initial statement of need to the last major upgrade of a system. A Department of Defense Inspector General report used a different perspective and criticized the Air Force for not having a single operational test agency. In September 1991, Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Donald B. Rice and General McPeak created a new office in the Air Staff, the Director of Test and Evaluation. Retired Lieutenant General Howard W. Leaf became the first Director of Test and Evaluation in October 1991, and two months later, proposed consolidating OT&E at AFOTEC. As part of the Air Force reorganization and drawdown, General McPeak directed that the Center not only continue its lead role in multi-service OT&E, but also the consolidation of all initial and qualification OT&E and select follow-on OT&E at AFOTEC by 1 June 1992. By design, this meant General McPeak limited the type and scope of testing the major commands could perform in the future. Overnight, the number of AFOTEC-conducted tests rose first from 47 to 186, and ultimately to more than 200. General McPeak also announced that AFOTEC would receive additional personnel to ensure it could meet its newly expanded mission. The Center's mission grew again on 1 October 1997 when AFOTEC absorbed the personnel and workload of the Defense Evaluation Support Activity (DESA). DESA, which had experience with rapid test, was heavily involved in testing advanced concept technology demonstrations, which sought out innovative applications for emerging technologies to create prototype systems for examination by operational units. While "fly-before-buy" has repeatedly proven its worth in thorough testing of systems and avoidance of later problems, the Air Force even in the twenty-first century remains severely hampered by a "buy-fly-fix" approach. Literally billions of dollars have been spent in making weapons systems operational after they have entered squadron service. For example, the Rockwell B-1B Lancer suffered repeated such problems. When declared operational, apart from nuclear weapons, the only conventional weapon the B-1 could use were free-fall bombs. Twenty-first century In 2020-2021, with the creation of the United States Space Force and its provisional STAR Delta, AFOTEC's Detachment 4 at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, was transferred to the USSF. Detachment 4 had conducted operational testing and evaluation of space, cyberspace, information technology, missile, and missile defense systems. Some of the major systems tested by Detachment 4 included the Global Positioning System, Space Based Infrared System, Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellite