Space Supply Chain Resilience
February 25, 2026
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Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Wow. Brutal. Brutal picture up there of the four of us. Are you guys okay? I mean, that’s quite a stage setter right there.
Jeff Schrader:
Well, I was just saying I had less gray hair whenever that was taken. I think it was only a year ago.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
And those lights are enough to blind you for sure. But anyhow, hey, all of you hardcore folks that either didn’t stay up and party all night last night or you’re really space loggies and want to hear what we’re going to talk about today, thanks for being here. Clearly this is an important topic, and hopefully you’ll find from the time that we spend together here that there is a lot of cool stuff happening inside space, both on the ground, terrestrial space, but also in space.
I’m Kevin Sampels. I’m a retired Air Force logistics officer and currently work for a company called Systecon North America. We focus on predictive analytics for the logistics community. But I’m here today to moderate a panel with three folks that are space experts. And I know General Sanford will say he’s not a space expert, but he’s probably forgotten more about what we’re going to talk about than what the rest of us may know together. Very great panel and I look forward to talking with them.
I think most people would agree that space has really taken a major centerpiece of what we do inside the DOW. It’s a no-fail mission. We rely so heavily on space in our day-to-day operations where we’re not satisfied, but living with a mission capability rate or operational availability in our weapon systems of, I don’t know, 80% on a good day. Inside space, they’ve got to be basically at 100%. And with that comes a lot of challenges that we’re going to talk about today.
We have to talk about reliability of parts. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We’ve just getting started. We’re already getting applause. Got to talk about parts, fuels, launch systems, the growing schedule of space launch. How do we support all that? How do we make that happen? How do we make our supply chain for the space community as effective and resilient as it needs to be? That’s what we’re going to focus on.
And so I’ve got some questions here that I want to ask, starting with General Sanford, but I’m going to introduce each of them quickly. If you want to see their bios, it’s online. But General Sanford, he’s the director of logistics operations, the J3 at the Defense Logistics Agency, what I call the mothership of logistics for the DOW. He’s also the commander of the joint regional combat support for DLA. And he’s responsible for end-to-end supply chain management of DLA’s nine supply chains. So just a bit of heaviness on his shoulders, but doing a fantastic job. Appreciate you being here, sir. I know it was a challenge to get you out here, but you’re here and I appreciate it very much.
Next to him is Brad Leonard. Brad is the director of installations, logistics and product support for Space Systems Command. And in this role, he leads a team focused on sustaining and modernizing the Space Force enterprise to deliver ready combat capability. So thanks, Brad, for being here. I know you’re down in the Springs, but appreciate you making time to be here because I know you travel a lot and have a lot on your schedule. So again, thanks to you.
And Jeffrey Schrader, thanks Jeff to you to be in here. You’re the vice president of space strategy and business development for Lockheed Martin. So in this role, he steers the future of Lockheed Martin space, guiding a multinational team that drives everything from satellite navigation to missile defense systems for the over $12 billion business area. So these are your folks that are going to talk to us today about space logistics and the space supply chain.
So as I said, Dave, I want to start with you. DLA strategic plan calls for moving from a reactive approach to a predictive approach of logistics. And as it is, space procurement already kind of has long lead times on their parts. So how do you make an already difficult demand forecasting situation even more predictive in this community during peace time, and God forbid, what could happen in the future? How are you guys approaching that inside DLA?
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
Thank you for the question. So a couple of aspects to that. I would offer, if you went back in time, if you will, at DLA, our visibility on the space piece was really just captured in the overall Air Force support that we provided. And so to start, we had to really define the ecosystem. And Brad and I have talked about that primarily at events, but also through email. And so for us, understanding that space mission from the installation support that’s needed to the ground-based systems that are needed to the systems that go on orbit and how you get those systems on orbit.
So for DLA, defining what that is and what support we provide and then capturing that through coding because our analytics are only as good as the data that is ingested in them. And so you have to have it coded properly so that we’re looking at the right data.
And so once we… We’re still working through that, and then I would offer, there’s a governance piece to it as well that was lacking. And so when we have our service integration days, it essentially was an Air Force service integration day, but I’m not sure we really got after space concerns or space systems. And so we’re working with Brad and the team to have our own space integration day or service integration day for Space Force. So we can talk through those things, make sure we highlight the right emphasis on it as we go forward.
