A key House panel is proposing requiring the Air Force to create and implement a plan to ensure the fair evaluation of contractors competing for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) contracts, an important Air Force program to assure government access to space.
The House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee yesterday released the text of its portion of the proposed fiscal year 2014 defense authorization bill, which it will debate today. The subcommittee, as part of its EELV proposal, would require the Air Force secretary to include descriptions of how proposed cost, schedule and performance; mission assurance activities; manner in which the contractor will operate under the Federal Acquisition Regulation; the effect of other contracts in which the contractor is entered into with the government, such as EELV capability and the International Space Station Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts and any other areas deemed appropriate would be addressed in the evaluation.
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| United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets are part of the Air Force’s EELV program. Photo: ULA. |
The legislation would also require a report of the plan from the Air Force to Congress no later than 90 days after the bill’s enactment. The Air Force is certifying new entrants to launch like Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) to help drive down costs.
The Defense Department would also be required in the proposed legislation to establish a strategy for the multi-year procurement of commercial satellite services, the lack of which has been a concern of commercial satellite operators for years. The proposed bill would require the strategy to include: an analysis of financial, or other benefits, to multi-year acquisition and affiliated risks; an identification of methods to address planning, programming, budgeting and execution challenges to multi-year procurement, including consideration of methods to address potential termination liability or cancellation costs affiliated with multi-year procurement; an identification of any changes needed in the requirements development and approval processes of DoD to facilitate smooth implementation of such a strategy and an identification of any necessary changes to policy, procedures, regulation or legislation for such a strategy to be successful.
The proposed bill would require the defense secretary to notify Congress of each attempt by a foreign actor to disrupt, degrade or destroy a United States national security space capability. While the proposed bill did not go into specifics into what disrupting, degrading or destroying a national security space capability would entail, China, in 2007, destroyed an aging satellite with an anti-satellite missile and DoD is concerned that it, or another nation, could try again. The bill would require a lower threshold for congressional notification, in which the defense secretary would be required within 48 hours to tell Congress if the secretary determines “reason to believe” such an event occurred. If this is the case, the defense secretary would be required within the next 10 days to submit more detailed information, including the name and a brief description of the capability impacted by such an event; a description of the event, including the foreign actor; the date and time of the attempt and any related capability outage and the mission impact of such an attempt.
A study by the DoD executive agent for space on responsive, low-cost launch efforts would be required by the proposed legislation. The bill would require, as part of the study, the executive agent for space to include a review of existing and past operationally responsive, low-cost launch capabilities; a technology assessment of various methods to develop an operationally responsive, low-cost launch capability and an assessment of the viability of any other innovative methods, such as secondary payload adapters on existing launch vehicles. A report to Congress on the results would also be required.
The proposed legislation would also require the Air Force secretary to enter into an agreement with the National Research Council (NRC) to review the near-term and long-term threats to national security space systems. The bill would require the review include: the range of strategic options to address such threat; strategies and plans to counter such threats; existing and planned architectures, warfighter requirements, technology development, systems, workforce or other factors related to addressing such threats.
The bill proposed would also prevent the defense secretary from entering into contracts for satellite services with a foreign entity that a “covered foreign country” plans to, or is expected, to provide launch or other satellite services. This would also allow the defense secretary to waive the prohibition for a particular contract if the secretary, in consultation with the director of national intelligence (DNI), submits a national security assessment on why such a contract would not harm national interests and which DoD actions would be necessary in the future to avoid such an arrangement. An Air Force official testified to the subcommittee in April that DoD leases commercial satellite services from a Chinese company with a small state-owned stake to fulfill an joint urgent operational need because it was the only place DoD could get such a capability at the time. China could likely be considered a covered foreign country.
The Air Force secretary would also be required under the proposed bill to ensure the service is capable of deploying multiple, independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) on Minuteman III ICBMs and any ground-based strategic deterrent follow-on to such missiles. The legislation would also require the Nuclear Weapons Council (NWC) to ensure that the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile contains a sufficient number of warheads that are capable of being deployed on Minuteman IIIs or any follow-on missile. The HASC strategic forces subcommittee wants the DoD to be able to “reMIRV” the nation’s ICBM fleet to mitigate the risk of “widespread technological failure” in another leg of the sea, air and ground-based nuclear triad. The subcommittee said the April 2010 Nuclear Posture Review concluded that the United States will “deMIRV” all deployed ICBMs so they only contain one nuclear warhead.