressing the implications of the grow ing threats in space is critical as this administration prepares the president s new National Security strategy and the National Defense strategy and as congress carries out its responsibilities for oversight and funding of the programs and activities necessary to realize those strategies. No less important strategic success requires increased resources and end to Defense Budget caps and end to the years long pattern of extended continuing resolutions and to return to strategy focussed resourcing. Today we consider Space Security in an era when russia and china prevent antiaccess, aerial strategies intended to prevent or counteru. S. Intervention in crises or conflicts and to undercut our ability to secure our interests. Diplomatic solutions remain our preferred option to settling the differences between divided nations. But americas space posture underwrites deterrence by enabling the usa military to fundamental to the confidence of our allies in knowing that they do not have to submit to the coercive pressures of large and powerful neighbors. Americas space posture underwrites deterrents by enabling the u. S. Military to project power globally, respond to crises rapidly, strike swiftly and precisely, and command forces in multiple theaters simultaneously. Potential adversaries know well our resigh lance on Space Systems that many perceive as vulnerable. Leading to an unstable situation which some concluded that attacking u. S. Military Space Systems may make an irresistible and most tempting choice. Disabusing them of such misguided notions is a strategic priority. That is why in the department of defense we are making such a concerted effort to strengthen the Mission Assurance of our Space Capabilities and to deny aggressors the benefits of attacks in space. We are changing our investments and operations and increasing our partnering with commercial entities and allies. More importantly, we are changing attitudes by recognizing that space is a warfighting domain and preparing ourselves to deter conflict in space and prevail if deterrence fails. Finally, i want to recognize this committees priority on strengthening National Security Space Organization management and leadership. This question has the attention of the secretary and deputy secretary of defense. They expect to be presented with sound analysis and a full range of options and they mean for us to meet the deadline of reporting to congress this june. In conclusion, i want to thank this committee for keeping the challenges of securing space before the public. I look forward to working together to ensure we have the right strategy and resources and the necessary programs, posture, and organizational structures to sustain deterrence, to prevail if deterrence fails and to increase the incentive nations have to settle their differences by peaceful means. Thank you. And i would add as the person acting in the job mr. Cutay will be doing, no one is happier to have him coming to the defense side than i am. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Hill. I recognize myself first for questions. And this will be a question for anybody thats willing to swing at it. We passed a law about ten years ago that directed how the operationally Responsive Space office would be run. And i heard that instead of being streamlined, ors options are still forced to go through traditional pentagon forces, so including the Defense Space council. Rather than a small number of Decision Makers focussed on moving fast with respect to operation requirements and acquisition the recent meeting decision out of the ors program included 60 attendees with 54 more than we had envisioned. To me this is an example this example is indicative of the extremely fragmented Space Organization and bureaucratic cudzu, my word. You have to be from the south to know what cudzu is. Everybody can say no but no one can say yes. How do we fix that . Chairman, thanks for the question. 60 people were not involved in that decision. As you stated the ors common law is pretty clear. Theres six members by law. The pdsa has the ability to designate others that are critical to that decision. In this case, i wasnt in the room. But my understanding is those six were the voting members plus two or three others. That was was it. Its under the frame work of a larger dse but the Decision Makers were the eight or nine person level. Those were the voting members and the decision actually went pretty quick. Well, i understand there were six voting members. But werent there 60 people in the room . Yes, there were 60 people in the room. But theres also some goodness and transparency of having others there. They didnt vote, didnt influence the decision. They were there. And ill tell you, after those folks make that decision, a lot of folks have to go execute it and make sure they have a common understanding. It was a very small number of folks that was consistent with the legislation that was passed for a small tight decision. Making process for ors and im pretty comfortable it was a rapid decision. Okay, so six people were the Decision Makers . As i mentioned to you, there were six that were by law and a couple of others that were added so there were eight people with in the decision . Eight or nine but i wasnt in the room. Eight or nine. Pretty sad. Do you have to have six to eight people to make decisions on the acquisition programs with our organization . I have two people to make decisions one on the dod side. And one on the ic side. Theres a lot of people who review the package of documentation for sufficiency before it gets to those decisions. Again, theres a whole lot of staff on the csc staff and on the dod side. So a whole lot of people look at it before it even gets on the