So as we’ve coded now, we’re trying to run those analytics. I would offer, from a DLA standpoint, most of our work is in the world of the fuels piece. I would offer, and we’ll have to watch, I guess, classifications pretty quick. There are some concerns that I had in hydrazine and availability. And so we’re working through that to make sure that we have that in this country, not just to meet the current launch schedule but anticipated launch schedules from a wartime mission.
And that’s something that, if I can be bold, Brad, I mean, we’ve kind of pushed the Space Force at when we had our Set the Theater, Set the Globe Summit last year, was trying to understand what that wartime requirement is going to be so we can have the right capability on hand. Because as you alluded to, Kevin, if there’s a fight, there’s going to be some on-orbit losses. And so as we work to do replacement pieces, having that equipment on hand or that fuel on hand so that we don’t delay it.
And then understanding the parts piece. Again, most of our world is going to be on the ground-based side, those early warning radars, et cetera, but we’re nested at the hip. And I think we’re getting better there, but we’re nested at the hip to understand what the on-orbit piece is going to look like in the future so we can participate.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. So you brought something up, and I don’t want to pin you against the wall in this, and it’s not necessarily your place. But I got to give you serious credit for setting up that space-focused day because as a retired Air Force guy, I mean, Space Force wasn’t even around when I retired at ’17.
But it’s difficult to know who the daddy rabbit, for lack of a better phrase, is for the space community. So the fact that you understand the need to focus specifically on space and not just have it be part of the Air Force, thank you for doing that. And I think that’s something across the community is being considered and being discussed.
You mentioned data, and I know DLA is doing a lot in this area. How are you using AI? Everybody’s got to have AI, right? We talk about it all the time, AI and data analytics. How are you using that to advance meeting space requirements?
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
No, it’s a good question as well. So in the past, DLA has looked at consumption data, and so primarily consumption data that either we owned or we received from the services. And I would offer that’s an incomplete sight picture. And so what we’re working with the services now, and I’ll admit, there’s varying degrees of advancement with each service. So we have a plan with each service, because unfortunately, we don’t have one data system, so we’ve got to be able to connect and extrapolate and pull data or pull data and then extrapolate from the services capabilities.
And so we are using AI and machine learning to ingest both consumption data. We’re trying to pull the maintenance data in there. We’d also like to understand the operational piece, which is new for us. And so there’s been some challenges on our team trying to understand and digest that and then no kidding, building the models that are AI driven that connect all that data and help us provide a better forecast of what we should have on the shelf.
And so for example, from a service standpoint, the accuracy rate on our forecast hover around 60%, 65%. With the Air Force and the Space Force, it’s actually a little lower. And so we want to drive that to… And so if I was in the commercial world and I see the commercial providers out here, you would fire me if I had that kind of accuracy and forecast, because we’re not putting the items on the shelf that should sell.
And so we have a requirement too to sell things to the services. That’s how we reimburse the working capital fund so I can be there both in peace time and wartime for Brad. And so we’ve got to drive that accuracy to 85%. That’s the goal, I’d like to get to 90. And I don’t think we’ll get there without using AI and machine learning.
But there’s essentially a program for each service. I’ll pick on the Army. So Army has invested into Data360 and so… I’m sorry, not Data360, Army 360. And so that’s allowed them to contain a lot of their data into one place. We actually have live data feeds into their system. We get live data feeds out of that system, and that now feeds the models that we’ve built that are AI and machine learning.
So we’re seeing good progress with the Army. With the Navy, we’re getting ready to close that gap to where we’ll have live data interchanges with their various systems. And we’re about two weeks out. And then the Air Force, we’re catching up fast, but that will also include the Space Forces as we go along.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
So you’ve got a ton on your shoulders, all of you guys do. But Brad, what kind of signal are you hearing from the operations side of the house to say, “Hey, you cannot fail. You got to figure out a way to be resilient in the space supply chain”? What are you hearing day to day you’re focused on having to do with the supply chain?
Bradley Leonard:
Yeah, great question, Kevin. So first, thank you for AFA for having me and just the opportunity to speak. And then thank you for being here at eight o’clock in the morning to talk about space supply chain. So kind of piggybacking to what Dave said after Set the Theater, Set the Globe Conference. So myself and some folks from Space Command who were there, and we came to realization that perhaps some of the logistics community, Space Law Committee, maybe hadn’t read the Space Com’s OPLANs and campaign plans and what those requirements were.
