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When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy vehicle launched a national security mission into stationary Earth orbit on January 15, the Space Force discovered that the three payloads on board were
When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy vehicle launched a national security mission into stationary Earth orbit on January 15, the Space Force discovered that the three payloads on board were being developed by one of the most secretive agencies, the Space Rapid Capabilities Office.
The announcement was unusual because Space RCO, headquartered in Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, operates under the radar and rarely announces its activities. Kelly Hammett, program director and director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, based at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. Credits: US Space Force
Kelly Hammett, director of Space RCO, said the decision to release the USSF-67 mission’s satellites is part of a broader effort to begin to drop the office’s veil of secrecy.
“We’re going to be a little more open about what we’re doing,” he said. Space News in a recent interview.
Before becoming head of Space RCO seven months ago, Hammett was head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Division. One of its goals for the space agency is to increase visibility on Capitol Hill and work with the wider space industry. “It’s hard to do that if people don’t know we exist or what we’re doing,” he said.
The office is one of three purchasing entities in the Space Force, along with the Space Development Agency and the much larger Space Systems Command. Congress established the space RCO in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. His main supporter in Congress was Senator Martin Heinrich (DN.M).
Heinrich has criticized the Air Force for years for not supporting the Operational Response Area Office (ORS) at Kirtland Air Force Base. The ORS office was established in 2007 to work on space-based rapid response systems and smaller satellites, but the Air Force stopped funding the office in 2013 to return to Space and Missile Systems, its main space purchasing office in Los Angeles. Centre.
Despite this, Congress continued to add money to ORS for several years, eventually pushing for a separate rapid space acquisition organization that would be independent and physically separate from the Space and Missile Systems Center, now Space Systems Command. Thus, Space RCO was born.
At the time, Heinrich and other lawmakers also complained that the Air Force purchasing bureaucracy was not flexible enough to meet the challenges posed by rival space powers, which threatened to attack US systems with anti-satellite weapons.
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office operates with much more autonomy than most military acquisitions.
The Space RCO is modeled after the U.S. Air Force’s Rapid Capability Office, which was established in 2003. Working mostly behind the scenes, the Air Force RCO spearheaded the development of the X-37B unmanned reusable spaceplane and the B-21 long-range attack bomber.
Space RCO personnel are approximately 200, including 80 government civilian and military officers. The rest are subcontractors. Like its Air Force counterpart, the Space RCO operates quite differently from most military procurement centers, with far greater autonomy and congressional delegated authority to allocate resources.
The agency didn’t reveal its annual funding, but Hammett said he expects budgets and workloads to increase as the Pentagon pours more money into space programs to compete with China.
Most RCO projects are funded by the secret Space Force budget, which has grown significantly in recent years, rising from $3.7 billion in 2021 to $6.5 billion in 2023, according to estimates from aerospace consulting firm Velos.
“It’s a very dynamic environment,” said Hammett. “Demand for space systems, services, and capabilities is growing. If you look at what has happened to the budget over the past few years, the Space Force budget is increasing rapidly because of this demand signal, and most of that demand signal is coming to us.” Source
Source: Port Altele
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