calender for the Decision Makers. The people who look at it, do they have the authority to stop it or say no . The authority to stall it. Is that the case with ors, genere monday . Those other people, can they slow it down or stop it . My understanding is they do not have a vote in that process. As by law the six by law and then how about the lead up process to get to that room, before it gets to that room for Decision Making . They schedule the Defense Space council and its done relatively routinely. It was done pretty quickly in this process and i didnt sense a slow down in this. Anybody else want to swing at it . All right. Chairman, ill give you a comment as one of those nonvoting people in the room. Okay. What the principle space adviser also did was she used that to tee up a decision that is that is also necessary, which is the longterm solution. So ors is an important gap, that put forward and brought in the air force that went pretty quickly. The discussion also then said to everybody also moving on the requirements process for a longer term. Which she used that effectively in that respect. Great. All right. In the testimony to earlier this week, general goldfine talked about the need to integrate space. And the joint staff who is responsible for overall space integration forces, on that joint staff, there are 11 air force general officers. Of those 11 general officers how many space professionals are included . Anybody want to guess . Itd be zero. You know how many are pilots . Itd be nine. If we look at the specific Combatant Commander or command, according to ucomthere are over 28,000 supporting ucome. How many are dedicated to space issues . That would be two. We do need to integrate space with our land and sea and cyber obligations. Thats what Combatant Commanders do, but theyre also designed to win and fight wars in a manner. How do we integrate it better to me that starts with the people and im interested in your perspective. Well, thank you. I agree with you. I would like to give more space officers, general officers on the joint of staff. The chief is very focussed on developing joint officers and i think thats a focus area for us as well. You know, when we look across the sbe prize, you look at strategic command. We have two space officers working in the joint jobs u. S. Strategic command. Im in a joint bill myself. As commander jfcc space. The way when i serve as my Operation Center serves as space coordinator and authority, i prefer the combatant command. They have reach back authority back to get those space effects out to theater. As far as developing joint operations genere raymond you bring up a great point. The challenges we face as a nation today are trance regional, if not global. Multidomain, multifunctional. Theyre not confined to align on a map. Its not just one geographic commanders responsibility. Its pretty much all the Combatant Commanders responsibility. Each has whats called a coordinating authority for space. Each of those Combatant Commanders has delegated that authority down to the c facts or the air component of that. Air components around the globe we probably have a senior space officer called the director of space forces. We have general can testify to this he was the space coordinating at the time. We have senior space director of space forces. He has a staff of about five and then in every Single Division in the a. O. C. We have space professionals embedded in those divisions. So what we have done is prioritize putting the weight of effort in those aocs where they designated that authority to. Thats where we do that multidomain integration work. Thats the hub of that multidomain integration work. General was the space adviser. No, sir. He was the cfact, the air forces Component Commander and in that role the cent com commander delegates to him the authority called the space coordinating authority. His aoc where he operated out of is that multidomain center that integrates air, space and cyber into that fight. Thats where we focus significant portion of our Space Operations. General buck, you were about to say something. Im sorry. Im sorry to interrupt. But whats a real win for us when not just we have a director of space force office there, but when we embed space officers and irsd and cod thats a win. When we start not being an addon but baked into the processes over there, i think were doing better. Our focus right now is on cent com. Were Getting Better and pay com and ucom across the board. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to focus in my questioning on how crowded space is and how its going to get a lot more crowded. On page 5 in the last ten years we saw Something Like 1,500 satellites go up but in the next ten years Something Like 9,000. That is two and a half satellites a day going up in space. Thats amazing. But weve seen launches in india they put up 100 sats in one launch. So as space gets more crowded it gets more treacherous. General buck mentioned in his testimony it used to be the main threat we faced was debris. Now we face traffic. We may face threats. So, im particularly interested in this idea of the nonmilitary space management. You embarked on a Pilot Program with the faa on that . Thank you Ranking Member cooper. We have. As i testified before to this panel, i share your concern. Space is clearly congested and contested but in this case on the congested side general buck and his team tracked 23,000 objects a day, take about 400,000 obs nations a day to keep track of that, act as the space Traffic Control for the world and keep the domain safe for all. Its very important and i think general buck will agree to me, its very important for National Security purposes that we have the ability to have radars, to task those radars, collect the