And so this past month, the Space Force had their very first contested logistics workshop. And the very first thing that we did, we had Space Command and say, we had all the Space Forces field commands and headquarters and of course DLA and Air Force Material Command and other partners were there. And so they bring that plan. You got a very crystal clear expectation of what the war fighter demands for the space domain.
And if you’d never read the OPLAN, I highly encourage you all if you get a chance to do that, to read that. I think the biggest challenge for that is taking that OPLAN and then driving that into a system level requirements or to a demand requirements. Again, that’s to be the challenge. So what we decided to do is look at one mission area and one location and say, okay, what are the 30, 60, 90-day requirements across multiple classes of supply from Class I foods and subsistence items, to fuels, to Class IX repair items across multiple sources of supply, whether it’s DLA, Air Force Sustainment Center, or our own contractor ICPs?
And so we went through that detail. We also looked at operational contracting. Where are those services coming from and those potentially remote locations? We have a lot of remote locations in the Space Force. And so if we’re in a contested log environment, you may not get resupply for a while depending on what’s going on.
And so really the mantra was, hey, the fight starts on phase zero and what parts do we need to sustain a fight and how do you store that and how do you distribute those parts and those items, those parts of supply? And so that was really a good drill. So we’re going to look at one mission area. I’m going to go buy mission area by mission area and give sources of supply like Dave and in other places that demands what we need to execute Space Com’s OPLAN.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
So pretty easy. You’ll have that solved by Friday?
Bradley Leonard:
Oh, yes.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. Okay. Jeff, you work for a company, is it Lockheed Martin? I haven’t heard of-
Jeff Schrader:
It’s a small startup.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. I don’t know what you guys do. Again, not familiar with your company. So you guys have just a little bit to do kind of with DOW and space and all this. When are you guys going to get this stuff fixed, right? You guys are the ones of the OEM for a lot of this stuff. What kind of pressures are you guys feeling inside Lockheed from the industrial base perspective to be able to feed in what’s necessary and those long lead items and kind of getting ahead of the curve, being more predictive in what the government needs? What’s your take on this?
Jeff Schrader:
Yeah. So thanks AFA for having me on behalf of Lockheed Martin. I think just setting a bit real quick as to how we’re thinking about it and then I’ll share what we’re doing. We’ve often looked at resilience. We’re talking about space resilience and we’re talking about supply chain here, but space resilience isn’t just about one particular widget or satellite in space any longer, right? It’s really thinking about launch cadences increasing more than we’ve ever thought. Proliferated constellations just continuing to be fielded, missile warning, missile tracking, missile defense, focus on homeland, really looking at what we need for missile front ends and satellites.
And so as we look at that, resilience needs to be built in at the beginning of these programs and of these products not bolted on at the end, because we can’t do that any longer. When we look at speed and scale, one thing we look at is where are we heading and what’s at scale really look like? And what I think we need to do, and telling you how Lockheed is thinking of it is thinking about supply chain as not just an enabler or an administrative function that enables a program or a product, but actually looking at it as providing combat power.
And I think that’s how we’re looking at it that’s a little bit different because yes, we are large and we’ve got to sustain that scale to be able to look at that. So what are we doing about it? Well, one thing we did, we’ve always had a Lockheed Martin Ventures company, which most people in the finance background would say, “Oh, you’re just looking to own companies so you can control them, et cetera.” We took a completely different model with our Lockheed Ventures company run out of our corporate headquarters and looked at things like technologies, that’s a big piece, but also scalability and secondary diversification.
So we put fairly small bets, five, 10, one, all across the board of small dollars to companies that help with partnerships and expanding supply chain enablement. So folks like Hawkeye 360, Aalyria, whether it be software supply chain, whether it be hardware supply chain, whether it be new entrant technologies, we really focus that. We doubled that fund and I think it’s the largest ventures fund at about 400 million in 2024 and have sustained that.
So that’s one area we’re doing is how we’ve approached utilizing that ventures fund. We don’t really care about the equity. We care about the partnership and enablement for the rest of our programs and products supporting the war fighter.
The second thing we’re doing is just looking at supplier diversity and instead of going a ton of sole source, which I think has hurt a number of programs and actually looking way ahead at the architectural needs of an entire ecosystem of space-based capability and looking at supplier diversification and saying, “We’re going to onboard with our own investment,” I read, two or three perhaps suppliers in case one gets behind.
