House Armed Services Committee (HASC) member Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) wants an explanation from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) about a DARPA satellite servicing program in source selection.
In a pair of identical January 23 letters to Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and DARPA Acting Director Steven Walker obtained by Defense Daily, Hunter says DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (DSGS) program is not based on a Defense Department requirement, duplicates much of the technical development funded for NASA’s Restore-L program and inappropriately competes with commercial investment in satellite servicing by providing a DARPA-funded capability to a single commercial satellite service provider. Hunter said this is stated in DARPA’s R-1 budget book for fiscal year 2017. 
Hunter cites the National Space Policy (NSP), which he said directs government agencies to avoid distorting commercial space markets by directly funding or indirectly subsidizing space-related activities that private enterprises are willing and able to carry out on their own. Hunter also criticizes as a “multi-million dollar subsidy” the eventual contract that will be awarded via source selection, which is in process.
DARPA spokesman Jared Adams said Wednesday the RSGS program aims to transform national security operations in geosynchronous (GEO) orbit and is in full alignment with U.S. national space policy. DARPA’s acquisition approach, he said, has been extensively reviewed and verified within DoD for legality and consistency with space policy. Adams said a robotic GEO servicing capability that leverages this technology and provides the required functionality does not exist today and is not in development by the commercial sector.
Hunter, in his letters, says one U.S. company has already committed approximately $200 million of its private investment over the next two years to develop, build, launch and operate the industry’s first commercial in-space satellite servicing system, about three years prior to the launch of RSGS. Adams said DARPA anticipates bus and payload component assembly and test in 2019, bus and payload integration in 2020, launch no later than March 2021 and capability demonstration six to nine months after launch.
Hunter says this company has a customer and a launch on contract and significant interest from other large-fleet commercial operators. He believes this company’s decisions about further investment in advanced robotic capabilities based on market forces is sure to be undermined by RSGS.
DARPA said hundreds of military, government and commercial satellites reside in GEO orbit some 22,000 miles above earth, a perch ideal for providing communications, meteorology and national security services. Unfortunately, this distance is so remote as to preclude inspection and diagnosis of malfunctioning components, much less upgrades or repairs. RSGS intends to develop technologies that would enable cooperative inspection and servicing in GEO and demonstrating those technologies on orbit.