Winning Above the Atmosphere: Future Technologies for Space Advantage

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Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you, AFA, for putting us last on this day. You know, we all know we’re between you and, well, something delicious, I’m sure. You know, this panel is really important, and given the announcements that the CSO made yesterday about the objective force for 2040, I think talking about the technologies that are gonna fuel the Space Force to win are really important to talk about, and of course, I have an all-star panel with me today. Obviously, everyone knows that space underpins everything that we can see, the way we communicate, the way we navigate, deter, and fight. It’s also more congested, contested, and competitive than ever before. Our competitors are moving faster. Our technology cycles are compressing, and the margin for error is shrinking. When we talk about winning in space, we’re not talking about boots on the moon, at least not yet. We’re not talking about Star Wars, but what we’re talking about is something far more practical and consequential. What does it take for the United States and its allies to rely on space when it matters the most? So today’s conversation brings together leaders, thinkers, cutting-edge technologists connected to the Space Force, the Space Development Agency, and the broader national security and commercial space industry. Our goal today is simple. Clarify what advantage in space actually means, explore the technologies and the approaches that matter most, and to be honest about where we need to move faster and think differently as we put technology where it needs to be. So this is a discussion about how we ensure space continues to deliver for the nation under pressure and at speed. With that, I’d like to introduce my all-star panel, starting with General Phil Garrant. He’s the commander of Space Systems Command, as you all know, headquarters at LA Air Force Base in California. He’s responsible for more than 15,000 military, civilian, and contractor personnel worldwide with an annual budget of $15.6 billion. He manages the research, design, development, acquisition, launch, sustainment of satellites, associated command and control of those systems, and his extensive portfolio includes basically everything, military satellite communications, missile warning, navigation and timing, space-based weather, space launch, the test ranges, space superiority, responsive space, and other emerging evolutionary programs. And prior to his assignment as the commander of Space Systems Command, General Garrant served as the deputy chief of space operations for strategy plans, programs, and requirements. That was the S-58 and nine. And he had the overall responsibility for the budget of the United States Space Force. So we know where to point fingers. No. Okay, Dr. G.P. Sandhoo is quite popular as the acting director of the Space Development Agency. Before his selection as acting, he was the deputy director, and he supported the daily management and organization and execution of development, fielding, and operation of the proliferated warfighter space architecture. Prior to joining SDA, Dr. Sandhu served as the vice president and chief architect at Quantum Space, and as director for emerging technologies at Northrop Grumman. Robert Lightfoot is the president of Lockheed Martin Space. In this role, he’s responsible for leading the space business area, which is more than $11 billion enterprise, employing nearly 23,000 people, providing advanced technology systems for national security, civil, and commercial customers. Robert has spent more than 30 years at NASA and across aerospace and defense industry to include the longest serving acting administrator ever in the history of NASA. Tory Bruno is the president of national security at Blue Origin, overseeing the development of cutting edge products, services, and technologies to enhance national security missions. Before joining Blue just last month in January, Tory was the president and CEO of United Launch Alliance. He is also an expert in several rocketry and hypersonic technologies, and holds multiple related patents. So ladies and gentlemen, I think you’ll all agree. I have four amazing panelists up here, and they’re the best ones to talk about technology and winning in space. So let’s dive right into the questions. And I know you’re noticing that this is a high tech panel and I’m low tech, but you know, sometimes you get what you get. Okay, we’re diving in with the questions. Let’s talk about what winning space really means. You know, what is winning in space? And how has that definition of success changed over the last five years? Like what has forced that change? Because we certainly have been watching the strategic environment shift. So I’d like to start with General Garrant. Phil, what do you say about winning in space?

