Space Force Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations; John Hill, performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for space policy; and Darlene Costello, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics; brief the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces regarding the Space Force, military space operations, policy and programs, May 26, 2021.

Transcript

Subcommittee on Strategic forces will come to order for hearing on testimony about Space force, military space operations policy and programmes. Let me first thank our witnesses for appearing for us with us today. At today’s hearing on the Department of Defense’s effort to ensure that the United States has freedom to navigate and use space for peaceful purposes, spaces becoming a congested and contested domain. There are more than 2000 satellites in orbit. SpaceX deploy 60 satellites at a time for global Internet coverage. The Department of Defense Combined Space Operations Center Tracks over 33,000 objects in orbit, Including 13,000 pieces of debris that can impact other satellites and the international space station. It’s also becoming a contested domain. Both china and Russia are reported to have systems that can threaten US military and civilian satellites In response to the increasing importance of space and the threats to it. The fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act created a new title 10 service, the US Space Force to train and equip personnel to protect our space assets and ensure spaces integrated into our national Security strategy. Likewise, the Unified Command Plan was modified to stand up the U. S. Space Command With an area of responsibility of 100 km above the Earth’s surface. I love the idea of a A. o. r. km above the Earth’s surface. Today’s hearing will examine the efforts of the Department of Defense to implement the strategy laid out in the fiscal year 2020 authorization Act, Miss Costello, You are responsible for Air Force acquisition including space. The fiscal year 2020 National Defense Act creates a new space service acquisition executive to consolidate desperate space acquisition functions inside and outside the Air Force. I want to know how that is progressing and issues may face. You may face implementing this consolidation. Mr Hill. The act also created an assistant Secretary of Defense for Space policy to assure that there was a civilian of senior civilian in the secretary’s office with oversight of the Space Force and the department’s interest in space, especially with respect to norms of behavior. I want to know what actions you’re taking on oversight and with the inter agency to promote responsible norms of behavior in space. General Thompson your job is to stand up a new title. 10 Force. I want to know what issues you face and training and equipping the Space Force and integrating its operations across the Department of Defense, especially with the combatant commands. Again, let me thank everyone for appearing today. After Senator Fissures opening statement. Each witness will have five minutes for their opening statements and then we will alternate With members for five minute rounds of questions before turning it over to Senator Fisher. I want to say that I had a excellent visit to Colorado Springs less than two weeks ago at the Space Force facilities at Cheyenne Mountain and many of the men and women who are leading this country’s effort in space. It was a very impressive visit and please take back my compliments to those people, particularly those young people who are standing on the on guard for us and how much this committee appreciates what they’re doing. Sandra Fisher, thank you Senator King and I join you in welcoming our witnesses today. We appreciate your service and for you appearing before us today as the chairman noted, this is the subcommittee’s first hearing on space since the creation of the Space Force. And I look forward to the hearing of the witnesses assessments about the progress that’s been made in this regard. The chairman also points out that space is congested, contested and also competitive. While I appreciate the effort that the department has made to educate members of the subcommittee about the activities of our adversaries in this emerging domain. More must be done to educate the american people about the threats that our nation faces in space. The desire to classify information is understandable, but it can also lead to a false sense of security. And then that would hamper our work to ensure that military space operations policies and programs are keeping pace with the changing threat environment, simply repeating the same refrain. Congested, contested and competitive is not sufficient. We need the department’s help to tell a better story about the changing character of the space domain. Thank you. Mr Chairman Mr Hill. Thank you. Chairman King and ranking member Fisher um Distinguished members of the committee. It’s an honor to testify before you today with my distinguished colleagues here. You have my full written statement and with your permission I’ll summarize it and that should be included in the record With that objective uh as this committee well understands uh the importance of space based capabilities to our nation and to our national security in this era of destabilizing challenges from Russia as well as undeniable strategic competition with china. As secretary Austin testified, the growth of chinese and Russian counter space capabilities presents the most immediate and serious threats to us allied and partnered space assets and activities. Moreover, Russia and china views. Space is critical to modern warfare and see the use of counter space capabilities as both means of reducing U. S. Military effectiveness and winning future wars. So as these developments pretend the United States must now be prepared for the possibility that conflict would extend to or originate in space. And to be clear, as we’ve said on many occasions, this would not be a space war distinct from terrestrial war. This represents the extension of traditional armed conflict into the space domain of human endeavor. So within the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, we’re focused on the integration of strategy, policy plans and appropriate means to develop a space posture that contributes to integrated cross domain deterrence by conveying clearly to potential adversaries as well as competitors. The in advisability of military aggression to include attacks on U. S. Space capabilities or those of our allies and partners. The 2020 Defense Space Strategy, which my office prepared addresses these challenges of deterrence as well as challenges of crisis de escalation And warfare extending to space along four lines of effort. The first line of effort we describe as building a comprehensive military advantage in space and that has much to do with the work of the US space force in standing up the capabilities and organizing, training and equipping the second line of effort we describe as integrating space into the national joint and combined operations and that has much to do with the work of the U. S. Space command. Third line of effort is shaping the strategic environment in ways that enhance domain stability and reduce the potential for miscalculation for amount of that comes to our office in the office of Secretary Defense working with the rest of the department Enterprise and fourth we are enhancing space cooperation with commercial entities with our Interagency partners and with our international allies and partners. Finally um in support of the National Security strategic guidelines. My office leads the Department of Defense is participation in the U. S. Government space diplomatic activities and those activities are centered as your opening remarks noted on um establishing uh non binding voluntary norms of responsible behavior as well as on exposing quite disingenuous space arms control proposals of others, notably Russia and china. Mr Chairman. I’m honored to have played a part in over the past several years in bipartisan and collaborative work of the executive and legislative branches to strengthen the national security space posture. I look forward to continuing to work with Congress and with my inter agency colleagues, us industry and our international allies and partners to secure the advantages of space and our national interests. And I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Hill. Uh Mr Costello please Chairman King Breaking member fisher and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It’s an honor to appear before you today. General Thompson and I have submitted our statement for the record but I would also like to add, take a few moments and discuss specific items that you included in the letter that invited me here. That may not have been in that statement first. The department is taking a proactive and clean sheet approach to reducing bureaucracy so that we can deliver technologies at the speed of relevance. This includes stand up of the Space Systems command, the close partnership with the Space Rapid Capability office and the National Reconnaissance Office and multiple efforts to bring stakeholders together across the space enterprise. We’re also optimising space acquisition by streamlining requirements validation, accelerating decision and contracting speed, maximizing budget stability within programs and flexibility within portfolios and increasing program execution efficiency. The department is continuing to work daily towards implementing the congressional direction on the stand up of the Assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space acquisition and integration including the responsibilities and duties of the service acquisition executive For the us space force. That, as specified in law will begin on October one of 2022. I remain a committed steward of our space acquisitions until that time across the department. We continue to emphasize flexibility and collaboration between the Space Force, the joint requirements, oversight council and other stakeholders. This includes efforts to rapidly validate capabilities, leverage the diodes, adaptive acquisition framework and utilize new authorities such as mid tier of acquisition. While we’re cutting bureaucracy where it makes sense, there is a deliberate effort to maintain rigor in each program and achieve speed with discipline. Many of our programs do benefit from these authorities, including several in the satellite communications portfolio. We are continuing to develop efforts to build disaggregated strategic and tactical communications systems to meet emerging threats over the next decade. Desegregating the mission allows the Department of the Air Force to capitalize on commercially developed advancements and best practices in order to improve capacity and flexibility for the warfighter. The Navy’s also turned over the management and acquisition of the mobile user objective system, US and future narrow band communications systems to the US Space Force and two additional MU S. Satellites will be acquired beginning in fy 22. The replacement for the advanced, extremely high frequency strategic mission known as the evolved Strategic SAT. Com, will begin operationally augmenting the protected Strategic SAT. Com constellation While adding resiliency and cybersecurity capabilities by the targeted need date of Fy 32, the US Space Forces both expanding and deepening its relationship with the commercial space sector to ensure combat effectiveness across all domains. In Fy 22 the US Space Force is planning to award a first of its kind contract delivering all available commercial capabilities from new low earth orbit suppliers capabilities may include whether space domain awareness services, voice data, Internet, alternate positioning, navigation and timing services, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and back all services to provide rapid data transmission for future wideband. The department is exploring a hybrid capability set that will blend contributions across military purpose built systems, commercial systems and international partnerships. The last year has demonstrated the need for increased missile warning, missile defense, battlespace awareness and technical intelligence capabilities that are more survivable against emerging adversary threats. The first resilient geosynchronous satellite for the next generation overhead persistent infrared satellite system remains on track to meet the war fighters. 2025 need date and has met every major milestone on time. Additionally, the ground system development known as the future operationally resilient ground evolution were forged, remains on track and has a robust risk reduction effort to ensure the required initial launch capability is supported on time Delivering this missile warning system is essential to the future force and section 804 accelerated acquisition authorities are critical to enable delivery of the satellite in 2025. By using that authority, we saved at least 18 months compared to using traditional major program acquisition process is just for that effort. The global positioning system GPS remains the gold standard for precise positioning, navigation and timing for not only the United States military but for the world. New capabilities are being brought online for enhancements to the GPS constellation that will benefit war fighters and civilians. The department is refreshing the constellation to enhance anti jam performance and looking into the development of alternative positioning navigation and timing technologies, not to replace GPS but to augment GPS. In conclusion, the department is optimizing space acquisitions. This optimization requires reform in many areas to include requirements, budget and acquisition processes. We are pursuing ways to accelerate delivery of operational capability, reduce program risk and enhance the nation’s ability to respond to an evolving and ever more capable threat. We thank you for the recent authorities such as Section 80 For middle tier acquisition. We will continue to work with the office of the Secretary of Defense, the executive branch and the Congress to optimize these processes while increasing transparency of our actions to enable the department to operate with speed and agility in the face of evolving and pacing threats. I thanked Congress for your leadership and support. Were eager to work with your subcommittee to secure our nation’s vital interests and I look forward to your questions. Thank you Miss Costello. I think you pack more information into that five minutes than I’ve encountered in in a lot of congressional hearings. That was a lot of data. Thank you so much. General Thompson, Chairman, King, ranking member, fisher and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today in my capacity as the Vice Chief of Space Operations, United States Space Force, not on behalf of our Chief of Space Operations General J. Raymond and joined by these national security space leaders on the panel today. It’s a pleasure to provide you with an update on the details of the stand up of the newest US Military Service and inform you of our plans for the coming year. I’d like to begin by expressing my gratitude to Congress for its part bipartisan support in establishing the US Space Force On 20 December 2019 and for your leadership in addressing the threats and challenges that face the nation in space Year one of the Space forces existence has been focused on standing up the new service with purposeful outreach to in the collaboration of Congress. The US Space Force has made tremendous strides in this first year, establishing and resourcing the organizational blueprint for the service, moving aggressively in the area of human Capital Force, design and acquisition integration, as well as providing foundational support for a truly digital service. All of this while executing our critical space missions around the clock and without fail. General Raymond’s direction for year two is integration of the Space Force into the Joint Force and with the inter agency. While we continue to build out the service, We have completed the congressional requirement to establish the space force within 18 months. But build out of the service will continue. We have established the first Field Command, Space Operations Command And completed design and resourcing of the remaining two Space Systems Command and Space Training and Readiness Command. With anticipated stand up of these two organizations later this year, Space Operations Command is responsible for preparing and presenting operating forces to U. S. Space Command and the other combatant commands. Space System Command will develop and field world class capabilities for our Space forces and drive agility and speed into the acquisition process. And Space training and Readiness Command will recruit, develop, train and retain guardians to protect the high ground of space as part of the year. To integration the Space Force will place increasing emphasis on strengthening relationships with existing partners and establishing relationships with new ones that includes the other services Combatant Commands, the intelligence community, our allies and other international partners, the United States as a whole and the US Space Force in particular are that much stronger when the relationships with these other agencies are strong next generation and the entire leadership of the department, the Air Force remain adamant that we must increase the pace of space acquisition, maintaining program delivery timelines of the recent past will not outpace the threat. We must go faster. The Space force will continue to leverage Uh smartly the 804 authorities that have been granted by Congress and will partner with industry and academia to leverage technology and innovation of those sectors, Our adversaries have recognized the importance of such an approach to national security space. In my opinion, the creativity, ingenuity and innovation of the american mind is one of our greatest assets. We must fully leverage that asset in this endeavor. Our people are guardians are critical to the success of the space force. We are adopting new and innovation, innovative human