I’ll use an example, right? Optical cross-links terminals, processors, things along those lines. Who else can we go out and what’s the supply chain look like? There’s a significant amount of money going there and we’re looking to enable that. And I think the big piece is just thinking about this as a capability delivery item, not just an administrative function.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. Man, that is great. I love that you said that. And I’ve been hearing this coming from senior leaders in different conferences and stuff where logistics is no longer viewed as a support function but a war fighting capability. And I personally kind of go back, I don’t know, pre-COVID, but especially during COVID, right? And I know you were deeply involved in supporting the operations to combat COVID in the position you were in in DLA. But that seems to me like that’s kind of when the United States average American realized, oh man, logistics is kind of important and the taxonomy of supply chain and supply and demand and all these things.
So I agree, we’re a combat capability, whether it’s in space or weapon systems, terrestrial weapon systems. And so that mindset is so hugely important. I really value what you said there. And then also as far as diversification of the supply chain, I know that’s something that you guys look at in DLA too, right? As we are supporting older weapons systems, mom-and-pop shops that may have gone out of business or badly failing components and finding those bad actors.
And you talked about AI and data analytics. I know you’re really into that across the enterprise and General similarly has taken some great action to improve the data acumen of the workforce. But can you talk a little bit more about how you’re getting ahead of the curve to help the space community, maybe even before they know where their problems are at?
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
Yeah. So I would offer, it’s coming. So we’re in the process of trying to finalize a program to where we’ll use some outside folks as well as internal folks to be able to get after what we identify as a diminishing manufacturing sources or an obsolescence issue, et cetera. And I would offer on the ground-based side, especially there’s quite a few obsolescence issues.
And so we run that down, not to get too tactical, but we run that down to the stock number level. And then being able to use the outside help to help us identify companies that may not do business with the DOW that could actually provide an alternate suitable sub, if you will, an alternate, or we could qualify as a source.
Now, where it has to be a strong partnership with the service though is DLA is not a qualifier of companies. I rely on the engineering support activity for that. And so that’s owned by the services. But I think with this program, as long as we go in arms together, that will both expedite and work through that process, which is fairly time-consuming and I would offer laborious. And so we’re excited about where this could go.
And then also, I think there’s some items that are probably critical along those lines that also help identify what should be maybe made by the organic industrial base, not just the commercial industrial base, because there’s certain critical capability that is no-fail that you can’t wait on that we should probably… When I first came in, that’s what the OIB was for, and so we need to get back to that. And I think there’s an opportunity there to close those gaps.
But in the past, to give you an example, when we looked at that with the Army, it was six months of looking at spreadsheets, and it didn’t give you the engineering piece. That was just to get to ones that we thought were eligible. And so AI and ML should close that gap and we think fairly quickly. And then that nine-month process to get something qualified, hopefully will go down to days.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
So Brad, General Sanford talked about the infusion of AI and data analytics. You guys are doing that inside the Space Force too. Everybody talks about decision support, right? Oh no, AI is going to start making all our decisions for us and we’re all going to be out of a job and all these concerns, valid to some degree, right? There’s got to be left and right balance and all this.
But when you guys use AI and data analytics inside SSC, for example, or across the Space Force, how are you augmenting human infusion into what you’re getting out of the AI portion of what you’re doing?
Bradley Leonard:
Yeah, it definitely has to be a balance. You always need to have, in my mind, a human in the loop as part of that process. And so, one of the things that we’re looking at within the Space Force is using Department of Air Force systems of records, right? So when it comes to maintenance data, supply data, civil engineering data, and to improve all those data fields to say, “Hey, do we have IMDS and CE Builder, NextGen, and SBSS, the Standard Base Supply System?” Not the space based surveillance satellite. So people say that means two different things to different people. And so trying to take that in the future network, we have a system called AAD/SPEED in the Space Force. We’re taking all that data, it’s based off the Air Force’s BLADE system or goes into part of the Advana and incorporating all the different data sets.
So again, the data’s not as good as its input, but with that, trying to infuse AI data, we’re trying to look at saying, “Hey, what can we do from a predictability perspective, demand planning, maintenance data,” and that kind of thing to say, “Hey, we know certain parts are going to fail, maybe more so in more corrosive environments and using that process.” And so by doing that, we can better resource those parts and say, “Hey, if we need a search for a certain area, a certain mission area, we can do that. What does that look like? What’s the time to make that happen to get those parts to the last technical mile, to the point of need?”
