By B.C. Kessner
While the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) continues to operate as it has for decades without a charter, a Memorandum of Agreement formed by NRO, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Secretary of Defense has been written and is already guiding interaction among the organizations, the NRO director said yesterday.
“We’re executing to that MoA right now,” Air Force retired Gen. Bruce Carlson said during a teleconference from the third annual U. S. Space Mission Assurance Summit in Reston, Va. “We’re in the process of working an issue that comes out of that, it has to do with launch and how much of that we pay for…versus what the Air Force pays, and the role of [NRO] inside the launch apparatus in the country. It’s been a fascinating opportunity to use that MoA for real.”
The MoA lays out the elements that will be in the charter, Carlson said. “I could live with the memo, it’s got about 95 percent of what I wanted in there…it’s working fine.”
Carlson has said he would like to get back milestone decision authority for his programs. Additionally, he has sought authority, or the opportunity to call a meeting of the DNI and SecDef, who are his bosses, because sometimes NRO is challenged to match resources to requirements from the two communities that do not mesh.
“I think once we get through the budget period, which the Department of Defense is in right now, as well as the DNI staff, we’ll be able to devote some attention to that and get the details done for a charter,” Carlson said. He anticipates the organizations getting back to it after the first of the year.
The purpose of the summit was to discuss the newest efforts to improve the performance of space programs. Carlson called it a very important opportunity for the government and the space community to focus energy towards a goal of 100 percent mission success. “In fact, I think it’s more than a goal, it’s an imperative and it allows us to communicate that to the rest of the community,” he said.
Carlson said NRO was acutely focused on the success of its next four launches. “We’ve done all the work to get our space vehicles ready and now we are working to get them safely into orbit as we have done in the first two of this most aggressive launch campaign in the last 25 years inside the NRO,” he added.
More than 125 senior representatives from government and industry convened for the invitation-only summit to discuss critical issues affecting the national security space sector, including growing the future workforce, the health of the industrial base, how to better engage program managers, and how to gain efficiencies in acquisition and program management without compromising mission success, Wanda Austin, president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, said.
“This year’s theme is transforming the intent into action: moving from principles to practice,” Austin said. “We are focusing on where the rubber meets the road with tremendous involvement from our program managers, for they are the ones out in front for mission assurance.”
Austin told reporters during the teleconference that yesterday’s keynote speaker was Erin Conaton, Under Secretary of the Air Force. She said that Conaton’s key points to summit participants were about the importance of mission assurance and the capabilities that are delivered, as well as the importance of better business assurance. “We need to really focus not only on delivering performance but also on cost and schedule,” Austin said.
Four major agencies involved in space–the NRO, Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), NASA, and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)–have committed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that outlines how they will work together to develop and share best practices and lessons learned, Austin said. “They will be taking into account the health of the industrial base and space systems acquisitions and…participate in forums that will improve performance, such as the Space Quality Improvement Council and mission assurance improvement workshops.”
The MoU establishes the basis for four distinct organizations that share a common industrial base to work across those boundaries, she said. “This MoU has already been signed by the NRO and SMC and is currently in the signature path for MDA, and will then be turned over to NASA for their signature, so we’re making tremendous progress there.”