capital and talent management approaches for civilians and military members alike under the authorities granted by Congress. And with your assistance, in addition to recently released vision for a digital service seeks to build the fluency of that workforce and posture the service to be agile and innovative far into the future. Finally, the US Space Force will continue to partner with other agencies in the executive branch in Congress to protect us interest in space, promote responsible behavior in the domain and ensure that it’s secure, stable and accessible for peaceful use. Bio Our services inception is an unprecedented opportunity. Our success today could not have been possible without the passionate and energetic efforts of a small group of guardians, fully committed partners in the departments of the Air Force and Defense and the support of Congress on behalf of General Raymond. Thank you again for the opportunity to appear and I look forward to your addressing your questions and concerns. You mentioned it a couple of times. I learned in Colorado Springs that we have Airman in the Air Force, sailors in the Navy, soldiers in the Army and Guardians in the Space Force. Is that correct? Yes, sir, that is correct. And it reflects longstanding heritage of Air Force Space Command where we were known as guardians of the high frontier. Thank you. Uh let me just uh just to get a sort of an update which you provided. Where are you now in terms of end strength of the of the Space Force. How many personnel, civilian and uniformed? And where do you expect that to go in the next couple of years? Yes, sir. Today our end strength stands And I’ll say three categories. The first is uniform military members. Today is about 60 400 members. Um About 6000 of those transferred into the Air Force in the lab or transferred in from the Air Force in the last year. Um We’re in the process now of bringing in inter service transfers from the army and the Navy as well. We have about 6000 civilians assigned to the Space Force as well, like the Department of the Navy, Oh, U. S. Navy and U. S. Marine Corps civilians are Department of the Navy civilians, but 6000 of those civilians are specifically assigned to the Air Force. I’m sorry to the Space Force. And and how’s recruiting are you? Uh I know that General Raymond I think is that the Air Force Academy today? I have a feeling he’s also fishing for top graduates for the Space Force. Yes, sir, he is. In fact uh today, 218 members of the class of 2021 from the Air Force Academy joined the Space Force That includes the top two graduates in the graduating class. So our recruiting has not been a challenge. Our challenge has been ensuring that we find the right set of high caliber officers enlisted and civilians to join the force. Thank you. Um Mr Hill, you mentioned there was, I think there was, there’s one treaty for space that goes back to 1967. And one of the things you mentioned in your testimony was norms and standards. Where do we stand on trying to establish international norms? What are the bodies that are working on that? Are we taking a leadership role? Is there any interest in the other spacefaring countries like Russia and china and trying to establish such some kind of rules of the road for space? Yes. Senator King. So the treaty you referred to the 1967 outer space Treaty is how it is known. Uh It is one of four. The United States is a member of it. That’s the fundamental bedrock treaty uh in the international space law and um with respect to what we’re focused on today in uh non binding voluntary standards. First place I would point to is there is a committee on peaceful uses of outer space as part of the United Nations organizations that’s actually organization that originally created the outer space Treaty, but that is the organization that has developed The debris mitigation standards um that uh are used today. Um guidelines on space sustainability uh that were produced a few years ago. 21 guidelines that came out of a Really a user’s consensus group of commercial and government civil military that participated at slow processes in the United Nations took about 10 years to do that. Um, and a lot of these things have to do with simple facts of what certain information don’t blow up satellites. Well, there’s a good there’s a good one, uh, either debris and don’t leave the debris all over the place. And when you get in the military world, that is clearly one of the ones that people are looking at is how are their active discussions of? Is this a live process or is it more a bond within the arms control world? There are proposals. But what tends to be proposals is, Don’t the United States has pushed that very very point. What gets pushed back is proposals such as Russia and China saying we won’t be the first to put weapons in space? Well, as we’ve noticed, as we’ve noted in many places, Russia and China tested weapons in space. Russia tested one Near one of our satellites just a few years ago. So that’s when I refer to the disingenuous proposals of uh saying we won’t be the first nation to put a weapon in space. Don’t mind our satellite that’s near one of your satellites. Um That might be testing weapons. So the process is easier when you’re dealing with uh the basic um peacetime types of operations. Obviously much harder when you get to something like example you offered sir. Thank you. We’ll have a second round Miss Costello. We’ll talk about acquisition. Senator Fisher. Mhm. Thank you. Mr Chairman. Uh I’d like to follow up with you first. Mr Hill when you were talking about Russia and china perhaps being disingenuous in space. In your uh statement that you prepared that’s been entered into the record, You were you were pretty adamant about about the efforts that we’re seeing from Russia and shine in space. Can you go into a little detail there? Certainly. So I I just referenced one example which was a test of satellite in low earth orbit. That’s sort of what we call a nesting doll structure. It has within it, another satellite. And then a third one that can release a kill vehicle and uh, interceptor. That’s an example of a Russian satellite being developed. Both countries have tested anti satellite missiles. Um, uh, both countries are developing, uh, ground based laser capabilities to dazzle satellites or damage satellites. Those would be some examples that we’ve, we can talk about publicly that mentioned earlier about declassification. There’s both the classification, what we do, which needs to be updated or reclassification to up to date. But we also need to be realistic. There are more things we can talk about about what adversaries do educating the public to your point earlier. Thank you for noticing that in my opening statement, I think it’s extremely important that the press gets this information out to the public and thank you for the couple examples that you’ve put forth there. It’s it’s I think necessary that the public understands the threats that we do face as a nation and that these threats are very serious. I understand, um, that we have been very supportive of an effort that’s led by the United Kingdom regarding acceptable behavior in space domain. And can you speak to that a little bit? Yes. So, last fall at the United Nations, when Russia and China were once again putting forward their proposal for the treaty, I mentioned on preventing replacement weapons out of space. Um, United Kingdom and the United States and other countries looked forward and said, what can we do that is a little more productive than that. Not just vote no, but offers something as an alternative. United Kingdom put forward a proposal that ultimately passed with large numbers uh, to have nations submit their ideas on what should be some uh norms of responsible behavior in space. I think about 25 countries did put in submissions at the beginning of this month. The United Nations, the United States was one of those and certainly things like the notification of our operations, the debris mitigation, the safe trajectories that we fly in safe distances. We maintain. We’re all some examples of that we provided in that report and they’re all filed with the United Nations and posted. Now. You know, we’ve we’ve talked a lot about deterring hostile activity in the space over the years and moving to a more defendable satellite architecture system. But do you believe that a defense only approach will be successful in the space Domain Senator official I like to refer to mission assurance. Defense is one piece of mission assurance, but it’s better to start off with architecture is that don’t require so much defense in the first place. What we face today is the legacy of having designed architectures in an era when we did not face the kinds of threats we face today and transitioning to a new era. If you look at all the other domains, they’ve gone through this before, where yesterday’s system became vulnerable to tomorrow’s threat. But we found a new way to be resilient. We also found a way to reconstitute capabilities that they’re lost. All three of those pieces going to mission assurance. Thank you. General Thompson. I’ve