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

Thanks, General Armagno, Nina. And on behalf of the panel members, thank you to the Air & Space Forces Association for hosting this panel. And thanks to the audience for hanging out for the best panel at the end of the day. For me, winning in space is peaceful use of the space domain for all spacefaring nations. And why that’s different, and maybe the time horizon’s a little bit longer than five years, the Space Forces, I won’t repeat the boss’s joke, about six years. But it was a recognition that the domain as we knew it was fundamentally changing. You talked about that in your opening comments. So the Space Force, to enable peaceful use of the domain for all spacefaring nations, needs to be able to protect our interests in From and To Space, to include our allies and partners. And that means protecting and defending our interests. That’s General Whiting’s mission at U.S. Space Command. And if necessary, defeating adversary capabilities and threats to enable the joint force. So that’s what winning is. Protecting and defending, enabling the joint force, and ensuring that space remains peaceful for all spacefaring nations. And the Space Force, that’s our job.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Thanks, and the way we’re gonna run this panel is this is a discussion, and so people can jump in, and I see Tory leaning in.

Tory Bruno:

I’ll pile on, because of course everything that General Garrant said is absolutely true. I would add to that that winning in space we’ll notice first because we have peace on Earth. What winning in space looks like to me is that that domain is as formidable as our terrestrial forces are here. China has not taken space away from us as an opening shot to invade Taiwan or seize the Malacca Straits. So sir, we have peace on Earth, you are doing your job.

Robert Lightfoot:

To me, just echoing what General and Tory said, I put it as just one simple sentence. The systems we have in space and the capability we have in space simply make our adversaries say not today.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

So, agree with all that. That’s slightly different way to look at it, how at least we are looking at it from STA. So one of the things that I spent most of my life in the Navy at Naval Research Lab, building advanced systems and concepts for most of a warfighting perspective. And the way I would describe it is what General Garrant said, it’s protect and defend, but also protect and defend to be able to do the warfighting that needs to be done. And I would say the example that I would, analogy that I would have is, and if you look at the Navy, the Navy has to protect and defend the domain so you can do the warfighting in the domain at your will when called upon to do that. What it takes to do the warfighting is much simpler, much smaller than what’s needed to protect and defend the domain. STA very much focused on the warfighting aspect of things, but winning in space is the ability to protect and defend the domain so you can do the things that you need to do in the domain.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Because the whole world relies on the space domain, whether it be the joint force who can’t operate really in any capacity, they can’t conduct any mission without space, it’s that important. But also, the whole world is, most of the whole world enjoys the benefits of the tech coming down from space. – So, talking about technology, because this is our technology panel, what technology areas do you see will most determine the success for what winning looks like? Are we talking about transport or tracking or on-orbit logistics or propulsion or autonomy? What do each of you think? And GP, we can start with you since you’re finished.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

Narrow focus. From technology perspective at least, from the goal that we have within the Space Force as assigned to Space Development Agency. STA was stood up to face the threat. We had a sensor coverage gap for many, many years and it was recognized, and again, it was not for the Space Force so much, it’s more for the naval forces, to the enemy had built an architecture to go after our strike groups, right? And we could not detect some of these advanced threats in this sensor layer that was, we could just couldn’t detect it, right? So our focus has been to close the sensor coverage gap for advanced threats, get the information as quickly as possible to the tactical users for a couple of things. One is, duck and cover if you need to. B is, if you’re going to engage the target, can we make sure we can get that steel on that target? That essentially is when you break down STA’s transport and tracking layer, that is what we’re doing. I mean, that’s a nutshell of that. So to get there, the technology that is needed is the sensing piece, right? How do we detect these advanced threats? There’s the moving the data piece, which is why we went to the OCTs and cross links. And then on the getting information to the warfighter, we have stuck with the backwards compatible piece of that, right, the tactical end of that, the warfighting end of that, is there’s no technology development there, it’s just we are using existing technology, at least for the first three tranches, to enable a operational shift in how we use those technologies. As we move out, there’ll be, of course, and we get support in this, there’ll be advanced threats, there’ll be threats that will have better sensing that we’ll need, we’ll have to do things faster, we’ll have to do things, compute on orbit faster. All those things will come, but that’s where the focus has been. So for us, it comes down to sensing technologies and communication technologies to be able to get there as quickly as possible.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Sensing and communicating.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

Sensing and comms.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Phil.

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

For me, I think it’s directly answering General Whiting’s constant demand for what we call maneuver without regret or dynamic space operations. And to enable that, in my mind, is propulsion. And looking at very future capabilities, getting us away from solar cells, which have its own benefits there, nuclear propulsion, other types of propulsion, so that we don’t have to worry about gas tanks in space, we’re not having to worry about refueling. The next generations of satellites are inherently maneuverable and can stay on mission. That’s the key. We can be able to maneuver, but stay on mission. So I think propulsion will be a game changer.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Agree. Are you guys working on that? Oh, are you guys working on that technology?

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

We have microphones, we don’t have earphones. I will offer that we’re making modest investments, but absolutely watching the technology is very close.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yep, okay.

Robert Lightfoot:

Yeah, I can tell you that that’s one of the areas we’re working on at Lockheed Martin. It’s one of our big bets is nuclear power and propulsion, for the exact reason that General Grant said. And if you add quantum sensing to that, it gets to the things that the GP was talking about. So I think though, from a technology perspective, you know, maneuvering without regret, if I can get electric or thermal propulsion up there. But I actually think there’s a opportunity, if we can just get a reactor on orbit, we will learn what we can do with unlimited power compared to what we’re dealing with now. So that, and then you throw a little quantum sensing in there and that’s the technology we’re gonna need going forward.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

I love it. Tory, new role?

Tory Bruno:

Yeah, well, both of my esteemed colleagues are absolutely right on. I’ll take yours a step further, sir. We need to do more than maneuver without regret. We need real mobility. We need to be able to have spacecraft that will go from LEO to GEO at will, as often as we need. You know, space will become a combat environment, God forbid, and we need to make that orbital regime just a US lake. And all of the technologies that Robert was talking about and you alluded to are absolutely right on. I’ll add one more thing. We need to have a high degree of autonomy on those spacecraft that is powered by, obviously, artificial intelligence, because comms will be the first thing that our adversaries attack, and we need those assets to be agile and fast and impervious to any interruptions that might occur.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah, General Saltzman talked about autonomy yesterday and when he was introducing the Objective Force 2040. I actually wanna dig in a little more on autonomy. You know, how important is onboard AI, you know, agentic AI, compared to kind of the way we do business today, ground-based command and control? How important is autonomy? Are you thinking about it, GP?

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

Oh, absolutely. We have what we call the BMC on-orbit compute. Every satellite in PWC is a computer. By the time we get to a full constellation, we literally will have a on-orbit compute, because as I mentioned earlier, the phenomenologies and the sensing, the apertures can be very, you know, can stay the same, but how you process that data will be critical in how, what you detect, what you see, how quickly do you do that. Managing a lot of constellations, right, that whole command and control of the planes, the tranches, and literally is going to be, you know, 350 satellites is not going to be a hands-on exercise. It will have to be on-orbit compute, AI, machine learning, algorithms, all the stuff that goes into it, and we kind of try to lay out the architecture from the start to do that, be able to do that. And not only on-orbit, but also on the ground side, too, as the information gets done, so yeah.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah, Phil, what do you think?

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

We are rapidly approaching the limits of human capacity, and on our nation’s worst day, and we’re doing an engagement, and it’s a one to many, and that many is dozens, if not hundreds. Single operators aren’t going to be able to keep up with the time demand and time scale that we’re dealing with, so they need the autonomy. It’s human on the loop. It’s not 100% autonomous. The folks who work for me know I like movies and books, so we’re not talking RoboCop, but we’re talking Ender’s Game and Orson Scott Card. We have to enable the operators to do many engagements enabled by AI and machine learning.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Was that a dad joke that got snuck in?

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

Sure.

Robert Lightfoot:

I do think the timing part of that’s critical, though. We’re talking about putting systems in space now where we’re gonna have seconds to make a decision. Not minutes, seconds, and you just can’t do that with a petaflop of data coming down. It’s just impossible, as you said, to reach to the human capacity, so I think that’s, to me, it becomes that we often don’t talk about that time domain. We talk about processing just the sheer amount of data that’s coming down so that we get to something we can actually use, but when you put a time-critical piece in there, and God forbid we’re in a case where we have to use our systems from a war domain, a defensive or offensive posture, you have to have that or you’re not gonna get there. It’s just impossible.