data from those radars, to maintain the awareness that we have from that domain. However, i dont think we need to be the organization that makes the notifications around the world and acts as the traffic cop. So, ive met with the faa administrator a couple months ago and asked if he would join us in developing a Pilot Program, if you will, to see if we could inform this Going Forward. General buck has the lead. Im pulling that together. If you want to give an update on where we are. Thank you. Im really proud of the team and how far weve come with the faa. I talked to dr. Neil directly and we agrowed jointly to begin that Pilot Program. I expect that Pilot Program to begin in the summer probably august time frame. I do agree with general raymond. There are some that are not inherently military. And we could load shed them to a civil agency. Things safety of flight, debris management, norms of behavior, i dont think those inherently military. I think its important to make a distinction, too, between what is space Traffic Management and what is Space Situational Awareness. For me, as a war fighter, what i need is Space Situational Awareness. I need to know what an object is, where its going, what its capabilities are, what its vulnerabilities are, those types of things. What i dont need it to do notification and norms of behavior. I think thats better suited for civil agency and i think thats where were going, sir. Let me add some color to your remarks. General raymond said in a very calm fashion we keep space safe or Something Like that we are protecting other countries billion dollar satellites from a piece of shrapnel that might be traveling at 33,000 miles an hour but could destroy the machine and for that we get not even a thank you note. Its kind of amazing that we provide this magnificent Worldwide Service and little appreciation. Plus, as you said, when we consider load shedding its a burden on our folks that doesnt necessarily need to be born by them. Other people not all country some countries do send us thank you notes. Do talk a lot more to us others dont. Were really doing it because we want to keep the space domain use for all including us. Thats the emphasis behind that. We need to be able to operate in space and its our way of helping to make sure we can do that. But its also an essential truth telling function. Like if you look at the downing of the malaysian airliner over the ukraine, there was a worldwide debate and dispute over what caused that plane to crash. Even though we have excellent air Traffic Control in most parts of the world, there was still a significant dispute and when it comes to separating news from fake news and propaganda, you know, i think in the space domain it would be nice if we established sort of goal standard of truth so we would know if it was debris. If we would know if it was something less benign than that. So im worried that while i hope the Pilot Program gets off to a good start this summer, i hope it will soon be able to establish the standard but even with air traffic, were having difficulty isolating causes when it should be with all of our plane radars and things like that an easier thing to prove than it is in space. I hope we will get on that task. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for the Great Service that you provide for our country. And general raymond, im going to follow up on a question that we touched on in our conversation yesterday. With bmc2 i remain concerned about the prospect of repeating the same mistakes we made with jms where by lab property types and custom Government Development efforts were prioritized over utilizing proven commercial capabilities which unfortunately led to huge scheduling and cost overruns. Can i get your commitment that you will prioritize the utilization of commercial capabilities to the maximum extent practical first and then fill in with Government Development for the truly unique military requirements that dont reside in the commercial marketplace. Im a big proponent of commercial data. I said we need all sources of data. We need data from commercial to the high end intelligence staff. And on what our strategy Going Forward on the is to do just that. Is to use commercial companies in a con source yum to help Us Development those requirements. Ill just to the iphone. You got the iphone and you have apps. We want to have open standards and open consortium so all players can play in feeding us that data and to do so quickly. We have to get it on the floor. We have to get in the National Space center as quick as we possible can. Therefore, what we did was we switched the program and i gave that to the air force Rapid Capabilities office who has already done this. They have already taken the capability, built an open architected system, has a consortium approach and it has worked very well. Were fast forwarding this capability by giving to the folks who can move rapidly, have already done it and what this will allow us to do is get at that multidomain integration. The whole purpose of this program Going Forward is to enable a lot of commercial data and other source data to be integrated to give general buck the data he needs to have to do the mission hes responsible for. If i could just make a comment along those same lines. Ranking member cooper, stressed the importance of domain awareness. Its really important that we ingest nontraditional data into our Space Surveillance Network as well. Thats a hard thing to do. But were making progress. And i think this summer sometime were going to bring on a capability called nontraditional data preprocesser that will begin to allow ingestion of commercial data into our Space Surveillance Network. So i think thats a move in the right direction for domain awareness and