been on this subcommittee for nine years and it feels like every year we have a debate about space launch. But sometimes this debate distracts from the significant progress that’s been achieved in this area through the years. The Phase two awards were announced last August and they I think demonstrated how far we’ve come from a single provider to a four way competition that produced two winners save the taxpayers money and it provided assured access to space. Can you give us your view on the progress that’s been made and please speak to how this competition has enabled a stronger industrial base force and then uh touch on why it’s important to our two space launch. So uh Senator Fisher, you characterized it incredibly well and I’m not sure if I can add to that, but I will you are correct more. In the final stages we have in fact, the ability to have two providers who can deliver our national security satellites to any orbit required permission performance is incredibly important. In fact, I’ve been part of this base launch community for more than 25 years and I can tell you back at the turn of the century, we had a tremendous problem with the ability to deliver those payloads because we have a series of launch failure. And so the importance of to fully qualified providers to do that is a vital part of national security access to space. The fact that we have done that and it is coupled with not just a strong national security market, but a commercial market as well increases our security, not from a military standpoint alone, but also from an economic standpoint. And I think finally the last key feature is we are now in a A path here in the next couple of years to get finally off of the Russian already 180 and and have two large vehicles that are fully owned and produced and operated from the industrial base of the United States. I think it is absolutely a measure of the success of the strategy that we followed. It is paying off. There’s still some fragility and so we need to continue with the Phase two approach. But very quickly here in the next several years will begin looking beyond that and how to further strengthen the base in the competition associated with national security. Very good. Thank you sir. Thank you. Mr Chairman channeling our former chair, john McCain, He would be delighted to hear you say. We’re getting off the RD 1 80. I can assure you of that. Uh, Senator Rosen via webex. Well, thank you. Chairman King. Of course, Ranking Member Fisher. It’s really important hearing that we’re having today and us military space policy programs and I really appreciate all the witnesses here for your uh for your service. And so of course we we think about our cyber mission as it relates to our space programs and it’s no secret that our adversaries of course see the value of the space domain and they’re developing counter space capabilities to undermine our interests including via cyber attacks. You have to look no further than uh the news probably every day about that. So a cyber attack on our space systems could result in the loss of data or services that are provided by our satellites which could have a wide spread effect, catastrophic effects abused against the systems such as our GPS systems. So general Thompson, could you speak to how space force is working to keep our space based assets including satellites safe from these kinds of cyber attacks that we have seen specifically in recent weeks against our uh things like the colonial pipeline, solar winds and the like Senator Rose. And you calculate or you characterize that threat very well, I will briefly tell you three things that we’re doing to protect our space systems from the cyber threat. The first is existing threat. Existing systems as Mr Hill explained, weren’t really designed with a cyber threat in mind. But we have gone through a series of assessments on all of them, understood the security challenge that we face. And while I’ll call them bolt on capabilities, we’ve still added cyber defensive and cyber security aspects to them. When and where and how we can. The second aspect of that is from here forward. Absolutely designing our systems with cyber security in mind. From the very beginning, we’re running back to my days as an Air Force member. You don’t choose to in an airplane whether you’re going to have an engine or wings, you require both to execute. The mission cybersecurity is now a fundamental part of everything we need for our systems. And then the third pieces were building out what we call mission defense teams. Those are cyber defense teams for every system for every operational organization who understand the cyber capabilities are highly trained in defense and hunting and finding threats and addressing them and providing that first line of defense. So it’s those three things covering down on the vulnerabilities of current systems, designing in cybersecurity and fielding these teams to protect the citizens or three aspects of what I’ll call cyber security and cyber. Well, thank you. I was going to ask you about making sure you do that in future acquisitions and how you’re using machine learning and artificial intelligence. But I’m going to actually move forward into talking about a few bills I’ve had in the NBA that you see your building up your cyber workforce. So I have a bill. I had a bill for J R J R O T. C. To provide a stem track for those young men and women who want to serve so they can begin their service uh, in the cyber field uh, in so many ways. And we have the promotes act another piece of bipartisan legislation that he’s going to do some of those things. So I’d like to ask general Thompson and then Mr Hill, how could things like the JR JR TC stem program helped the Space force carry out its mission? And how do you plan to grow the Space Force stem outreach programs? So we create the workforce because we are going to have to incorporate artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum computing and all of what we do in our future acquisitions and going forward. So general Thompson and then Mr Hill, please. Senator Rosen. Uh, stem is critical to everything that the space force does. We are focused on mission only, which means we do operations, intelligence, acquisition and cyber. And as you, as you understand, those are all very focused on uh stem training instead of education. And we can’t just wait for stem qualified applicants to come and ask to join the Space Force. And so, working with the Air Force recruiting service, working through the ROTC program and working through some of those other organizations like Junior ROTC and some other younger stem outreach programs. We’re doing an outreach program to go to specific areas. Look for the those areas where those stem specialties are and go recruit starting from, for example, high school, get that talent interested, offer them opportunities for education either through an ROTC program or civilians through a special college training program. If they choose stem degrees and commit to a career in the space force. Those are just a couple of things that we’re doing and we’ve begun to do as part of our efforts. Well, thank you. I see my time’s just about up but as we do think about how we have to grow in so many ways. We have to have uh the human capacity in order to fulfill our missions as well. So I’m glad you’re looking towards that. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator Rosen. Centre rounds. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you putting this together today and having this discussion. Thank you to all of our witnesses as well for taking the time to come in to brief us with with your expert testimony. Let me just begin by clarifying one item with regard to the Russian made RD 1 80 motors that we were using to do some of our space launch in the past. Are we using the already one eighties today, Sen? We are we have congressional authorization for use for those motors for up to 18 more launches. Our current plan has us using those motors for six launches. And by the time we’ve done that, the new motor for the Balkan launch system should be operational and we should finally be off of that. So at that time we will then have to separate companies with uh, launch capabilities that are not reliant on the RD 1 80 engine anymore. That’s correct. Great. Thank you. Um, I think that would make john McCain very happy to hear. Uh, let me also just next week with general Thompson the sensitivity um, for these special programs. Uh it seems critical and how critical is it for the space force to adopt and feel a rapid acquisition model in order to build capabilities at the speed of relevancy today, Senator, while we remain the best of the world, in terms of developing fielding capabilities, adversaries, particularly china, are rapidly catching up um by our current acquisition baselines. They have cycle times to be able to feel to generations of new systems every time we feel one. And at that pace, that means that not only will we be outpaced but they will begin accelerating away from us. And so it’s important to have a more rapid acquisition and prototyping process