OPINION:
While promoting contractor inclusivity and competition is paramount, becoming all-encompassing to the point of risking national security is not.
Unfortunately, by attempting to override the Space Force’s space procurement reliability standards, that is the position that some members of the Senate Armed Services Committee may risk putting the United States in, and the clock is ticking for Congress to rectify the committee’s mistakes.
The Space Force recognizes the need for contractor competition.
That’s why, when it released its February draft solicitation for bids for the National Security Space Launch program — the most important government program for fending off America’s adversaries in space — it opened a new section of the program for all space companies (even the one that can’t reach the nine reference orbits the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center deems critical) to compete for federal contracts.
The only thing it didn’t do was open the door for these newer contractors that can’t yet meet those Air Force efficiency and operational benchmarks to service high-risk missions.
But that’s what some Senate Armed Services Committee members want it to do, and they haven’t shied away from making their position known.
After arguing with the government’s space experts over this issue in a May committee hearing, they wedged language into the National Defense Authorization Agreement at the end of June that would open bidding for high-risk missions to these higher-risk contractors — and the full Congress will consider passing that very bill any day now.
I have long been a strong proponent of increasing competition in the American space industry. I aggressively supported the bill that effectively stopped the government monopoly on space launches and created the modern era of private spaceflight competition. Our work in Congress led to nascent companies rising from scrappy upstarts to marquee companies.
That said, there is a time and a place for allowing new competitors to compete. In this case, some of the companies that would benefit from the Senate Armed Services Committee’s procurement change haven’t even completed their launch systems after years of delays, so no one knows how reliable they’ll be.
America’s space and defense leaders have been clear: China is inching in on the United States’ space dominance. As such, any delays to the NSSL can lead to significant geopolitical issues for the U.S. in the years and decades to come.
Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno, director of staff for the U.S. Space Force, recently warned that China’s “pacing threat” is accelerating and “continues to mature rapidly.” She cautioned that China “could catch up and surpass us, absolutely” because “the progress they’ve made has been stunning, stunningly fast.”
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has noted that “China is pursuing a broad and robust array of counterspace capabilities, which includes direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles, co-orbital anti-satellite systems, computer network operations, ground-based satellite jammers, and directed energy weapons.”
For these reasons and more, the Space Force recognizes that keeping the NSSL on schedule is critically important. Congress should too.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall is right: The Space Force’s NSSL proposal “balanced a lot of competing things very well” — “[allowing] us to bring new entrants in fairly fluidly” while also “[giving] us assured access for the higher risk missions.”
The legislative branch shouldn’t tip the scales of this balance. It should listen to America’s defense leaders and safeguard America’s space program from China and other rogue actors.
• Nick Lampson is a former Democratic congressman from Texas who served as ranking member of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee.
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