nontraditional ingestion like commercial censers if you will. Thank you, both. Changing gears, ive heard some rumors about insufficient funding for gps3 in the fiscal year 18 request. What are we doing to keep this Important Program on track . We are moving forward with the ocx program, although that as many folks have testified previously would not be the Model Program that we would hold up as the standard. And we are clearly not out of the woods yet. I wont be comfortable until that capability is operational on the ops floor for general bucks team to be able to operate. So im pretty comfortable where we are with relatively healthy gps constellation thats on orbit and progress being made on the Ground Control system. What does that mean for the budget for next year . The budget will be released next week. In 40 seconds im going to give you a huge question that you referred to, how we dont have the commitment we need for space Going Forward. What can we do better as a country to show that commitment and that resolve . I think we really need help on the budget side, not just investment in space but the ability to use the investment. As were fielding new things to improve our resiliency, its very hard to move ahead with new things under our continuing resolution. Its not allowed. So that is just slowing the pace of progress. Even after we get it out of the executive branch, which is no lean feat. You can help a lot on that front. Thank you so much. I would echo that in the air force Space Command side. Im going to forego the usual gps back up. I assume thats moving along. If not, there will be a piece of legislation that will move it along even faster. Im not exactly sure how far to go with this. I represent Beale Air Force base. There are certain activities going on im not sure we should be talking about them here, but i would like to take that up because i think it integrates with most of what is being discussed here. Just in general the integration of information from a variety of sources, i think this is something that is happening, just in general your views on that progress. In general i think its going really well. And in fact because largely the model that i use to make the decision to go with the approach we talked about in the Battle Management command and control conversation we just had, i would be more than happy to talk more in a closed session with him. I think ill let it go at that point. Oh, no i have one more. We picked this up yesterday. Going on. A plan for the next decade of critical assets that need to be developed and deployed and the approximate cost of those, i think we need to have a longterm vision here of where were going to deploy perhaps need, want, must have and i think its really essential that we look at that. There will be insufficient money for everything, particularly if the tax cuts are real and so were going to need to make some tough decisions about prioritization and that needs a long view, ten years minimum. So that we can say, okay, these things are going to be funded. Those are not. Or were going to fund all of it or not fund something else. So if, mr. Chairman, if we could move in that direction to have that longterm vision. I would welcome the opportunity to come back to you and walk you through the Space Enterprise vision. Its done in very close partnership. Its an integrated vision with the nro and i want to take a moment. I do this every time i can. Betty sapp is a huge partner for us. 2 08. Go for it. But i would be more than welcome to come back and walk you through that vision, walk you through the priorities as we see them and inform you on that. We heard some of this yesterday about Different Directions or at least different set of priorities for the future. Much of it involves your work, so i wanted to get a fix on that and other things that we may not put as a priority. Thank you for that. I didnt mean to cut you off. I really meant you had 2 08 to answer. No. I didnt want to take your time. I wanted to see if you had more questions. Thank you. Chair now recognizes for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. When you think about the consortium general raymond that you talked about for the bmc2 piece, that consortium, of course, is trying to rapidly develop a capability where were currently maybe lagging behind and of course i think everybody on this committee fully supports that effort. In the meantime, is there an ssa gap that needs to be filled that could be commercial could help with and maybe general buck if you would like to answer that as well. Thank you, sir. Good seeing you again. Always. I mentioned the nontraditional data preprocesser. I think thats a step in the right direction. I think youll agree with me the ability to ingest that helps. What also we have is we have sbss thats online or orbit right now. That is being extended. The life on that is expanded past i think the dates are classified but thats going to be extended but ors 5 provides the gap capability as well so i think those three things together give us the capability to fulfill that gap. Just as a general statement, more data is better from south carolina. More data is better. We need data across the full spectrum and we do get data across the full spectrum. The other thing weve done is development partnerships. Dont quote me on the numbers over 50 or 60 different sharing agreements with partners. Its largely a one way sharing but there is there are two way sharing pieces that i would like to make that stronger when we get the new jms system up with more capacity and more ability to ingest that data that will take off, but more is better. More is better. I would like to maybe continue on what Ranking Member cooper was talking about, this effort to create a partnership with the