WASHINGTON — The Space Force intends to tap the acting director of the Space Development Agency (SDA), Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, to lead its new Missile Warning and Tracking Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) office, multiple sources have told Breaking Defense.
In that job, Sandhoo will be responsible for developing the sensor satellites required to enable the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.
While not yet finalized, the move is in the final stages of internal paperwork at the Department of the Air Force, according to a half dozen Space Force and industry sources. The department is responsible for overseeing Space Force acquisition.
An SDA spokesperson referred questions for this report to Space Force Public Affairs.
“The Space Force has not yet assigned the Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Missile Warning and Tracking. We will provide additional information once a decision is made,” a Space Force spokesperson said.
The Space Force announced the creation of the Missile Warning and Tracking PAE office on March 17. Tom Ainsworth, who is performing the duties of the Air Force assistant secretary for Space Acquisition and Integration, told the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference that the PAE would cover both legacy missile warning and tracking constellations now in operations and ongoing development programs across all orbital regimes.
“So, that is a big portfolio,” he said.
The programs currently include SDA’s Tracking Layer of satellites in low Earth orbit, and the two flagship efforts by Space Systems Command. The first is the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) constellation, which will be comprised of two satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit and two in polar orbit. Next-Gen OPIR is being developed to replace the six operational Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites. SSC’s second effort is the Resilient Missile Warning and Tracking (MWT) Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) program, that will be optimized for tracking hypersonic missiles.
One Space Force official explained that bringing all the programs for detecting and tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles together is meant to ease officials’ ability to ensure compatibility and that the various ground systems are integrated.
Clayton Swope, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that it also “makes sense when you’re trying to cut costs.”
At the same time, he warned, consolidating programs is “not the best solution when you’re trying to encourage innovation because more entities looking at the same problem leads to more ideas” — cautioning that any organization that results in “quasi-merging SDA into a bigger program dilutes its raison d’etre.”
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However, it is unclear whether SDA will be subsumed into the new Space Force PAE structure. Congressional approval would be needed to change SDA’s legal status as a direct reporting agency to Ainsworth’s office for acquisition issues and to Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman for all other matters such as personnel management.
A more likely scenario is that Sandhoo keeps his current SDA position and wears two hats, one industry source said.
Indeed, another industry source close to the debate said that Sandhoo’s likely leadership of the missile and tracking PAE would result not in SDA being dismantled, but actually gaining “more power.”
Valerie Insinna contributed to this report.
