Among other things, the Space Commission emphasized the importance of increasing the visibility and accountability of space funding. Specifically, the U.S. Space Command is developing a space control strategy that is to outline objectives for space control over the next 20 years. This does not change the current process that the military services use to fund their own space programs, but it does aggregate space funding so that the department will be able to compare space funding to DOD’s total budget and conduct future trend analyses. Lastly, DOD has made changes to its acquisition policy that will affect how space systems are acquired and managed. Substantial Challenges Still Face DOD in Strengthening Space Control

DOD’s efforts to strengthen its management and organization of space activities, including space control, are a good step forward, particularly because they seek to promote better coordination among the services involved in space, prioritization of space-related projects, visibility over funding, and interoperability. Completion of this strategy is a considerable challenge for DOD because it has not yet been aligned with other strategies still being revised and because agreement among the military services on specific roles, responsibilities, priorities, milestones, and end states may prove difficult to achieve. By separating technology development from product development (system integration and system demonstration) and encouraging an evolutionary approach, for example, the new policy would help to curb incentives to over promise the capabilities of a new system and to rely on immature technologies. Scope and Methodology

To identify DOD’s efforts to strengthen its ability to protect and defend its space assets and the challenges facing DOD in making those space control efforts successful, we reviewed the DOD Instruction for Space Control, U.S. Space Command’s draft Space Control Strategy, U.S. Space Command’s Long Range Plan, military service space master plans, DOD’s 1999 Space Policy, the Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, and the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review.
What GAO Found

The United States is increasingly dependent on space for its security and well being. The Department of Defense's (DOD) space systems collect information on capabilities and intentions of potential adversaries. They enable military forces to be warned of a missile attack and to communicate and navigate while avoiding hostile action. DOD's efforts to strengthen space control are targeted at seeking to promote better coordination among DOD components, prioritization of projects, visibility and accountability over funding, and interoperability among systems. Among other things, DOD is drafting a space control strategy that is to outline objectives, tasks, and capabilities for the next 20 years. It has also aggregated funding for space programs so that it can compare space funding, including space control funding, to its total budget, make decisions about priorities, and conduct future-trend analyses. In addition, DOD has changed its acquisition policy to include separating technology development from product development and encouraging an evolutionary, or phased, approach to development. There are, however, substantial challenges to making DOD's space control efforts successful. One challenge is putting needed plans in place to provide direction and hold the services accountable for implementing departmentwide priorities for space control. Further, DOD's draft space control strategy has been completed and does not yet define roles and responsibilities among the services, departmentwide priorities and end states, and concrete milestones. Finally DOD's aggregation of space funding is not a plan that targets investments at priority areas for DOD overall.