Tory Bruno:

Yeah, so Nina, you asked me the other day if I would share something new, so I will. So in the spirit of everything that was just said, yeah, absolutely, there’s gonna be so much data generated on orbit coming down, it’ll just be an avalanche, literally an avalanche on the operators. I have a team working on something we call BRAIN. It is an agentic AI that is at the elbow of the operators in our ground systems. We also do our own ground, so we’re developing that now, and we’ll begin operating that this year. And so what you would imagine is instead of operators trying to deal with all this data and alarms and red lines, what’s going on, the agentic AI is already in that data. It’s already deciding what’s going on. It’s giving the operators decision information like here are the top three things that are probably happening. These are the top three root causes, and here are my recommendations for corrective action. All you gotta do, by the way, with a voice command is to tell me which one you want. And after discussing that potentially to make sure the operator is comfortable, that expert human whose skill and talent is all about that decision, not wading through tons of alarms and information, can focus on that and react in the kind of timeframe that Robert was just talking about. BRANE, B-R-A-N-E.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

B-R-A-N-E, BRANE. I love it. And I’m glad, Tory, that you mentioned you at Blue Origin are working on this now.

Tory Bruno:

Right now.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Because it has to be now. I mean, time is not our friend when we talk about building, applying, and deploying future technologies. We have to really bring that timeline back. Okay, so we need to move fast. We all know this. And SDA basically was created to move fast. And the way I think about SDA, because I was there when it was born, I mean, not in SDA, but I was on the Space Force staff, it was a way to hack commercial practices and bring technologies quickly to the Space Force, cutting-edge technologies like we’re talking about now, quickly to the Space Force. So you employed tranche-based approaches to do this. And I’m just wondering, and I’ll start with you, GP, I like to hear what Robert has to say, but has your tranche-based approaches change the way that we think about risk compared to legacy systems? So employing this new technology via SDA’s tranche-based approach, is there a difference?

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

Yes, there is. So when SDA was created, I used to run the Space Division at the Naval Research Lab. So I got a call from Dr. Griffin saying, “Hey, we’re gonna stand up SDA, “and we have to make sure that it succeeds. “We have to own the technical risks to get started. “We can’t push that to the industry “because there will be a lot of technical risk. “And if you go down that path, “when industry is held accountable for a contract, “they have to make sure they can do “all the diligence they need to do.” So that’s why all the tranche zero kind of flew out of Blossom Point, which was, you know. We literally went through and looked at the, you know, the four or five or six things that are going to be technically challenging to make this sensing and comms architecture resilient and quick, right? And backwards compatible, right? So number one was the optical testbeds, right? OCTs. That’s where, okay, that was the highest technical risk that we had in the architecture. So there’s a optical testbed at NRL that every vendor has to go, and they bring the OCT there, and they test it out, make sure it works, right? And they do cross communication, right? So the way you approached it wasn’t just reckless. It was a diligent way to approach that stuff, right? And the other piece was, I don’t want to take too long either, on the sensing side of things, we have been detecting missiles from HEO, GEO. So you go to LEO, you’re going Mach 25, you have a missile that’s going Mach 8 in the opposite direction, you have a background that’s moving at, you know, Mach 25 relative velocity, right? Can these sensors detect, discriminate, track these targets, right? So that was a technical risk on the sensing side that had to be done, right? So the focus at STA for the first couple of years was just to focus on, can we do that risk reduction? Can we make sure this stuff works? And once we got to slightly enough confidence level that yes, it does, that’s what the kind of tranche-based model comes to the picture, right? Good enough, what is going to be good enough? And what the tranche-based model allows us to do is that we do not get requirements creep, which happens to every single program that I’ve done over the last 37 years, except for STA. Well, for this much more, we can add this to it, right? We snap a line, you build a tranche, and, you know, the goal is, and again, acknowledged publicly that we haven’t delivered on time yet, but we’ll get there, is to that every two years, you can capture the next set of requirements that come in, and then you can move out on that, right? So that’s the goal approach we have taken. We’re behind, we’ll get there. It’s, you know, in this together, but, you know, it’s one thing to build a satellite or two and get them checked out and operational. It’s a whole different level of effort to do 21, the whole plane, right? We have our partners, we are working through it, we’ll get there, and in the next couple of months, we’ll have 42, and then we’ll have 126, right? There’s some learning that has to happen, it will happen, but we’ll get there, ’cause that’s the model we have taken to, that was the fastest way to bite on the technical risk, keep the requirements fixed, and have the industry respond to that.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah, and actually, yesterday, I heard Secretary Meink being very positive about SDA, so.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

Yeah, we’ll get there.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah. Robert, what do you think?

