A top Department of the Air Force official laid down the gauntlet to industry on Feb. 23 to help field space systems more rapidly to counter China.
“It all comes down to executing, and it’s easier said than done,” Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration Frank Calvelli told a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) forum.
“The government needs to get into the habit–in their acts and strategies, in their RFPs and source selection plans–of awarding contracts that are realistic in terms of schedule and cost and to an organization that can do the job technically, and once we’ve awarded a realistic contract, that baseline is managed relentlessly day to day to deliver that program on cost and schedule,” he said. “That is a key element of speed, and we need industry’s help because there’s a historic precedent where industry likes to low-bid programs, and the government likes to award low-bid, and then the government has to fix the program down the road because the low-bid isn’t the proper bid on the program. That has to stop.”
Calvelli also discussed efforts to right three programs–the RTX [RTX] GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System (GPS OCX), the L3Harris Technologies’ [LHX] Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System (ATLAS), and the Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE).
L3Harris, RTX, and BAE Systems have received funding under MGUE Increment 1 and have been developing cards for MGUE Increment 2 (Defense Daily, June 20, 2023).
Calvelli said that he has a half-hour phone call bi-weekly with his program executive officers and that, on OCX, ATLAS, and MGUE, “especially ATLAS and OCX, the PEO and the program manager meet with me every two weeks as well, separately, and walk through status of the program.”
“I think just having a dedicated SAE (service acquisition executive) who’s worrying about the space programs, we’ve been able to put a focus on these things,” he said. “We’re still not over the hump yet. ATLAS has made some significant progress this past year…so I’m optimistic with that program. OCX keeps having challenges, and I think we just moved out a little further than what I had hoped we’d have in place next summer.”
Last month, the Pentagon’s Directorate of Operational Test & Evaluation released its fiscal 2023 report which said that the expected fiscal 2023 fielding of ATLAS “was slowed by delayed capability delivery, system stability problems, lack of trained operators, and non-operationally representative test environments.”
Section 1607 of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act said that Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall is to designate by the end of March a date for ATLAS initial operational capability (IOC) and cancel the program, if it fails to meet the IOC date. If cancelled, the Department of the Air Force is to inform Congress of an ATLAS alternative.