The Senate approved a $445 billion military spending bill Oct. 7 that cuts the funding request for several major space-related programs. Senate appropriators cut $7 billion in defense discretionary spending in the Senate Defense Appropriations Bill as part of a broader effort by Congress to craft a tight, government-wide spending plan for fiscal 2006.
The spending cuts included a $250 million reduction from the proposed $836 million in funding for the Transformational Communications Satellite program, the U.S. Air Force‘s follow-on to the Advanced EHF satellite constellation program. Other programs that were scaled back include: $236 million from the Joint Tactical Radio System request, $125.8 million from Space Based Radar request, $100 million from Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) High request and $111 from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency‘s kinetic energy interceptors request.
The White House has threatened to veto the Senate Defense Appropriations Bill due to the cuts, as well as language that bans cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment against anyone in U.S. government custody. In a statement of administration policy, issued Sept. 30, the Office of Management and Budget said, “These large reductions will cause significant delays or cancellations of these programs that are key elements of DoD’s transformation and vital to our coalition warfare operations.”
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in late September that appropriators were forced to make cuts to almost all weapons programs to meet with congressional spending limits. He said there was “no malice” intended by the cuts.
The Senate bill must still be reconciled with the House version passed in June.
Amid the ongoing uncertainty over space programs, the Pentagon’s top space official promised Sept. 27 a “back-to-basics” approach to the way the U.S. Air Force builds and designs its satellites.
Ronald Sega, under secretary of the Air Force and the U.S. Department of Defense executive agent for space, offered few specifics about the Air Force’s ongoing review of space programs but sounded an upbeat note on the process. “We do need to look at how we go about building satellite systems, and I think this is an opportunity for us to relook at not only some of the programs we currently have in the works, but [also] … new programs,” he said.
“The Air Force is facing some incredible challenges with its military space acquisition programs,” Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said. “While these challenges are not necessarily new, they have become extremely serious and they do threaten our space dominance. Unprecedented cost growth and significant schedule delays have seriously damaged the credibility of our Air Force program management.”
Sega said he would “not go quite as far” as Allard in describing the state of space acquisition.
–George Cahlink and Nathan Hodge