Robert Lightfoot:

Well, it’s actually, you know, I would say two of my customers are here, and we have to operate, we’ve had to learn to operate to meet what each customer needs, and it’s been, I mean, I’m gonna give everybody kind of a one-foot level insight into our world when we do this. So, we have what’s called a President’s Mission Success Review before we ship anything to the customers for launch. Last week, I had my President’s Mission Success Review for the NextGen GEO, first bird that we’re doing for General Garrant and his team. It’s the next GEO bird for, basically, space-based infrared, it’s going up. We started that project in 2019, and I would call it what you would consider the exquisite, historic way we’ve done things. My Mission Success Review, I had no questions, because it was the way we, it was our typical process that we’d gone through. About a month ago, had one of these for GP. That was different, because we had to go faster, and we had to prove to ourselves we could go faster, and we actually, working with SDA, talked about where can we take risk, ’cause I can’t take risk on NGG. That’s not acceptable, really, in any place, because that’s gotta work. Not that SDA didn’t have to work, but we’ve got more birds, more resiliency in those planes that allows us to get there. So, that conversation was, I got a workforce that’s used to doing the NGGs, that’s now having to tell me they’re ready to go fly SDAs, where maybe I did ThermoVac on one bird, and convinced myself that the process was good enough, that that’s okay, the other 20 will be okay, and I maybe did Vibe on another one. Same kind of process. So, it’s not that we can’t do it, we’ve proven we can do it, we’ve shifted to be able to do both bespoke and exquisite, but also learn and teach our own teams with shoulder to shoulder. I mean, that’s one thing about the SDA team, they’ve been shoulder to shoulder since they started, helping us know where that risk is okay, right? And what’s interesting is, it’s actually trickling in, ’cause now we’re seeing it with some of the folks in Space Command, or the SSC, that are actually sitting with us and going, okay, what requirements are we giving you that you really, maybe we don’t need to do that, right? And it’s actually been a learning on both sides. So, it’s, those meetings used to be almost exactly the same, and now they’re very different, right? Between the two kind of situations. So we’ve had to learn, even on the industry side, how to manage that risk, and I think General Guetlein said it really well the other day, he said, you know, to industry, he said, you guys are doing exactly what we’ve trained you to do, right? And now we can’t afford that anymore, we need to be smarter about how we do it, and so we have to adjust, and I think SDA’s done a, it’s been a great first start, and everybody’s got to remember, we’re like Tranche One here, right? This is not, it’s almost like lot one of a set of fighters. Or, you know, it’s that kind of same thing, we’re going to get there, and it’s going to get better and better as we go.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

So one thing I would add to that, to what Robert just said, he said that, you know, all 21 is okay, and I would also add that if we get 21 orbit, and only 20 are working, even that’s okay, because we have big building architecture that we can do the job with less than what we have designed, right? Again, this concerns you when that happens, but even that is okay if you get 21 and you get 20 working, so, and that’s on us.

Tory Bruno:

Yeah, I would add that, well first off, there will always be missions that the physics dictate that exquisite solution. Having said that, the other cool thing about the Tronch approach, it’s not just that you can go fast and take more risk to enable that, but as you roll through the Tronches, we’re going to learn and we’re going to ladder up the capabilities of those systems.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

On that point, your topic of technology, it allows you to integrate technology much faster with that model than otherwise.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Absolutely, right. Phil.

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

I want to tell GP he’s a good company, because I too was an acting director of SDA.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

That’s right.

