The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will hold a seminar on Friday about deficit reduction and the defense industrial base.

With the failure of the supercommittee triggering substantial cuts to the Department of Defense (DOD) — unless modified or overturned by subsequent action — over the next 10 years, everyone is asking what that really means for DOD and its industrial base.  This CSIS seminar, “Deficits, Defense and the Industrial Base — What’s Next,” will illuminate the consequences.   Scheduled for December 2, 2011 from 10:00 – 11:30 am EST at CSIS (1800 K Street, NW, B1 Conference Center, Washington DC), the speakers are:

John Hamre, President and CEO, CSIS 

Followed by a panel of experts

David J. Berteau (moderator), Senior Vice President and Director, CSIS International Security Program

Gordon Adams, Professor of International Relations, School of International Service, American University; Distinguished Fellow, Stimson Center

James W. Dyer,  Senior Adviser, CSIS, and Principal, The Podesta Group

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum and former Director, Congressional Budget Office.

RSVP to KObecny@csis.org .

The Senate began consideration of the FY2012 authorization bill for the Department of Defense (DOD) today under a veto threat from the White House.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) had reported out a bill in June (S. 1253, S. Rept. 112-26), but on Tuesday, reported out a different bill that includes a provision DOD and the White House strongly oppose.

The new bill, S. 1867, includes a provision requiring that terror suspects be put under military custody. In a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP), the White House firmly argues against the language, concluding that it would “micromanage the work of our experienced counterterrorism officials, adding that it would be “a mistake for Congress to overrule or limit the tactical flexibility of our Nation’s counterterroism professionals.” In underscored language, the SAP states that “Any bill that challenges or constrains the President’s critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the Nation” would prompt a veto.

Although that issue is outside the space policy arena, the fate of the bill would affect national security space programs that are authorized by it. In fact, the SAP addresses SASC’s action on the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite program. “The Administration objects to section 131, which would provide only incremental funding — undermining stability and cost discipline — rather than the advance appropriations” requested for procurement of AEHF “and certain classified programs.”

The bill caps funding for two AEHF satellites at $3.1 billion, but provides a number of exceptions under which the cap could be raised. The Administration wants to enter into a firm fixed price contract for the two satellites, but bill language states that such a contract should be used only if it would save “not less than 20 percent over the cost of procuring two such satellites separately.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report today that reviews the current state of the fixed communications satellite marketplace and how the government acquires commercial communications satellite services. The landscape has changed significantly over the decade since Congress passed the ORBIT Act in 2000. GAO focuses on how today’s environment affects how much the government, and the Department of Defense (DOD) in particular, pay for such services.

DOD has a sizeable communications satellite fleet of its own, but its communications appetite is voracious. A significant amount of unclassified DOD traffic is routed over commercial communications satellites, especially in support of Central Command operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its report, GAO cites DOD statistics that its use of commercial communications satellite bandwidth grew by more than 180 percent in the Middle East and Africa between 2003 and 2009.

Until recently, three satellite service providers held a three-year contract with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to resell commercial communications capacity to DOD through a contract dubbed DSTS-G. GAO said the contract was “a total set-aside for competition restricted to small business concerns.” Other government agencies acquired these services through a separate contract administered by the General Services Administration (GSA).

DISA and GSA now have joined forces to create the Federal Commercial Satellite Communications Services Acquisition (FCSA) program. FCSA allows satellite operators as well as satellite service providers to supply capacity directly to DOD. GAO reported that federal contracting officials expect the increased competition to lower costs. Vendors may continually be added to the list of qualified contractors.

The GAO report did make any recommendations. It does provide an interesting review of the commercial communications satellites sector and how it has changed since the ORBIT Act, which forced the privatization of Intelsat and Inmarsat and led to the demise of COMSAT.

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites, celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday with an event at the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. As part of the celebration, the super secret agency, whose name was not even known outside classified circles until 1992, opened the door into its world a bit wider. Two reconnaissance satellite programs from the 1960s were declassified — Gambit (KH-7 and KH-8) and Hexagon (KH-9).

Keith Cowing of NASAWatch posted video he shot while visiting the Udvar Hazy Center on YouTube showing the KH-9 satellite that NRO displayed.

NRO has a website with considerable information about both programs.

The nation’s first reconnaissance satellite program, Corona, was declassified years ago. A book about it, Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites, was written by Dwayne Day, John Logsdon, and Brian Latell in 1999 and is available from Amazon.com (and undoubtedly other vendors).

Saying they did not want “to repeat the costly mistakes of the NPOESS program,” Senate appropriators told the Department of Defense (DOD) to terminate the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) and start over.

DWSS is DOD’s part of the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). It was created when the White House decided to end NPOESS — a joint program among DOD, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA — and return to past practice of having separate weather satellites for the civil and military sectors. NOAA and NASA are now trying to win support for their civil system, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), while DOD is trying to restructure its part of NPOESS into DWSS. NPOESS was being acquired through DOD and DOD holds the contract with Northop Grumman.

The Senate Appropriations Committee made their unhappiness with this arrangement clear in its report (S. Rept. 112-77) on its version of the FY2012 defense appropriations bill (H.R. 2219). The report was released yesterday.

Saying the DWSS program “remains challenged by a difficult and confusing set of management issues,” the committee zeroed the $445 million request and replaced it with $250 million for “continued common sensor development, as well as requirements definition and source selection activities for a full and open competition for a follow-on program.”

It also provided $150 million to cover termination liability costs for ending the Northrop Grumman contract.

In its version of the FY2012 defense appropriations bill, the House halved the DWSS request. The House Appropriations Committee’s report on the bill (H. Rept. 112-110) says only that the cut was due to “excess to need — poor justification.”

The Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) wasn’t the only military space program of concern to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The appropriators also singled out the need for more competition in the space launch arena for comment, and zeroed a $416 million request for the ASSIST program. The latter is intended to reduce the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) costs of leasing commercial communications satellite capacity.

The committee approved its version of the FY2012 defense appropriations bill (H.R. 2219) on Thursday and released the accompanying report (S.Rept. 112-77) yesterday.

The committee said it supports DOD’s plan to buy eight core Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs) per year for the next five years in order to “stabilize production capacity and control costs,” but stressed that DOD’s goal really should be to significantly reduce the cost of launch. Competition is the solution, it said. “The Committee intends to examine future budget requests to balance the need to stabilize the EELV industrial base with the need to promote competition. Therefore, [DOD] is urged to retain flexibility with its block-buy acquisition strategy as opportunities for competition by new launch entrants become available.”

SpaceX has made no secret of its desire to offer space launch services to DOD with its existing Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle it plans to develop. On its website, the company asserts that “If allowed to compete, SpaceX can help [DOD] save at least one billion dollars annually in space launch services.”

The committee zeroed DOD’s $416 million request for the Assured SATCOM Services in Single Theater (ASSIST) program (called SATCOM Services Enhancements in the DOD budget request documents). As explained in the committee’s report, under ASSIST, DOD would lease a single commercial communications satellite operating in both the Ka- and Ku-bands instead of leasing capacity on multiple commercial communications satellites as it does now. The Senate appropriators reported that DOD estimated the cost of leasing a new satellite would be paid back in two and a half years “if satellite communications were to continue to be purchased in the same method and volume as they are today.” The committee is skeptical about those assumptions, however. Saying that it had “learned of a number of innovative proposals from commercial providers,” it zeroed the request, which is part of the Defense-Wide Procurement account. Instead, it recommended that DOD conduct an Analysis of Alternatives of how best to meet its satellite communications needs.