faa for Space Situational Awareness specifically. Can you share with us how that is being funded and is it coming out of your budget . Is it coming out of your budget . Is there Something Congress should do here to help . My understanding is theres going to be an fy 18 budget request coming out of the faa but im hesitant to say that because im getting in the faas lane a little bit, but i think theres a funding request for 18 thats coming out of the faa, sir. But i dont have the specifics on that. Thats good to hear. And again, i know thats not your lane. I dont want to get you in trouble, but i think this committee would be very supportive of that partnership. Right now we have heard testimony over and over again how were providing free situational aware tons the entire world and to all the commercial partners and at the same time the tasking that it is imposed on our war fighters at the jay spoc has been problematic. I hear this from some other members of congress that they want i heard you use the word load shed. They want to load shed the mission but they dont want to load shed the funding. And i want everybody on this committee to know the air force was never funded to provide space situational aware tons the entire world and commercial operators for free. That has not ever been in your Mission Description and yet thats what youre doing by default out of the goodness of your hearts. I say the goodness out of your hearts but the reality is we need to protect our own assets and we all know that. So i just want to reiterate the fact that if we can create a Space Situational Awareness environment that can be led by a civilian agency and free your manpower to actually be focussed on fighting and winning wars, i think everybody on this panel would fully support that effort. And if we need to do an appropriation, i think that thats something we should be advocating for. So with that, ill go ahead. I agree with everything you said. I just also want to make sure that we state the criticality that the National Security Space Mission needs to make sure that they have the Space Situational Awareness. Absolutely. So i agree with you that theres a role here for others, but its critical to our National Security that we maintain the capability to have that. Air force must and always do Space Situational Awareness and of course Space Defense 100 agree with that. Its the not just the conjunction analysis but its the warning that takes a lot of manpower away from your im with you. Okay. With that, mr. Chairman, ill yield back. Chair now recognize mrs. Larson for five minutes. Thanks, mr. Chairman. I wasnt going to jump in but given im the Ranking Member of Aviation Sub Committee on transportation and were wrying the faa bill, i guess i would be reluctant to have the satellite debris tracking dumped on the faa as well. Youre not saying thats happening, general buck. Youre not saying. Im more concerned that that Congress Gets out over the tips of its skis on this and assigns rather than negotiating a solution as a better idea. It probably is a better place for it, in fact. But one question im sure the faa would have, i would have as the Ranking Member what advantage does the faa get. What can it get from it from actually doing the activity as opposed to just another set of activities . My discussions with dr. Neil and his staff is that they see this as a real opportunity to do things that are more like air centric, establishing norms of behavior, establish patterns for safety of flight and space. So they not to speak for faa, but my conversations with them have led me to believe that theres goodness. They see some goodness in this and theyre anxious to take on specific aspects of the space Traffic Management system. Thats great. I look forward to hearing from the doctor and you at some point. I talked to the staff to get you all together so we have i wouldnt call it adult oversight on this, i would never accuse us of doing that sometimes but certainly some oversight. Theres a lot of debate going on right now in the faa about reorganizi reorganizing overall and tossing into into the mix if its going to get done putting that in context of all the other things were trying to do with the faa is important. Thats my main point. Thanks a lot. Yield back. Thank the gentlemen. Chair now recognizes mr. Kaufman for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. General raymond, rocket System Development is a better way to maintain our dominance in space. Therefore is it still the air forces approach to fund a rocket system versus only rocket components. Would you tell us how you see the the government collaborating with industry and funding the rocket System Development. What is your vision of how strategy should meet the air forces evaluation criteria . Thank you for the questions. The air forces strategy remains threefold. First of all, its critical that we have assured access to space. You have to have that. The second component is that we would like to support competition. We see the benefits of competition in the launch industry. And the third aspect of is that we would like to get off the rd 180 engine. That strategy remains the same. We are investing in launch services. We dont procure rockets. We procure launch services and that strategy remains the same in his own track. Thank you. General raymond, i understand that price is important consideration in any procurement, in my experience, other factors are also important. How essential they are to our National Security, can you discuss how the air force evaluates and includes in its procurement decisions qualitative items such as reliant or maintaining the Industrial Base . All that comes to play. Its not just cost base. Its a full spectrum analysis. There is a pretty high bar that