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

Briefly, and it was a privilege, and I only say that because I want to highlight two things. One of the founding principles and tenets of the Space Development Agency was to be an acquisition disruptor, and we should all aspire to have 120 day source selection centers. The way that Derek and Fred and now GP are able to do that, they are, I talk about superpowers, you know, SDA, SSC, Space RCO, we’re all major acquisition organizations in the Space Force, but SDA has mastered the art of mid-tier acquisition. And SSC learned a lot from watching the early SDA, and you’ve seen over the last couple of years a pretty big shift in SSC adopting those tools, and that’s how we’re going to get faster, and that’s the only way we’re going to get after what Secretary Meink is asking of us.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah. It’s kind of a huge culture shift for, really for all of us. I mean, industry, commercial, and traditional acquisition, and super fast SDA. But you guys are, so you’re rapidly fielding, but you’re responsible for delivering an operational capability at the end of the day. So how do you balance rapid fielding with what operators will need in terms of long-term sustainability and integration across the enterprise? How does that work? And I want to start with Phil, ’cause you’re kind of the cherry on the top of all this.

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

Yeah, you heard General Saltzman talk to this, and if you were privileged to be in the classified session, a little bit even deeper view into the force design. The service, as we’ve matured in the last few years, have fundamentally changed how we program to ensure that we are delivering entire systems, and that includes facilities, people, training, everything you need to operate and deliver warfighting capability. So that was a big shift for us, and it’s absolutely evident in everything, all the programming that we’re doing, because that’s how we’re going to enable getting after that kit. I think that’s probably the biggest shift that you’ve seen, and if you’ve listened to the last few days and you’ve watched the administration, there’s a lot more coming. So we have to make sure that we’ve got the workforce to get after that. We’ve got to be able to go fast and get that kit. And then working really closely, and Secretary Meink alluded to the ACRA form lines of effort that the Department of the Air Force is looking at, and we’re in weekly meetings with the Air Force and the Space Force, and the first is the requirements flexibility. Then you have the workforce, then you have the acquisition authorities that the PAEs have. And one we haven’t dove into quite as much as I’d like to is fielding and testing, because that’s where we’re going to have that balance between the perfect system and the good enough to get that capability as soon as possible. And that’s a big culture shift too, and that’s more than just the acquirers. That’s the test stakeholders, the operating.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

I love it. I don’t know if you wanted to add anything, Robert. I mean, when I think of Lockheed Martin, I honestly think of all these mission areas that the Space Force enjoys today. I mean, almost all of them. And I also think of Lockheed Martin as a master integrator. So, you know, do you have anything to add?

Robert Lightfoot:

The only thing I would add is that that integration role changes when you have, you know, I now have systems in low Earth orbit, systems in MEO, and systems in GEO, right? And I actually think that multi-orbit capability is part of our resilience as a nation, right? And I think it really helps the way we’re doing this. It does make us think differently, right? Because we’re used to a specific way of doing missile warning, right? Now we’ve got a couple ways, three probably, when you get done with it. And yet each one has its own subtle difference. And so when you’re, you know, we’re involved in all three. And so I got to make sure the team understands why each one is a little different, right? I don’t need to apply what I’m doing here to here. And frankly, it’s fun. I mean, I know that sounds kind of silly, but it’s kind of fun because it is different, but it’s also super important how we’re doing it. What GP is trying to do is a little different than what we’re maybe doing at GEO, right? And doesn’t mean it’s bad, good, whatever. It’s just different. And so the integration of all those systems is what helps us have the right systems as a sum for the warfighter when we’re going into battle.

Tory Bruno:

Yeah, I would add to that. Robert is so right because we need to look through this or look at this through the lens of fighting a war in space. And, you know, it’s not just that when you’re in different orbits, they’re accessible in different ways and it complicates the adversary’s mission that they have to address all of them at once. We also use different physics, different phenomenology to perform the same mission from different places. That means that when the adversary figures out that one clever thing that defeats a system, it doesn’t leak all the way through all the layers. So it creates robustness just inherently.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Absolutely. And when we’re talking about bringing high-tech quickly, into the hands of operators, the Space Force is increasingly thinking about using, well, commercial, not only commercial capabilities, but commercial as a service, which, you know, I mean, that’s another total shift. But this is happening. Commercial capabilities are coming in. You know, what we’ve called in the last few years, new space. And this may be our last question, depending on how we work through it, but what qualities matter most, and I’m gonna start with you, Phil, when deciding, you know, ’cause you have the SSC front door, you have the commercial teams evaluating what commercial capabilities are ready to bring in. And, you know, so what qualities matter most when you’re assessing? Are they mission-ready or even close to becoming mission-ready?

Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant:

It’s grounded in the Space Force’s commercial space strategy, where the first conversation is, what is inherently governmental? What is inherently military? Where can we take on commercial capabilities? Just because we can doesn’t mean we will, ’cause we’re always developing new Guardian capabilities and are enlisted in officer corps. The next step, and the Space Force front door takes a hard look at this, is financial viability of commercial providers, as well as foreign influence. So that’s one of the first checks we do to make sure that we’re bringing on a new partner that is gonna be a relationship with us. And then, as part of the futures that General Saltzman talked about, is, you know, with the concepts and technologies team, where are the game-changing capabilities? And then we work game and exercise it to validate it and get it into the force design. And then we have a rapid pivot into Combat Forces Command and my partner and Greg Gagnon, and delivering that capability and that culture shift of, okay, in this case, this is such a game-changer, we’re gonna go into it right now, and then we’ll have a concerted effort to make sure we develop and deliver all the ilities associated with it.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Yeah, and GP, I think you live this.

Dr. Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo:

Yes, yes, and so we are not doing it commercial as a service, but we are trying to leverage commercial technology to build a warfighting architecture as quickly as possible, right? But we’re also looking at how do we actually leverage other commercial capabilities out there. My analogy to that is from a car perspective. We own a car, we lease a car, sometimes we use Uber or Lyft, but it all depends on what it is, right? And, you know, if you have a pregnant wife in New England, in February, you’re not going to rely on Uber or Lyft to do that. You will have a car in your driveway with a full tank of gas, right? That’s a capability that you have to have that you cannot outsource, right? So what is that piece of that capability? It’s a bad analogy, but that’s how we kind of think through it. So what is the minimal viable capability? Everything we do is anchored in MVC, from a terrestrial fight, space port to the terrestrial fight. What’s that? MVC that we have to have that is a no-fail mission. It’s resilient, it’s always there, and it creates gracefully. So that’s how we approach it. And then there’s commercial stuff that’s out there. We’ll leverage it, we’ll use it when we can.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

That’s great. And I was, Robert, you want to say something, but I, you know, do you have technologies that are MVC?

Robert Lightfoot:

Well, I mean, I think sometimes we create this. I think it’s a kind of a false commercial, not commercial. This is an and, not an or, right? And we have to get to the point where we’re partnering, because frankly, at the end of the day, we’re all Americans trying to give a system to protect this country, right? And so I get a little frustrated ’cause it’s like one or the other. No, it’s us together, right? And there are times when we can leverage new entrants. There are times when new entrants can leverage us, right? Because we’ve got legacy mission knowledge and scale. Everybody knows that, right? We got seven decades of capability. So can they leverage that? And then, my goodness, do I want to leverage some of the tech they’re investing in and they’re getting ahead of me on to bring into the missions we’re trying to do? So to me, it’s a huge and, and we try to make it an or sometimes. I think that’s wrong.

Tory Bruno:

I would add that in our list of things, speed needs to be there. You know, if we can cross the hurdles that General Garrant talked about, it’s safe, it’s secure. If it adds value to a mission area where we have nothing today, and maybe it’s not our long-term solution, but this commercial service is available right now, by God, we ought to take it because we’re in a race and we’re a little bit behind right now.

Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, USSF (Ret.):

Absolutely. Well, everybody, we are out of time, which is probably a happy note for those of you going to various parties, right, Robert? I’d like to thank all of our panelists. I’d like to thank the audience. And, you know, we all understand that this is, what we’re talking about today is so critical to national security, national strength, and absolutely winning above the atmosphere. Have a great conference, everybody. Have a good evening. Thank you.