Department of Defense's Need to Become a Responsible Commercial Customer
Abstract
One of the most important challenges facing the military and civilian leadership of the Department of Defense (DoD) today is how to put into effective practice the reliance DoD has placed upon the commercial Space industry. What often seems under appreciated is that, while the Department's leaders have consistently determined over the past decade to plan on filling a growing share of DoD's requirements for communications, imagery, and weather from commercial systems, the Department has not followed these decisions with the commitment and actions that will assure the availability of the commercial capabilities upon which it now relies. Although the degree of reliance on commercial capabilities varies for communications, imagery, and weather information, any of these areas can be viewed as qualitatively representing all three. [As the Chief, Defense Systems Information Agency Space Operations with responsibility for supervising the Commercial Satellite Command Service Office that is charged with providing wideband commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) to DoD (and other Government) users.] I am most familiar with how DoD's current practices constrain its ability to maximize the support it obtains from commercial SATCOM systems. This specific set of challenges is therefore what I will examine.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA525867
Entities
People
- Patrick H. Rayermann
Organizations
- United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command