in order not just to keep pace with the threat, but actually maintain. You’re talking about specific military applications in terms of their capabilities. Are you talking about applications that are for defensive purposes or for offensive purposes or both? So in this case I’m specifically talking about defensive purposes, but not just defensive purposes really. The importance of space is what it delivers. Two soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines. If it doesn’t matter to them, it doesn’t matter to us. And especially those capabilities must continue to keep pace and we’ve got to defend them and provide and ensure their their in all phases. I think sometimes we think about space as being the location where we have the ability to observe to monitor, to detect. But that’s changing rapidly. At least it would appear to me that it is uh, it’s very similar to what and I think we’ve talked about in the past, um, in World War One with the primitive aircraft that we had at that time. At first they were used for observation. Then they figured out that they could drop a bomb from one or toss a grenade over the side and then pretty soon it became a case of one aircraft defending the folks that were on the ground from another aircraft. And you had fighter aircraft being developed and then you had fighter aircraft developed to shoot down bombers. Where are we at? Right now with regard to space? It would appear to me that we’re entering that phase right now, where we’ve seen that china has already demonstrated irresponsibly that they could blow up a satellite in low earth orbit. They left debris all over the place. Now they did it to their own but they did it nonetheless. They knew that we could see it. Um Are we to the point right now where when we talk about the different domains, air, land, sea, space and cyberspace, would it be fair to say that we are in that position to where we not only are observing from space but we are preparing to actually wage war in space. Senator. I think the analogy is very good. What you describe happened over about the period of about eight months In early 1914 and 15 and World War I while it took 60 years or more to get to that case in space um space has been used for observation for surveillance more constant to provide services for a long time. As you stated, Russia china and others are attempting to take those capabilities away from us. As a result, we’re proceeding rapidly to do several things. The first is defend those capabilities and the second is as Mr Hill noted field, new architectures that are resilient under attack that are not as sensitive to those sorts of threats. They recognize that the kinetic attack that the chinese did to their own satellite was one that brought international challenge to them and some embarrassment perhaps to them as well for their irresponsibility. Would it be fair to say that in the future we’re going to see directed are directed energy weapons as one of the alternative sources, not only being space based in terms of attacking hours, but probably with regard to their own systems in space. Being able to use directed energy weapons systems to damage our systems as well. And that we’re pretty close to that today, Senator surrounds the future is now with respect to ground based directed energy weapons. Absolutely. And there’s no reason that technology wouldn’t allow folks to examine other facing opportunities for that. Thank you. Thank you Mr Chairman. My time has expired. Mhm. Senator kelly. Thank you. Mr Chairman. And before I turn to our witnesses, I’d like to thank you for holding today’s hearing. And I’ve been fortunate enough to see the promise and also the opportunity of space exploration. Uh you know more directly I guess than most. And I’m glad now to be part of this committee focused on ensuring that we can defend us interests and promote stability and security in this increasingly contested domain. Arizona has always played a critical role in our nation’s defense. And I’m proud to say that that’s going to continue with Arizona supporting one of the 1st 10 J. R. O. T. C. Space force units in the country. Pretty exciting. Um It’s at Shadow Mountain High School in phoenix and I wanna now follow up a little bit on what Senator rounds was saying. Uh the destruction of that satellite, the chinese satellite by their own uh forces uh presented an interesting problem for me. I was the commander of the space shuttle on the very next shuttle mission to launch. And it became an issue. I had to maneuver the space shuttle out of the way of some of that debris. And it presents a increasingly complex hazard for for us. And um not only those thousands of objects, but there are tens of thousands of others. And as space becomes more congested, I think our ability to cooperate with other nations is going to become more important. So this question is really for for all three of you, uh you know, how do each of you propose that we work with our allies and our adversaries to maintain stability in this domain and ensure that space remains that it’s that’s usable and operational and functional for um for us and our allies. Senator kelly, I’ll start briefly and passed to Mr Hill because his organization uh leads a lot of the activities we have allies and partners. First of all, we’ve had a long standing relationship with many close allies In the past begins with some of our closest allies, uh, european allies in Australia as well as NATO partners, um, understanding the threats and challenges of the domain, understanding how we need to work together and understanding how collectively we can create a deterrent. And uh security effect has been uh has been an ongoing activity that we’ve we’ve seen. The second thing I’d like to add those with the creation of the space force. We’ve seen other nations who haven’t been traditional military allies, expressed interest in relationships and beginning talks. I’ll give you two examples brazil and India they have engaged us. In fact, our first bilateral relate uh exchange with any nation as space force was with the nation of brazil. They see this and we see this as an opportunity to pursue combination interest, especially focused on security and stability. And as you would note, we’ll pursue that opportunity with any country who is interested in peaceful use and security stability. And then finally, I think it’s incumbent on us friends, third parties and and potential adversaries alike is we have to have a discussion of rule, rules of engagement, norms of behavior and how to behave response general. Do you do you currently? Uh So with regards to leo in in particular, do you as we’re tracking, you know, relatively small objects. There’s thousands of them when you get a state vector on those and you can see that it’s gonna, you know, approach not only our allies but sometimes our adversaries um you know, satellites on orbit. Do you always share that information because there’s also benefit for us to make sure that even somebody who is not necessarily on our side, but this does not become an issue for them because it will further increase the problem if they, you know, if there’s an impact Senator kelly through our 18th space control squadron and the combined Space operations center, we do that deconfliction with all objects we track and we will advise any owner operator, friend foe Or disinterested 3rd party line and have done so in the back. Well, thank you. Mr Hill. Yes, Senator kelly and to pick up on that question. Um, most all of space operators that we contact the squadron contacts are very glad to engage with us. Uh, there are two countries that often don’t pick up the phone or answer the email and what we’re trying to focus on this year’s basic safety. We have data, we don’t have the perfect information. What do you have from your satellite operations? Do we have of potential conjunction collision here or not? It may be debris, maybe an active satellite and dead satellite or international space station in your case. Um, so that is, that’s us a basic sense of a basic principle communicate and when you have data, uh most data can be shared and used for these safety reasons. Well, thank you for doing that. I think it’s a thing we need to continue to do. Um because if we don’t uh you know, as you know, these these objects reenter eventually we just got to make sure we’re not adding more than than is coming back into the atmosphere. Thank you. Which are the two countries that don’t answer the phone. Good friends, Russia and china. Uh, we we have Established communications in some circumstances. It’s not 100% but with most people we know who’s who’s the operator to contact. So we end up having to use diplomatic channels and it’s a much more complicated process. Uh so you would want to be able to work on basic safety of flight operations. Thank you. Uh Mr. Chairman can I just follow up for a second? So the Russian space agency, I mean you should have uh a direct line to the soup the Russian mission control center in Moscow for their space agency so they don’t respond when there’s a conjunction max simple is the name of the organization