NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.–The Air Force is applying commercial satellite acquisition techniques to the way it procures military satellites, according to a Boeing [BA] satellite executive.
“The Air Force has gotten to that point: They’re making decisions more quickly and they’re empowering their program managers to look at the best advice of industry and aerospace and go forward quickly,” Boeing Director for Missions and Programs, Commercial Satellite Systems Bill Reiner, said recently at the 2012 Air Force Association Air and Space Exposition here.
Reiner said, like many military acquisition programs, military procurement slowly evolves with multiple steps, multiple layers of oversight and, many times, lots of studying.
“Historically in military programs, design reviews will have the review with a lot of people in the room and there might be issues,” Reiner said. “Then they have to go study them. And there’s a lot of contractors and Air Force personnel to go study them. Then they come back to the contractors and say “Here’s what we want you to do.’”
Reiner said, on the other hand, commercial satellite acquisition techniques allow for people to think on their feet.
“Typically, in commercial acquisition, there will be a very limited number of people in the design review,” Reiner said. “The decisions for changes, or something that has to be done to the satellite, are made in the room at that time and you can move. You just go, you make decisions quickly.”
Reiner said the procurement of Boeing’s Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellite constellation is an example of using commercial satellite techniques to procure military satellites. Reiner said this is a pioneer milestone for both Boeing and the Air Force.
WGS is to provide broadband communications connectivity for the United States and its allies, including tactical communications for ground forces and relaying data and imagery from airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. WGS is the Defense Department’s highest-capacity communications satellite system and can process more than 3.6 gigabits per second of data.