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GAO-16-592R 1 (2016-07-27)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaakcd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: GAOU.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Washington, DC 20548 July 27, 2016 Congressional Committees Defense Space Acquisitions: Too Early to Determine If Recent Changes Will Resolve Persistent Fragmentation in Management and Oversight The Department of Defense (DOD) relies on space systems to provide critical capabilities that support military and other government operations, including but not limited to communications; missile warning; positioning, navigation, and timing; and intelligence information. The Air Force, specifically, the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), develops and acquires most military space systems, and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) develops Intelligence Community (IC) space systems. These systems can be very challenging to develop and expensive to acquire and field. We and others have reported for over two decades that fragmentation and overlap in DOD space acquisition management and oversight have contributed to program delays and cancellations, cost increases, and inefficient operations. For example, in 2012 we found that fragmented leadership contributed to a 10-year gap between the delivery of GPS satellites and user equipment. We also found that a lack of a government-wide authority hindered space situational awareness acquisition efforts.1 Similarly, last year, we testified that DOD continues to face challenges in aligning the delivery of space system segments, in part, because budgeting authority for the segments is spread across the military services. DOD lacks a single authority to ensure alignment of these segments.2 DOD has noted that space is becoming an increasingly contested domain, resulting in greater threats to deployed military forces. The ability to effectively respond to these threats has increased the importance of focused leadership in national security space. In Senate Report 114-49 accompanying S.1376, a bill for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, the Senate Armed Services Committee included a provision for GAO to review the effectiveness of the current DOD space acquisition and oversight model and to evaluate what changes, if any, could be considered to improve the governance of space system acquisitions and operations. This report formally transmits information we provided in a briefing to the committee on May 17, 2016, to meet our reporting requirement (see enclosure I: DOD Space Acquisition Management and Oversight, Information Presented to Congressional Committees). This report addresses the following: (1) what organizations are responsible for DOD's management and oversight of space system acquisitions; (2) what recommendations have been made for improvements to DOD's management and oversight of space acquisitions over the last two decades, and what major changes have occurred in that time period; (3) what 1GAO, 2012 Annual Report: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-1=342SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012). 2GAO, Space Acquisitions: Some Programs Have Overcome Past Problems, but Challenges and Uncertainty Remain for the Future, GAO-1 5-492T (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 29, 2015). GAO-16-592R DOD Space Acquisition and Oversight Page 1

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