that we would reach out to and they don’t respond. So we will work through their defense attache, our defense attaches and so forth through diplomatic channels and eventually establish it. But we’ve not been able to establish just this basic kind of safety of operations type of communication, not strategic communications at all, simply seeing something of concern that might be happening. Thank you. Mr. Thank you. I want to call on Senator Cramer but I also if I recall Senator Cramer, you were one of the early and passionate advocates for the Space force, so I’m sure this hearing is especially meaningful. You. Thank you. Yeah, I was um am General Thompson. Good to see you again. One of things I’d like to just testify to myself a little bit when you talk about recruitment. What what I’ve noticed since um in my trips to Grand Forks, for example to the university or to the base, but especially to the university where both General Raymond and and General Dickinson have spoken to the the ross sea cadets, They’re quite enthusiastic about space force, not just because it’s sort of the cool thing which is I think part of it, but also because of the upward mobility that they see, the opportunities that they see in space force, that they open the open up opportunity that they don’t see probably in in the Air Force, um or at least they don’t they don’t perceive that they see, I think they’re right, but I’ve also learned the same thing, I’ve seen the same thing from guardians when I go up to cavalier, they’ve chosen that that force specifically because um again, upward mobility, opportunities that they perceive and and are experiencing. Um I want to, you know, one of the issues general Thompson, you know, that I visit a lot with General Raymond about is the flatness of the organization and when when when we went through this process and to stand up, of course, one of the things that, you know, we had to say over and over and over again to ourselves and and and to be convinced that we weren’t going to create a quagmire, a big bureaucratic quagmire. That the other services have created for themselves over the course of decades or centuries, in in some cases. Um, and so far I’ve been pretty impressed. And and I know just as recently as last week, General Raymond mentioned that you’re able to avoid at least two layers of middle management, right? Could you maybe just elaborate a little bit on that and how you think it’s going? And I think this is an issue that I probably press for as long as I have anything to do with it, just to keep us all on track. Senators absolutely were absolutely designed the organization with that in mind, as you stated, um compared to the organization that we inherited from the Air Force, which was very well designed for the operational needs of the Air Force. We were redesigned it for the needs of the Space Force and removed in this case two echelons of command On the headquarters side. I will tell you that that Lean this is both an opportunity and the challenge. We have less than 600 people when we are fully when we’re fully resourced in our headquarters and I’ll give you an example of what that looks like. We have an office that does Intelligence operations, sustainment communications and our Nuclear Command Control Communications mission. Our staff in that organization has four executive leaders, three general officers and a senior executive. The average number of senior leaders and every other pentagon staff dealing with those matters is 37. So we’re incredibly lean. It makes us agile but rather than day by day deciding who’s going to attend meetings in the Pentagon, the question is, can we afford to attend meetings? So it’s about the challenge and opportunity, but it is the final design. It’s our expectation. And, and we have people moving fast and uh by design, but also by necessity. Well, you know, senator rose and I have similar flat organizations. We each represent about 800,000 people and they all have our cell number and it’s really very efficient. But it can be a burden that that said, the one area that um, that I’ve noticed, you know, back to sort of our job and our relationship with with you all is the one thing the Space Force does not have that specific to the Space force is a legislative liaison and I think for for developing organization that’s even more important than for a well established organization. And I know that the Marine Corps does. Um and I would just just suggest that, you know, take a little bit of the burden off of the organization and leadership might pay to have a legislative liaison shop within space force is there today? The legislative liaison shop is organized under the secretariat and so provides support to both. But we definitely noticed recently a need to add resources and focus for the Space force and we’ll continue to look at. I look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Chairman. Mhm. That’s right. I was there two weeks ago. It’s fascinating. I uh the lower third, let’s end to come. You mentioned you want your agile. I I hesitate to say this in front of a professional football coach with my old high school coach, said he wanted players who were agile mobile and hostile. That’s not a bad definition. And with that Senator Tuberville, I think I’ve used that a few times. Mr. Chairman in my life, we’re always looking for that kind of speaking of recruiting, being new general, uh are we sharing our stem curriculum that we’re gonna need for space force to all over the country with our universities? Are we getting into its more marketing than anything else? Yes, sir. The curriculum isn’t the challenge, as you said, it’s getting the word out, but I will tell you that we have a special opportunity. One of the reasons is because we are so small, our needs for any given year number in the hundreds rather than thousands or tens of thousands. So we’re in the process of establishing relationships with some specific universities that have outstanding stem programs that are world class in terms of research that have ROTC programs that we want to use as the Foundation for training and educating our military and civilian workforce so that we can ensure that we’re getting high quality. We have a reliable pipeline and they understand our needs are providing Miss Costello. I’ll wake you up over there, Nobody’s bothering you. So uh you know the doj just updated its china initiative in 80 cases. They found that chinese theft of trade secrets from multiple U. S. Aviation, aerospace companies, You know, does it make sense for us to spend 164 billion and R. & D. And then let’s let it slip through the back door. I’m just asking. I mean certainly that is not something that we intentionally do and we are continually working with our industry partners to make sure that they do have appropriate security measures in place so that that is happened in occasions. We have gotten much better um, and continue to challenge our industry partners and work with them on our cybersecurity, on our intellectual property rights, being able to make sure that our programs our are owned by us and we get to continue to work with them. Industry doesn’t want that going out the door either, so that’s a shared interest on our parts with industry and they are actively working it too. Um I welcome all ideas on how to improve that though, because it is a hard challenge. Uh and we have uh you know, people who would like that information, who are going to spend their days trying to figure it out. So we have our best working on IT, industry has their best working on it and we are working very hard so that that does not continue to happen. And this might be a question for all three of you being from Alabama, we’ve got 1000 subcontractors in Huntsville. Uh The big companies, corporations can afford cyber, they can afford, you know, to to watch your back, but a lot of the smaller companies that really do the bottom line work to come up with inventions, they can’t afford that. Uh they can’t afford it for the bottom line. How do we help the, how do we help those people uh overcome the problems they’re having because if they have to pay for all that, you know that overhead, they can’t make any money. So we do have several of our large companies who are taking an active role in creating modules if you will, that will help the smaller companies when their on boarding and already have a platform, they can use that as cyber secure. So that is one area where larger industry has recognized that problem and is working to help us. Uh The OSD is also working on measures that will help smaller companies not have to do all the same levels of protection, but as many of us in this room know all you need is one enabling capability to get through and it’s a problem. So we can’t go to loose on that. We still have to put controls in place, but I think it’s going to be a partnership of how we develop our capabilities are software designing cyber in from day one into those processes and as we write code letting the smaller companies be able to connect with standards so that we are protecting capability along the way instead of everybody having