Today the George C. Marshall Institute and the Space Enterprise Council convened a roundtable titled “National Security Space: Policy and Program Development.” Jeff Kueter, President of the Institute, explained the event was meant to ensure that the military and intelligence side of space would not be “shoved under the radar” in discussions following the release of the National Space Policy (NSP). During a lively discussion, experts focused on the array of challenges officials will face in implementing the national security directions in the NSP, at the heart of which is a broad paradigm shift needed in the government’s approach to space.

The interdependence between sectors and the increasingly contested, congested, and competitive space environment have produced a number of shared challenges, as one panelist put it. Increased space situational awareness data sharing, the development of rules for responsible behavior in space, and the reinvigoration of the industrial space sector to support these goals, are just some of the challenges that will require changes in how the United States structures its space activities: internally – between government agencies and with industry – and externally, with international partners.

In an era of continuing fiscal constraints, the diversification and flexibility of space capabilities will become even more important, calling for a variety of measures to integrate commercial and foreign capabilities into the mix. Several panelists described changes in acquisition strategies – including hosted payloads on foreign and commercial satellites and the transition toward larger numbers of smaller commercially-developed systems – to achieve these goals in the long run.

Panelists agreed that the NSP includes language advancing this paradigm shift in the right direction, but that leadership commitment and strategic thinking will determine its success. The task of Chirag Parikh, newly appointed director of Space Policy at the National Security Council, who was frequently mentioned in the discussion and was in the audience, will be in implementation. “Sounds like an easy job,” joked Kueter as the event drew to a close. As the saying goes, the devil will be in the details – implementation details, that is.

I have just returned from Brussels and an excellent conference sponsored by the Institut Fran ais des Relations Internationales (IFRI) and the Secure World Foundation (SWF) on “The Continuing Story of Europe and Space Security.” I was delighted to be invited to be the keynote speaker on the topic of “U.S. Space Policy: What Has Changed.” For anyone who’s interested, a copy of my remarks can be found on our left menu under “Marcia S. Smith’s Biography and Recent Publications” or simply by clicking here. Hopefully other speakers will provide their remarks for posting on the IFRI or SWF websites and a conference summary — under Chatham House rules — will be available on IFRI’s website soon.

Victoria Samson, Director of the Washington Office of the Secure World Foundation (SWF), has published an analysis of the Obama National Space Policy from SWF’s viewpoint. As the analysis says,

“Secure World Foundation (SWF) has long supported building an increased understanding of how to best protect the space environment and improve space security for the United States and other space actors. Moreover, SWF focuses on three key areas: sustainability, internationalengagement, and stability in outer space. The new NSP places a heavy emphasis on these objectives, recognizing the extent that space activities have penetrated the economic, political and military framework of today’s world.”

The House just passed the FY2010 intelligence authorization bill (H.R. 2701) as amended and passed by the Senate. It will now go to the President for signature. Passage of the bill has been held up for many months as reported here earlier. The bill authorizes activities at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which designs, builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites, among other intelligence agencies.

Yet another version of the FY2010 — yes, 2010 — Intelligence Authorization bill passed the Senate yesterday and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly has agreed to bring it to the House floor. It would be the first authorization bill for the intelligence community since FY2005 if it passes.

As we reported earlier, the bill has been controversial primarily over who in Congress must be briefed on the most highly classified intelligence matters. The latest version reaches a compromise on the two key issues of concern to Speaker Pelosi. She wanted all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees to be briefed on covert intelligence findings while the White House wanted to continue to restrict such briefings to only the top eight (“Gang of Eight”) congressional officials on these matters.

According to Congress Daily (subscription required), the compromise keeps it to the Gang of Eight, but the administration must provide a general description of the finding to all committee members. Also, Speaker Pelosi wanted the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to be able to audit the intelligence agencies. The compromise requires GAO and the Director of National Intelligence to develop a directive on audits by May 1, 2011.

The new language was passed by the Senate as an amendment to the House version of the bill (H.R. 2701). Congress Daily offers that passing the bill before the elections would allow Democrats to “claim an 11th hour victory on a national security measure” to give Democratic candidates “another legislative achievement to point to.”

The Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) System satellite was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base last night on a Minotaur 4 rocket.

SBSS is intended to provide space-based data on the locations of satellites and space debris. Knowing exactly where objects in space are — and where their operators plan to move them if they are active — is critical to avoid collisions like the 2009 Iridium-Cosmos collision that created a cloud of space debris. That event, and China’s intentional destruction of one of its own satellites in a 2007 antisatellite test, added substantially to the amount of “stuff” in Earth orbit and catalyzed governments and commercial satellite operators to pay more attention to Space Situational Awareness (SSA). SSA and the need for nations and companies to behave responsibly in space to ensure it remains a sustainable environment for all to use is a major feature of President Obama’s new National Space Policy.