And so by infusion, that’s going to help. Now it’s going to take time to learn, we’ll take reps and sets to get there, but we think over time, we’ll have that more automated. Still need a human in the loop to make decisions, but we think with AAD/SPEED feeding that process, it’ll come to bear pretty soon.
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
And so if I could piggyback on Brad’s good points, one piece that I think is a misnomer out there is you get the data and then you load it into model and everybody thinks, okay, now you have your output. Well, AI is a learning mechanism and so it’s loading the data and then giving the bandwidth, if you will, to allow the model to run and learn. And then you need another control group, if you will, to kind of compare it and make sure you’re improving the performance that you need to.
And so it’s something that we’ve had internal discussions inside DLA is that just because you get the data access and because you now are rolling it into a model, it doesn’t mean the output is going to be immediate. You’ll get an output, but it may not be the output. And so you’ve got to constantly tweak it and let the model learn so that you’re confident in the output that you’re getting.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. So to the panel, we keep talking about data and AI and stuff because it’s important in the advances we’re making. But you got to have access to that data. So we have challenges inside the services on access to data, even though for stuff that we organically maintain, clearly we have pretty much unfettered access. But when you’re talking about space systems, the great majority of what you have is contract maintained. And when those contracts were written, we didn’t always ask for access to the data, right?
So I’m not picking on anybody, okay? You’re bigger than me, so don’t take it out on me after the… But I mean, even in the F-35 world, we always talk about access to data and all that stuff. But in the space world, how are we getting access to the data that we need, or are we counting on the contractor to do those analytics for us? How’s that back and forth flow of data and the trust between industry and government?
And last week at the log forum, somebody–I can’t remember who–made a point about, well, okay, organic industrial base and commercial. Hey, guess what? We’re the industrial base, right? We got to be one. How are we getting past the data access issue so that those analytics can be run?
Bradley Leonard:
Yeah. It really comes down to just the way the contract is written and then the agreements between government and industry. So especially on the Space Force side, there’s a lot of supply data that we ask for in spreadsheets. And so that’s following us to say, “Hey, can we get data that’s put into a system of record that we have access to?” And it’s not proprietary. It’s able to be the open source, that we can use that to make decisions on because within the Space Force, we have a lot of contractor inventory control points. So we have contractors as our item managers for a lot of our parts, the unique parts that the rest of the DOW or as the whole government don’t even use.
And so we have been working with industry to say, “Hey, how can we work together?” Fire compliance is part of that, trying to make sure that we have that overall visibility into that data where parts are the condition of those end items. And so that way you have the total picture of where our entire supply chain is.
Jeff Schrader:
Yeah. I’ll add real quick. It’s kind of interesting if I were to ask the audience, and we don’t have enough time to do so, but to pull the audience what they think the largest Lockheed Martin investment has been over the last five years, I’m sure folks would say things like F-35, capitalization for missiles, capital for building out large satellites or proliferated satellite infrastructures. It’s actually an ERP system, but it’s more than an ERP system.
So what we’re talking about here, we call this 1LMX. We’re spending billions of dollars on transforming our entire company to actually be able to utilize the tools that we’re just talking about for business and delivery reasons. So when we look at an ERP system, how do we run things and be able to share those, whether it’s contracted or just helps us be able to deliver together. So we’re doing this, we just released and fielded it at missiles and fire control last month, a big win for us as a corporation and one that I don’t know that the public necessarily knows of. But we’re doing that both for ourselves as well as the ability to utilize that data to be able to deliver.
So I think it’s really important there. We’re also making probably one of the second or third largest investments, is actually at our Lockheed Martin AI center. We call it the LAIC, to look at not only how we develop things, utilizing machine learning and AI, but also how do we actually manage what we have in our inventory and our stock so that it’s there in time and we’re not wasting money there, ours, or the government. So just a couple of things I wanted to share there.
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
If I could there, I would piggyback on my colleagues’ points there. So I would take it back. We always go to the contract piece and you got to have it into the contract. But I think there has to be a trust piece that we’ve got to build up with industry that may not be there.
And so part of that is letting industry know that we have the safe rails or the safeguards and the rails in place to both protect proprietary data, whether it’s through blockchain, et cetera as we go forward so that you’re not signing a non-disclosure agreement with… Doesn’t always work well in the systems environment.