access to everything along the way. Thank you. Uh General Alabama is proud to host the main launch provider for the National Security Space Launch Phase two program, you L. A. And its new vehicle engine provided by Blue Board. Uh, what you what do you think the main challenges for uh for us to assure us access to space and and you know the challenge and what are we going to do about it? Because we’re gonna have problems senator. I think the our launch sector is actually in the best shape that it has been in in many years. But you’re right, that’s still a bit of a fragile point. I think the most important thing that we need to do in the near term Is follow through on the strategy that created Phase two that has just begun so that we have to reliable partners As you said one SpaceX others, you la I think what we need to do is continue to provide opportunity for those and other providers to launch responsibly and reliably in the future. One of the things that we’re doing at our launch ranges, Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg is to lower the costs that are incurred on them to be more flexible and responsive and letting them launch. I think uh those activities as as well as helping helping to facilitate lower cost for them is what we can do to continue to sustain the market in those sectors. One more. Okay. Um you know, space is By 2040 say it’s gonna cost us $2 trillion dollars are taxpayers. That’s, you know, that’s a lot of money. Of course it might not be that much. You know, time we get to 40 but usually conflict follow follows money. Uh huh. I’d like to ask Mr Hill this, you know, just being new on this committee, american taxpayers are gonna have to put a lot of bills, big bills for space because that’s probably where the next big conflicts are going to come from. How do our allies trying to fill about all this? Are they on board? Are they gonna help? We’re gonna be in it alone? Like we normally are, where we at on them. So our history with national security space um, is a history where we’ve done a lot ourselves for reasons of the security, of the programs that we did in the past. Um, the downside of that is that with the exception of the Five Eyes allies, who are closely intertwined with some of that, um, we didn’t have a lot of sharing with our allies on the other side of it though, it meant that some of our allies were investing in their own space capabilities because they weren’t able to partner with us now that we’re in an era where there’s a lot more that people can do and the economics of space have changed to uh we have more allies who are coming into it and they’re approaching it from the perspective that they know they can’t do the program themselves, they’re not going to design the U. S. Space architecture. So the question is pretty uniformly to us, where can we make an impact that as allies can contribute to uh combined capability? Like we do in the other domains. And we’re at the point with things like the space development agency architecture for example, or satellite communications hosted payloads where there are opportunities to actually do this, partnering um with allies as well as on the operational side sharing the previous question about debris in space domain awareness, sharing that information that allies also collect from their systems is an area. So it’s a growth opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Mr Jim. Uh Miss Costello. I’m concerned about redundancy of acquisition. We’ve got the intelligence community, we’ve got the commercial satellite community. We’ve got the Air Force. We’ve got now the Space Force, we’ve got Space Command uh talk to me about rationalizing the acquisition process to be sure that we’re maximizing the benefit and minimizing the cost. So acquisition authorities start from in our case the secretary of the Air Force and they roll down right now through the acquisition executive currently South. Thank you. At the point at which we have a second S. A. E. By law right now, october one of 22. Those authorities will go down to pathways but not all authorities. Certain authorities are limited to one person within a service. So uh we’re working through some of those details to make sure uh we have the right efforts in the right support mode for when we stand up the new assistant Secretary of the Air Force. And isn’t there an acquisition executive council or something like that? Is that is that up and running? Will that help in this regard? There’s a space acquisition council that has been stood up and right now I am chairing that until there’s an assistant Secretary of the Air Force of course face acquisition and integration at at their arrival. They will then share that forum and that does bring all of these groups together to talk about uh for structures and issues going on so that we can align our efforts and not duplicate. Certainly not duplicate programs and not duplicate technology efforts that are going on, align our budgets better get on a similar road map. That will be very helpful. And a huge part of the development in space now is commercial. To what extent do we piggyback on commercial space activities? It seems to me if we want to do a GPS satellite and amazon or somebody else already has one up there, can we, can we save the taxpayers money by utilizing commercial satellites? Absolutely. Our Space and Missile Center is very actively involved with the startup companies. Industry commercial, they have their space enterprise consortium Of about 500 companies, many of which are almost all 70-80%, are not traditional space providers. And they get ideas from there. They get they get their innovation, they’re able to use that maybe to develop prototypes, test things out. So they’re actively working with industry and also working with R international partners in order to figure out where we can leverage what they’re doing to because we don’t need to duplicate their on many capabilities. Well, it’s also a strategic advantage. A lot of small satellites are harder to take out than one big one. Absolutely. Depending on the mission and what you’re trying to accomplish. We, we are at a point where we have so many tools in our toolbox right now that we have that flexibility that we talk about picking the right path for providing the capability. It’s not just the old traditional one way to do an acquisition program. What is that we need to do there, should it in the desegregation that is going on enables us to do some things as prototypes. Something’s as major programs, if it makes sense, something’s is just software pathway and then also doing partnerships with our international allies. And I agree with Senator Tuberville. I think this is a ripe area for partnerships uh and and spreading the burden to some extent to those who will be benefiting by this, by this architecture. Mr Hill, nobody wants to talk about offensive weapons in space, however, isn’t it? Or is it necessary to have a capability that will deter our adversaries from exercising offensive weapons against our satellites? In other words, our whole national security strategy is rest upon deterrence. And do we need to develop capabilities and communicate them to our adversaries in order to have an effective deterrent? Senator King? The first. The thing about the weapons, of course, the whether it’s offensive and defensive is often in the intention of the user, one person’s, one person’s active defense is another person’s offense, for example, um uh the ability to assure a capability to deny somebody the benefit of attacking a capability is part of a deterrence. The ability to impose costs on someone else if they take action is also part of a deterrence and it gets to understanding what is important to someone else uh to the to the adversary that the aggressor you’re concerned about. Um if there uh if they’re capability in space is really not that important to them, then there’s not particular deterrent value in holding it at risk. Um but if if taking down our space capability is very important to their military strategy, then assuring our military capability in space may be very important to our deterrents calculus figuring out these pieces of where does the space domain fit into the totality of deterring aggression is one of the key questions that we have to work on with the new organizations that when I was in colorado Springs and having these briefings, the first thing that came into my mind was that this is literally three D. Chess. They are We are dealing in a three dimensional process of defense and countermeasure Senator fisher. Yeah. Mr Hill when you’re when you’re talking about the dual nature of the technology that’s available, whether it’s going to be offensive or defensive um Isn’t isn’t a grappling arm Can be used to fix the satellite or can also be used to take one down. Perfect example. So it’s not necessarily some um advanced military weapon that we’re talking about in space. It could it could be as simple as that and that’s that’s part of the point. The designing of the satellites of the old era where you have so much capability aggregated to do so many missions from one