we go through for certification that we would not put on contract a launch if we didnt think that that would be assured to get on the space. Its a full range and its mission by mission. Some missions are more complex than others. Okay. Anybody on this could answer this. It is my understanding that the space space infrared systems is the current and primary method to detect Ballistic Missile defense threats and we are depended on since the 70s. Are there other systems in vision to compliment sivers that may be for the classified brief how robust are those other systems that supplement sivers . How vital to our Space Mission. Let me just say its a National Security priority. It provides Strategic Missile warning for our nation. Its probably one of the most Critical Systems that we operate that the wing up at buckley, the 460th space wing led by colonel and theyre doing great work. I was just up there a month or so. As we look to the future, we look to make the constellations more resilient and i would have further conversations with you in the closed session to get into more specifics. General buck, in your testimony you reference the transition of training our satellite officers from a technician based focus to a war fighter based focus. I think this depicts the increasing counterspace efforts of our adversaries and the threats they pose to our National Security. You go into detail regarding the training to counter these threats and the transition to a war fighter focus. Right. What i was referring to is the Space Mission construct that we have implemented in the wings. The 50th space wing is complete with this Space Mission. What this does in the Space Mission construct for four months at a time we have space crews that are in the fight, focussed on the current fight while the other portion of the crew force at these wings are focussed on advanced training, tactics, techniques and Procedures Development for the future fight and how they can codify those into their doctrine. Thats what i was referring to. Im really proud of the progress theyve made and the way ahead and generalraymond, thats in your lane . Its broader than space for space sake. We just developed a space flag construct. So theres its developing depth of space expertise but then also working the multidomain integration piece. This isnt space for space sake. Its air space and cyber and were tackling both portions. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. The chair recognizes the gentle lady from hawaii for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. General raymond, i have to admit when i see air force ive been thinking about Missile Defense as well as your role in the triad system. And reading your testimony, its raised a different set of questions for me. First of all, what i couldnt get past is this one paragraph and if you could explain this to me. On your testimony on page 3, the first seventh months of your command, you aggressively pushed afspc and National Recon nans Space Enterprise vision. The war fighting construct is the framework for turning the Space Enterprise vision into reality. What im interested in is what is this war fighting construct that youre talking about in terms of space. So, thank you. And its nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. The Space Enterprise vision as i mentioned earlier is the vision thats a shared vision between us and the National Reconnaissance office. Ill pass this over to betty sapp as well. Its the shared vision for moving forward of how do you make the domain or architectures more resilient to be able to survive the contested domain that we find today. The war fighting construct really talks about several things that weve talked about this morning. It takes that vision and builds. How do we plan to operate together . Thats the foundation of this. Weve worked very closely with the nro to develop that conop so we know how were going to work together. Theres another layer thats also the part that we just talked about on developing and training our forces. The Space Mission force construct is part of that. Theres another layer on it is how do you develop the partnerships that we need both interagency with our commercial partners and with our allies to be able to respond to the strategic environment that we face today. Before you pass me on, let me explain to you why my curiosity. In mr. Hills testimony, maybe ill bypass ms. Sapp. His testimony speaks about the quote unquote our threats that we hear about all the time in here, russia and china. He also speaks about 82 a. D. And the concerns that we have. And he says both will continue to pursue a full range of antisatellite weapons as a means to reduce u. S. Military effectiveness. So what i thought you were going to tell me about the war construct was that it was in line of that in other words where we think about the oceans, the lands and so forth, this is another layer of, quote, war that we must be ready to fight and i quite candidly im not sure when you have russia and china that can undermine everything in terms of diplomatic, this nice kind of cooperation that were all talking about here, i really would like to know to the extent that you can tell me here today what exactly does this all mean in terms of our military and what was what do you need when you come to see us in order to fight that battle. First of all, we dont talk about a war in space. We talk about a war that extends into space. Were not this isnt space for space sake. Is that something thats unrealistic . Is it conceivable that we could actually have, quote, war in space . In other words, could our satellites be the first target . Once you take out of our satellites, you have basically destroyed our Effective Communication mechanism. So could they not