Gum In The Keyhole

Dwayne Day is an insightful guy who regularly writes at The Space Review, which is a great, but sadly only once-a-week site. TSR publishes on all sorts of space stuff: historical, policy, mil space, manned, commercial, you name it.

Dwayne's most recent article is Gum in The Keyhole, a reference (in order) to Congressional oversight of the intel community and a family of reconnaissance satellites. Now underway is a major reconnaissance satellite procurement effort which will be overseen by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO is working to regain its credibility following the Future Imagery Architecture (FIA) procurement disaster. Remember, you can't spell fiasco without FIA.

While recent comments from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on the procurement are somewhat cryptic, it appears she doesn't trust the NRO to acquire an "exquisite" space system, nor does she support the exquisite part of the purchase--the total buy is to also include plenty of commercially procured space imagery. Often only the professional staff has the time and expertise to tee up a committee chair in manner reflective of the comments she's made, so that would be the genesis of the concerns. Also, Sen. Feinstein is also on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and the NRO is a part of the Defense Department. Although it goes without saying, I'll say it: if it ain't funded, it ain't.

The NRO acquisition problems are indicative of the DoD's procurement system in total: new starts tend to miss the mark on performance, cost, and schedule. "Success-oriented" planning gets destroyed by funding instability via the long-lead DoD budget process which itself is victimized by Congressional marks and withholds by both DoD and the services. The NRO can't afford a procurement fumble as happened with FIA. Former NRO Director Scott Large recently resigned and has been replaced by Bruce Carlson (USAR, Ret).