platform, very high value target and that and the modern capability of something very simple to take it down. That’s a bad equation. So how do we switch to architecture has described small, many small satellites, many more targets? Not as much value in each target. Right. When we when we talk about behavior in space, um what what do you think about the challenges that we have in trying to establish some kind of norms or some kind of treaties when it comes to that behavior? Yeah, I think treaties are long ways away, much less getting it to the through the negotiating table, much less through through the United States government processes for treaty ratification and many other governments processes as well. Uh this is why our focus has been on the, on more voluntary non binding measures, but to the point that Senator King made earlier, even the one that we have proposed at different places of don’t do debris generating tests of of satellites. Your boards, I think we don’t blow up satellites, sir. Um even that is one that people who are very careful about talking about because of what they might have uh in their own plans. But having the user community together and by that, I mean, the total user community of space operators beyond just the military’s but creates a larger group of voices to push these issues. Right? And and if and when we are able to move forward on some kind of treaty in space, are you gonna verify compliance verification is one of the reasons that we have objected to the what the Russians have of proposed. Um uh in addition to the point that the Russian proposal doesn’t address ground launched anti satellite missiles, uh so it is, we have capabilities in space to observe other people’s satellites, but we’re a long ways away from having the kind of verification that you would want to have for that. Right. General Thompson, I’d like to ask you about the overhead persistence infrared satellite program. Um before, before we had a Space Force, the Air Force was going to move forward on that in a very aggressive manner and I think it’s been a poster child or go fast. Can you talk about the progress that’s been made on that so far? And what’s what’s your level of confidence that That we’re going to be able to reach the 2025 target on that? And that’s that’s uh, I guess looking to see if if funding is going to be provided. So, um Senator Fisher, That’s exactly correct. It is an example of using authorities provided by the Congress from 84 to to rapidly prototype and prepare to field capabilities. The challenge, the technical challenge in that system. The next generation missile warning son uh, satellite was the sensor to detect those missile launches and so using those authorities and acting immediately, our acquisition arm went out And started prototyping those capabilities right away. Um, we also aggressively went to find the funds we need. The the program is currently fully funded. It is currently on track for 2025 from the day the date was established. It was a very aggressive schedule, but I will tell you today, we’re on cost. We’re on schedule and we expect that our acquisition communities Space Missile System Center will deliver it for launch by 2020. Is there a backup plan to provide for a missile warning if the first satellite isn’t long. So, um, yes, ma’am. The backup plan is in fact the quality of the systems that are formerly airmen and now guardians have produced in the past. The current set of capabilities. Space based infrared system. The current missile warning program has been designed and engineered so well that it’s lasting longer than required. In fact, the Defense support program, a series of satellites before sybers we still have functioning satellites on orbit. And so because every single day those satellites continue to function and function effectively and perform the mission Beyond their design life each day that passes, we gain more margin in the in the ability not to have to deliver these satellites in 2025 and still meet the missile morning mission. We remain on schedule. The team is absolutely adamant that they’re going to deliver in 2025 but it is, we fully expect there will be enough capability in our missile warning constellation at that time. If in fact we suffer a slip, we will still be able to fully execute the mission. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Senator Fisher. Senator kelly. Thank you. Mr Chairman. I just wanted to uh, get an update from you on issues regarding just heavy lift to leo, do you do you guys track development of sLS and um, also with the no long term term need of rocket engines and development of engines. Is that something you’re looking at um, as part of space force? Uh, as you, as you build out, I see on, you know, you have a space Systems command that not yet established but will eventually is this going to be part of the purview of Space force as well? Yes, sir, it is. Uh, Space Systems Command, in fact, the core of Space Systems Command will be Space and Missile Systems Center today. They’re the providers of our launch capability, um, specifically related SLS and the utilization of that system and that capability in the Space force. We are not, but we work very closely with Nasa on launch capabilities in general specific technologies of interest. Absolutely. Including crossover technologies between SLS and some of our launch needs. Um And then the other piece of that is um as we prepare to go into the next phase of national security space launch, we’re in phase two right now. We are currently looking for our own needs but also for the needs of the entire uh U. S. Government on specific technologies that may be of value or of importance. And to determine whether or not we need some research development technology initiatives to pursue that. And we do that routinely with Nasa and with the National Reconnaissance Office. I think there’s opportunities here with incredible synergy with you know private public partnerships. But at the same time we’re just developing a lot new systems in parallel. Um you know for commercial space flight that could be ultimately adopted Two for uses for Space Force and the U. S. Military in general. Um and I think that’s a positive thing and it could bring down the cost. I often feel like we are currently In the where we were in the 1930s in aviation, you know in the 19 thirties the D. C. Three was built it was the first airplane that was able to take a decent number of people a decent distance and and do it relatively safely and efficiently without very high cost. And we’re starting to see something like that and with all the commercial um capabilities being developed to orbit. And this could be um if we work in conjunction with private industry this could benefit D. O. D. Senator. Right. I think the opportunity to do that for all of us right now is as we begin to prepare for that phase three, we we US space force will be perching it, purchasing our first launches in the next phase of the programme in 2025. That means right now, it’s about the time when we start to look at those things. We looked in the commercial sector. We work with the N. R. O. We worked with Nasa. So I think you’re exactly right now is we’re on the cusp of the ability to do that. Thank you general. And I yield back. Right, Senator Trueba rule. Got one more question. General. What in your opinion, where do we stand with R. And D uh compared to Russia and china right now, uh in our just our country, where do we stand? Uh, what I need to do is get you some metrics that I’ve seen in the past that, um, that I’m trying to recall off the top of my head. What I’ll tell you is uh with respect to the energy and the investment in china, we probably are a big challenge. Uh We have established what I’ll call a floor in terms of science and technology investment inside the Department of Defense. Um uh and the and the level of that investment right now is is probably barely adequate. But in terms of the numbers of cos the amount of money that’s invested in the number of people that are entering, for example, uh stem career fields and engaged in R. And D. We have a challenge in the numbers game one that we can probably never fully compete with in terms of pure numbers but um partnering with other nations and ensuring that we at least have enough to adequately address what we have to do is probably a focus that the nation needs to. The pursuit. Thank you. Well, I want to thank, we’re all set with questions. Senator Fisher. You’re okay. Uh, I want to thank our witnesses. Uh, and one last, uh, comment you’ve mentioned section NATO for several times in the authorities. Since this is a new evolving organization. Please let us know if there are inadequacies in the four authorities that we might be able to patch in the upcoming National Defense Bill. If there are things that you have discovered that are obstacles to your movement forward. Please. Uh, now’s the time. So please convey those to the committee and we’ll be glad to consider them again. Thank you for your testimony today. Thanks for your wonderful work on behalf of this country. With that the hearing is adjourned.