be a first line of offense against us . If you look at what some of our potential adversaries are talking about, theyre talking about a full range of capabilities that range everywhere from reversible jamming of communication and gps satellites like we have seen all the way up to the direct asset we saw from china in 2007. Our posture is we want to deter that, whether we have no interest in fighting that fight. As i said, one way to do that is be prepared for that. The space war fighting construct develops the partnership, the plans, the training needed to be able to respond. And the minutes seconds that i have left, mr. Hill, would you like to comment on it . Its your testimony that triggered my line. The point and i say in my testimony, theres scanned evidence that anybody is looking for a war in space. It is about the terrestrialish how ises that they have, political differences that countries have and it is their conclusion if they want a military option they have to be able to act in space as well. And as youre suggesting, that could be early. Thank you, mr. Chair. I yield back. I thank the gentle lady. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from arizona. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you all of you for being here and all you do for the cause of human freedom. General raymond, just to quick direct question, do you believe its fair to say that space has been weaponized . I believe its fair to say that space is a contested domain, just like and its a warfighting domain just like air, land and sea. Do you believe we need a more robust defensive space sense space censer layer to adequately identify the latest in emerging threats to our space assets . I think its an imperative we have a level of domain awareness to operate just like in any other warfighting domain. Should this u. S. Space should we treat space as a warfighting domain . Space is a warfighting domain. Just like air, land and sea, we need to treat it that way. Yep. Should the u. S. Develop defensive capabilities to counter attacks against our Space Security architecture . It is an imperative in my opinion that we develop resilient architectures to be able to operate in the contested environment that we face today. General buck, do you have any thoughts on that . Space is a warfighting domain. And if you look at the other domains, air, land, sea, they have defensive capabilities. They have other capabilities. We cant afford to treat space any differently. Is it fair to say that some of our near peer adversaries offensive Space Capabilities have outpaced our ability i might ask the two of you. Makes sense. All right. Do you sigh and ill throw this out to the entire panel, do you see value in establishing annual capstone training exercise, sort of a the equivalence of the red flag say a space flag event for spaceope . We have had our first space flag this year. Although its nascent, were having the conversation, and were moving in the right direction. I see this first space flag as the first of many to follow. General raymond . I agree. As i mentioned earlier, its important, but how do you integrate air, space, and cyber together, and how do you integrate air, space, and cyber with the land and the sea. Theres other opportunities in addition to the space flag as well. Those are the global series, on and on, the jspoc participated in exercises last year, im really proud of that effort. Mr. Chairman, ill probably leave the rest of my effort for the classified session. I thank all of you so much. And thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from california, mr. Carbajal. Thank you. I represent Vandenberg Air force base. I recently had the great privilege of joining general buck on a tour of the facility, the jspot facility in addition to other facilities there. I guess for my colleagues and just for me to for it to sink in, you can never hear it enough, could you share, general buck, the contribution of the Vandenberg Air force base, jspot to our National Space strategy and capability . And perhaps close with how that relates or what the nexus is do the new jspoc in colorado. Thank you, sir. Good to see you again. We have two primary command and control centers. At Vandenberg Air force base we have the joint Space Operations center. In this Operations Center we have our commercial partners on the ops floor, we have our five i partners on the ops floor. Theyre doing the daytoday heavy lifting for the tress treeal flight. When a combat commander needs space effects, they go to the jspoc and they provide military satellite communications, precision navigation and timing, all those space effects, and they do it better than anyone else. The National Space center at shreveport is responsible for the area, if you will. The National Space Defense Center at shrever air force pace in colorado is responsible for the environment. I would pile on that today the jspoc is the operational dod Space Command and control facility, period. And they do spectacular work. Ive had the privilege of being stationed there four times. They are absolutely wonderful airmen and joint not just airmen but joint partners that keep that domain safe for all, provide a critical capability to all of the war fighters around the globe, and is the only operational dod center that we have today. It was extremely impressive. And i just want to thank general buck for his being so hospitable, and giving me an opportunity to interface with many of the troops and many of your command team of there. It was a great visit. It was a great learning opportunity. And i just really appreciate what you do. Sir, it was our pleasure. Thanks for joining us, sir. I thank the gentleman. The chair would like to ask a few more questions before we go into closed session. Talk