And then I think there would be a better free flow of data. So there’s a little bit of an ecosystem I think we’ve got to build out as a DOW as we go forward.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
So isn’t it crazy how we all understand the importance of access to data? And there are a number of commercial solutions to help us be able to use that data to get us where we need to be, to get those higher rates of OA or MC, however you want to measure it. But it continues to be a challenge, not just between government and industry, but you can look within the services and see that, right?
So that trust that you talk about, Dave, is so important. And I always talk about this. I don’t think there’s a single thing that we can’t fix inside our enterprise if we work together, government, industry, academia, within the US, but with our partner nation allies. I mean, we don’t have the answer to everything. We don’t. But if we work together and develop that trust, that’s such a huge piece of what we need to do.
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
Well, I would agree. You mentioned in the beginning, I think at the opening about fragmentation of the logistics community. We talked about that a lot, but at least in my career, this is the first time where I’m starting to see that divergence where we all come together and it’s really based on the data piece.
So in the past, we did data stovepipes, if you will. So I’d go look at my data and I’d come up with something. Air Force would go look at their data, they’d come up with something, Army. And so it led to a 60% accuracy rate. And for whatever reason, we were okay with that for years. And then we just worried about chasing the constrained resource or the person who was yelling the loudest to provide a capability.
And so you can’t do business that way going forward. And so I think the data framework is starting to really unify us in creating an information highway, if you will, for no pun intended, but to where you’re free flowing the information so you can see each other and have the visibility. And so it creates a unity of effort that I haven’t seen before, but we have to continue to build upon it.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. And the importance of it cannot be overstated, the trust and the access to information. So I don’t know you that well, Jeff, right? I don’t know you well, Brad and General Sanford. I know you guys pretty well. Are we going to have warehouses in space? Okay. You laugh, right?
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
No. So it’s funny you say that. So when I was at Air Mobility Command my last job… And it’s funny, the company reached out to me two weeks ago. They thought I was still there. But we had talked about to where they had positioned where they could put a 20-foot Sealand van container roughly, not an actual container, but those dimensions in space and be able to have protective equipment in there. And so we actually ruminated on, okay, from an air mobility command standpoint, has a global mission to put material anywhere in the world, what like aerospace ground equipment should be up there, what other capabilities should be up there to help enable our forces as we go forward?
So I think the technology is getting there. It’s a matter of, I think from a… I’m going to get outside my lane, but from a security standpoint of, do you have it up there and then you trust it to bring it down. But the technology is there. It’s just a matter of do we want to pursue that?
Bradley Leonard:
Yeah. So really from a kind of on-orbit logistics perspective, whether you’re doing warehousing or resupply, refueling, that’s something we’re still kind of looking at. So the industry’s looking at that. It has a lot of different capabilities. I said tech’s probably going to be there, but we’re kind of looking at what’s the military utility at this point. So kind of looking at that.
So our System Delta 80 down in Florida, they have two prototypes that they’re looking at launching this year. One is for a rendezvous prox-ops mission to help dock with a satellite. And another one is actually more of a refueler to look how do we kind of refuel. And so really, I think by looking at that, can we do those demonstrations with the other demonstrations that everybody else is looking at?
I think at the end of the day, that provides our commands options. And so if we don’t have assured access to space, there’s options we can look at on-orbits logistics, it helps support that. And so again, space is contested. And so to even have that maneuver capability without regret is really important to the Space Force and to Space Com. And so that’s where I think we’re trying to go from that on-orbit logistics perspective.
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
Yeah. So I mean, and that was the piece. I mean, there were two things we looked at. It was the reentry piece because you’re vulnerable and we were concerned about that, but then also the price. But honestly, at least based on scale, the price that I saw was equal to or cheaper than what we were doing for airlift. And so it’s getting to where it’s an affordable piece if we could work out some of the assurity.
Bradley Leonard:
And that assumes that we have a lot of launch cadence, right? So I think as we launch more, that cost curve will go down eventually. But I don’t think the cost curve will be there just yet until we are launching a lot more in the future.
Jeff Schrader:
It’ll be interesting what the Space Force, the objective force that CSO rolled out or will be rolling out here soon looks like. I think going back 10 years, did we think we’d be reutilizing launch vehicles? So I smiled when you said it, but I didn’t laugh because I think porting, docking, data transport, all of those things we’re working on, what does the future hold? And I think that’s what our jobs are, is to think there.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. It is super exciting. If you’re not excited about the future of space and as a loggie, the things that we can and should be developing capabilities. And there’s a lot of stuff going on that maybe isn’t ready for primetime yet, but talk about advancements that are being done. It is amazing some of the things that are being done commercially and inside the government.
