The Space Force’s vice chief hopes his service gets upgrades with some of the $50 billion per year that Pentagon leaders want to shift around in upcoming budgets.
“We are woefully underfunded in ‘protect and defend’” systems, Gen. Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations, said during the Ronald Reagan Institute’s National Security Innovation Base Summit on Wednesday.
In the meantime, Guetlein said his service is also working to respond to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order to find things to cut.
The Space Force plans to evaluate and prioritize which existing systems can be replaced or discarded.
“We’re kind of going through that pecking order as well, to make sure that the capabilities that we deliver at the end of the day are going to be the most optimal, most effective,” he said.
Last year, the Space Force released a strategy outlining how it plans to use commercial space assets for military operations with a “buy before build” mantra. For Guetlein, that can also extend to replacing some older space systems.
“We are trying to look at every requirement we possibly can, to shift away from building it internally to buying it externally,” Guetlein said.
The strategy also called on Space Force buyers and program managers to comb through their portfolios and “look for opportunities to offload requirements that we are currently trying to build, and offload them into a capability that already exists” either with commercial or allied partners, he said.
Because an 8-percent reallocation can both hurt and help, the key is becoming more efficient, by upgrading systems with new technology before buying something new, Guetlein said.
“For example, we still operate our satellites in the old way. I have operators sitting at a console flying one satellite by one operator. Industry has proven, with the new developed systems, I can do light-sound operations, I can fly autonomously, I can use artificial intelligence. I can do all that. How do I take advantage of that new technology to start getting efficiencies in some of my legacy systems?”
The Space Force is also bracing for personnel cuts. About 5,400 Defense Department employees are to be fired in the first step in what will ultimately be a five-to-eight-percent reduction of the civilian workforce, Pentagon officials have said.
“We haven’t let anybody go yet, so we haven’t felt the impacts, but there will be some impacts,” he said. The Space Force is made up of about 9,500 troops and about 5,600 civilians. “So any hit to that small 15,000 workforce is going to be felt.”
On the budget side, however, there’s more room for improvement—even when things are tight.
“We are the smallest force with the largest [area of responsibility] and the smallest budget. Even within that constrained environment, you still have opportunities to optimize where you’re spending your money,” Guetlein said.
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