a little bit about launch. General raymond, how long do you plan to maintain the delta 4 . And i would like for you to differentiate between delta 4 medium versus delta 4 heavy. And do you plan to keep the delta 4 heavy specifically until a new launch vehicle is certified and if so how . Yeah, theres three delta 4 immediamediums that are left, tl launch for the delta 4 medium is scheduled for fy 19. We have several more delta 4 heavies. One of those is a nasa launch. And there is an option for one more. The final launch will be in fy 23. And were comfortable that we will have a new capability online to be able to support the requirements Going Forward. You just heard ms. Sapp make reference to the National Security payloads. How important is it to your mission to have the delta 4 heavy or an equivalent available . Its essential to my mission that theyre available in the near term. I tell you, general raymond has mentioned the partnership between us at nsdc and operations, we couldnt have better launch partners than we do in the air force. They have taken care of our mission. We buy on their contracts. They made sure we had delta 4 heavy coverage with a lot of it transition margin to get to a new booster. So we have just been very satisfied with their support. You heard general raymond say that he believes that by 2023 we will have a replacement certified. I hope so too. But if we dont, do you believe that we should let the delta 4 heavy go before we have an alternative certified . I believe we have time to see how the new programs mature before we cannot go back on the delta 4 heavy. I wouldnt carry it in the near term. Weve got launches funded until 2023. So we have time to make a right decision for the nation. That was a lawyerly response. As a lawyer, i appreciate that. Where then raymond, since the air force developed its strategy to invest in launch vehicles, theres been a new entrant, blue origin has announced commercial customers for their new glen launch vehicle. Maybe they will compete for funding. Has this changed your strategy and is it the governments role to build a new vehicle if theyre already being built by the commercial sector . Chairman rogers, it doesnt affect our strategy at all. The competition, get off the 180 engine. Our Acquisition Strategy is flexible and encourages multiple competitors for launch services. I dont see it affecting our ability at all. Were not building commercial launch vehicles. What do you know about the be4s testing setback that we had in recent days . Was its power pack completely destroyed and how does this impact your schedule . My understanding, general, blue origin announced they conducted a test that resulted in the loss of a power pack test hardware. Obviously that mishap is regrettable. It is unprecedented in the development of isnt uncommon in development efforts. I think this adds credibility to our strategy to make sure theres multiple engines being developed. I think we have visibility, pretty significant visibility into ulas processes although its ulas final ultimate decision. Once that decision is made, obviously the air force is a significant customer of that launch service, will do its own independent review. Excellent. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member for any final questions he may have. Thank you, mr. Chairman. General raymond, in your testimony on page 12 you mention that gps 3 svl 1 is completed and in storage with an initial launch capability date set to occur in spring 2018. That struck me as unnecessary mothballing of a perfectly good satellite. Why the delay . Had theres a couple of pieces were still working on. One, were obviously still working making sure we can command and control the satellite with ocs block phase zero which will be up by then. Also theres work to be done on integration work to be done with the launch provider that will launch that satellite. Is this customary to have a year or more delay in launching a satellite . There are satellites that have been in storage significantly longer than that. Its not uncustomary. Well launch it when its safe and ready to do so. And we can get it into orbit and then command and control it. As i mentioned earlier today, earlier in the hearing, that today we have a pretty significant gps constellation in orbit as we speak. So this is not an issue of assured access to space . Its an issue of making sure that we can command and control the capability when its on orbit and then working the final details of being able for them to integrate with the launch vehicle provider, then well launch it. Mmhmm. Okay. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the Ranking Member. The committee will go into a brief recess as we move to a secure location for the classified portion of this briefing. Tonight on cspan 3, american historicaly tv in prim time. President i president i president ial medal of freedom dorot dorothy haight. It resulted in naval victory for the u. S. And friday, American History tv will be live all day from the ma macarthur visitors center. Featured speakers include the author of the admirals, about the fivestar admirals who won the war at sea. And the author of a book about a code breaker. Anthony tell youully. And timothy orr, coauthor of never call me a hero about the by that of midway. Watch the battle of midway 70th Anniversary Special on friday beginning at 9 30 a. M. On American History tv on cspan3. The federal Aviation Administration is implementing a new air Traffic Control system that utilizes Satellite Technology called nextgen. It should shorten routes, save time and fuel, and reduce delays. But the system itself has been facing delays. Up next, the Transportation Department Inspector General testifying on how the new system is being implemented