Bradley Leonard:
Yeah, absolutely. So kind of an inside plug here. We just had our Space Mobility Conference down in Orlando at end of January. It’s our fourth one. We have one every year, but I do encourage folks to attend that because this is what we’re having, those conversations. Hey, what is the industry bringing? Again, can the government take that and use that for military utility? What’s that future architecture potentially look like?
So we’re having those discussions. And so I really would encourage folks to attend that next Space Mobility Conference next January, I believe, in Orlando.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Not a bad place to be in January. Except it was cold this year. It was funny. But okay, we’re almost out of time, so I want to give each one of you guys a minute to wrap up. So Jeff, start with you.
Jeff Schrader:
Yeah. So thanks for the time and really appreciate sitting up here with esteemed panel. AFA, thanks. I think for me, the big thing just to remember is what we’re doing in industry needs to be molded with what the government is doing. We take bets on things and those need to be informed bets because ultimately, a lot of the money rolls right back into our contracts or how we maintain.
Obviously, we can spend a lot of money on capital, but I’d actually like to spend the money on things where we know the government is also aligned. And so conferences, like you just discussed, having discussions like this is critically important and I think that helps us target our investments properly.
Again, big thing if you take nothing away is that Lockheed Martin, as well as the rest of my competimates are really looking at this and looking forward instead of waiting. And I think that’s the big thing that we’ve got to do to be able to hit the speed and scale. The next decade of space will be all about speed and scale. And so we’ve got to be ready for that and not, again, bolt on things at the end.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
I know you guys are a startup. I wish you all the luck. Okay. Hang in there. We just got to break in. Okay. Now thank you, Jeff, for being here today. Thanks for what Lockheed is doing. Like you said, with a lot of your competimates, we got to do what’s right for our nation. And I know Lockheed’s serious about that.
Bradley Leonard:
Yeah. One thing I just got as a parting thought, the Space Force has really embraced that logistics is that war fighting domain, right? And so if space is contested, space is both a supporting and supported domain. And so if space is contested, that will impact the rest of your logistics. And if logistics on the ground is contested, that’s going to impact space operations. So really they both depend on one another. And so really getting after contested log on the ground and contested log in space is really critical to make sure that we have that decision to maneuver in both domains.
And so that’s what Space Force is really looking at getting done. And it really is a team sport. We need the industry. We need all of our partners from multiple areas to make this happen. It really is a team sport.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Keep fighting the fight, brother. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate and you’re kind of the daddy rabbit almost, so to speak. So keep chasing, or that dog that’s chasing you, make sure you stay ahead of that dog. Thanks for being here, brother. Appreciate it.
Maj. Gen. David J. Sanford:
So really quick, I would offer, going back to our first question about highlighting the importance of space. And so at least from within the DLA, and I would offer from a department standpoint, as we look to revitalize the nuke enterprise as part of the NDS and the NMS strategies that have been published, space is an integral piece of that.
And I know for at least my agency, we have started working through… We had a Nuclear Surety Day, if you will, last week where we brought together the Navy, the Air Force, Space, as well as OSW to talk through what does that look like and what capability you’re trying to build. So those linkages are there starting to proliferate more. And so for us, that’s why it’s also become such an important feature.
I would also offer that space assurity also depends upon installation support. And so for the agency, that’s been a new challenge, if you will. We haven’t always put any energy behind necessarily the installation support we provide. And so that’s something that we’re trying to pull back. And then as I talked about how you code things to a space mission, is some of that installation support we provide need to be coded to make sure that that’s a priority requirement for us to fill as we go forward.
So it’s a little different take. And then I would offer, if you really want to learn about space, you have to exercise. And so I would just encourage Brad and the team, as you continue to exercise like the TTX, we will always be all in to make sure that we can learn more and position you to be successful.
Col. Kevin Sampels, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks for being here, General Sanford. Appreciate it very much. Talk about a guy that’s got a lot on his plate, but you’re knocking it out of the park, you and the whole DLA team. Thank you guys for being here, your hardcore folks that are here this morning, nice and early. I hope you’re excited about what’s happening in space and what’s going to happen in space because it’s important to our nation. All right. Thanks a lot. Enjoy the rest of the day.