全球智库信息集成服务系统

The establishment of USSF offers an opportunity to create a new, more responsive approach to space acquisition.

• This new approach depends on USSF developing a culture of risk tolerance and agile and responsive enterprise decisionmaking.
• The culture must be fueled with select personnel inculcated with USSF's goals.
• This approach presents a chance for increased access and partnering with industry to accelerate technology insertion into systems.

Several features of USSF set it apart from other U.S. military services

• USSF will be significantly smaller than any other service and will have fewer people for processes that traditionally have been manpower intensive.
• A smaller service offers the opportunity for increased agility and the reduced bureaucracy resulting from a flatter organization and a shorter chain of command.

USSF is highly reliant on technology, even more so than other services

• USSF uses technology to develop and sustain its joint warfighting capabilities.
• This dependence on technology necessitates USSF having a close, trusting, collaborative relationship with industry.
• A service with technology as a foundation for warfighting warrants an acquisition approach focused on ensuring that the required capabilities are available when needed—therefore, the processes must be rapid, agile, and threat-informed.

The United States' newest military service, the U.S. Space Force (USSF), has a unique opportunity to take advantage of the widening range of commercial capabilities and create a new culture and new management processes to respond to the growing challenges presented by potential adversaries in space. To support this effort, USSF leadership asked RAND Project AIR FORCE to develop a "clean sheet" acquisition approach designed around the unique mission and calling of the new service. The recommendations in this report derive from a literature review and interviews with more than 45 current and retired senior leaders and space acquisition experts. The authors' clean sheet vision recognizes that potential adversaries are increasingly investing in space capabilities and that the pace of commercial innovation is increasing. USSF relies on space technology as a foundation to develop and sustain its joint warfighting capabilities and thus needs an acquisition approach focused on ensuring that the required capabilities are available when needed. To be effective in this context, acquisition processes must be rapid, agile, and, above all, threat-informed. The authors offer a new clean sheet acquisition vision for the technology-centric USSF—acquisition as a warfighting capability rather than a support function.

• Chapter One

  Background

• Chapter Two

  The Clean Sheet Vision: Acquisition as a Warfighting Capability

• Chapter Three

  Rapid, Enterprise-Centric Decisionmaking

• Chapter Four

  Talent Management

• Chapter Five

  Interactions with Industry and Other Government Agencies

• Chapter Six

  Implementing the Clean Sheet

• Chapter Seven

  Conclusions