Today, only ground-based sensors are available to locate and track space objects. Approximately 22,000 pieces are tracked by the Joint Space Operations Center (part of U.S. Strategic Command). They are 10 centimeters or more in diameter. Thousands more smaller pieces also are thought to be in orbit.

Spaceflightnow.com quotes SBSS mission director Col. J. R. Gordon as saying that the satellite will “revolutionize the way we track objects in space by not being constrained by weather, the atmosphere or the time of day.”

The Naval War College (NWC) today released a monograph of the papers presented at a May workshop on Economics and Security: Resourcing National Priorities.

The monograph offers a very interesting view of national security issues and while the theme is economics, the papers are much broader. Panels included Economics and Security; Federal Budget: Resourcing National Priorities; Quadrennial Defense Review; Defense Budget and Risks; Land and Special Operations Forces; Air and Maritime Forces; and Strategic Nuclear, Space and Cyber Forces.

I was privileged to be the “space” speaker, and found it fascinating to learn about national security issues from the perspectives of the others. I highly recommend this monograph, which can be downloaded for free. This is the fifth William B. Ruger Chair workshop. Monographs from the previous seminars are available on the Ruger website. Dr. Richmond Lloyd currently holds the William D. Ruger Chair of National Security Economics at the NWC and sponsored the workshop.

Summer is over, so SpacePolicyOnline.com is transitioning its “Summer Reading List” on the left menu into a “Top Picks” reading list, and this will be added to it.

Peter Marquez, the White House National Security Council (NSC) staffer who spearheaded interagency consensus-building that led to President Obama’s new National Space Policy, is moving on. Where he’s headed was not publicly announced, but his successor is Chirag Parikh, who made his debut at the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies’ National Space Forum. Marquez’ last day in the job is this coming Friday.

The annual Eisenhower Center forum, the fifth in a series on national space issues, followed “Chatham House” rules where everything is said on a non-attribution basis. So we cannot report on what Mr. Parikh said, but we can report that he is an aerospace engineer with 14 years of experience in the Air Force and intelligence communities, and a very approachable person eager to engage with the space community.

He will have the task of developing the implementation strategy to go along with the policy, as well as efforts to update three other specific U.S. space policies on space transportation, commercial remote sensing, and positioning, navigation and timing satellites (i.e., GPS).

U.S. space policy is coordinated at the White House level by the NSC and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Marquez and Parikh each call OSTP’s Damon Wells their partner in the process.

In its latest report on the Global Positioning System (GPS), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) tells Congress that the system is looking better than the last time GAO assessed it, but the process for interagency requirements setting by the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Transportation (DOT) needs improvement.

“The GPS interagency requirements process, which is co-chaired by officials from DOD and DOT, remains relatively untested and civil agencies continue to find the process confusing. This year GAO found that a lack of comprehensive guidance on the GPS interagency requirements process is a key source of this confusion and has contributed to other problems, such as disagreement about and inconsistent implementation of the process. In addition, GAO found that the interagency requirements process relies on individual agencies to identify their own requirements rather than identifying PNT needs across agencies.”

DOD “did not concur” with GAO’s recommendation that the two agencies develop “comprehensive guidance for the interagency requirements process” and DOT “generally agreed to consider it,” according to the report.

As far as the GPS system itself is concerned, GAO noted that the first GPS IIF satellite was launched earlier this year — almost 3 1/2 years late — and future launches of that version of the spacecraft still face risks, as does the follow-on version, GPS IIIA. GAO warned that if GPS IIIA satellite launches are delayed, the size of the constellation could dip below 24, the number needed for global three-dimensional coverage.

The new GPS IIF version was not given a clean bill of health. GAO noted that usually DOD retains some of an older version of a satellite to launch in case problems develop with a new version once it is on-orbit. The previous version of GPS is the GPS IIR-M, but because of the delays with GPS-IIF, all the GPS IIR-Ms have been launched: “Two GPS Wing officials expressed concern that the GPS program is now in a riskier position than it has been for many years because it does not have any IIR-M satellites in inventory and ready to launch.” If the freshly launched GPS IIF spacecraft encounters problems and those in construction need to be modified, launch delays could result, GAO says, not to mention the tight availablity of launch vehicles and facilities.

In short, the congressional watchdog agency seemed to give DOD credit for getting the GPS IIF and IIIA programs on a better footing, but is not willing to give the program a clean bill of health yet.

Senate Democrats failed to get the required 60 votes to bring the FY2011 defense authorization bill (S. 3454) to the floor for debate. This afternoon’s vote was 56-43.

Two Democrats (Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas) voted no, and no Republican voted yes. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) voted no as a procedural move to allow the vote to be reconsidered later. The bill was already controversial because it could lead to the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military, and Senator Reid also wants to add the DREAM immigration reform act to it.

Conventional wisdom is that the bill therefore will not be debated until after the November elections, but with Congress, one never knows!