Demise Of TSAT Is Crucial Test
By Jefferson Morris
The cancellation of the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program tees up a crucial test for the national security space community as it tries to move on from its traditional emphasis on monolithic, "one-size-fits-all" space systems, according to a DOD space and intelligence official.
Joshua Hartman, director of the Pentagon's Space and Intelligence Capabilities Office, told members of Congress during a hearing in Washington April 30 that the national security space community must resist the impulse to pile too many requirements on the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) and Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite programs, which are slated to pick up the slack in TSAT's absence.
Led by Lockheed Martin, AEHF had been capped at three spacecraft until problems with TSAT prompted the U.S. Air Force to add a fourth satellite last year (Aerospace DAILY, Sept. 11, 2008). Following TSAT's cancellation, which was announced by the Pentagon early this month along with a host of other major program kills and restructurings, a fifth AEHF satellite is slated to be added as well.
"The first step in what we've talked about here today is evolving systems and not putting too much risk in a single system," said Hartman, who also serves as senior advisor to the undersecretary of defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. "If we can do this properly, it will be the first step" in reforming the approach to space acquisition, he said.
The "most daunting problem" that has faced national security space has been the emphasis on "large, monolithic systems," which has driven strategy since the 1970s, Hartman told members of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.
"We've moved from a high number of launches at lower costs to a low number of launches at higher costs," he said. "In the end, we wonder why we don't find the performance that we once had." DOD and the intelligence community need less complex, less risky systems versus the "megasensor model" that overburdens programs with too many requirements from too many different user communities, he said. System design lives will be purposely reduced to lower necessary redundancy, Hartman said, and there will be a move toward standardized spacecraft buses, with more competition at the payload and sensor level.
The continued weaponization of space also points to a need for more distributed space systems with smaller, less expensive spacecraft that can be developed on a two- three-year cycle rather than a current 10-year cycle, according to Hartman. "Deploying architectures of systems with just a few satellites leaves the nation vulnerable," he said. The fewer satellites in a system, the juicier a target each satellite is, he said.
Cristina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), testified that despite some positive steps toward reform, large space programs are still encountering setbacks, including AEHF, which ran into design and workmanship problems that added further cost on top of the expense of the added satellite, which led to a Nunn-McCurdy cost growth breach. And even efforts that seem to be starting off on the right foot, such as GPS III, are facing more schedule pressure because they've become billpayers for underperforming programs, she said.
Artist's concept of Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite: Lockheed Martin
