COLORADO SPRINGS — Defense leaders at this week’s Space Symposium are warning that bureaucratic obstacles and sluggish procurement processes are preventing the Pentagon from keeping pace with China’s rapidly expanding space capabilities.
Retired Gen. John Hyten in an interview with SpaceNews delivered a blunt assessment of the military’s space modernization efforts. Hyten, who previously served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commanded U.S. Air Force Space Command, criticized the Pentagon’s inability to field new space systems despite years of rhetoric about accelerating development.
“Look at the Russian and Chinese military capabilities, massive deployments of new capabilities, new satellites for their own military support, but also weapons in space for the first time. And then you look at the U.S. military capabilities that are there today. And it’s basically the same as it was 10 years ago,” Hyten said.
Threats in space
Since the Pentagon first publicly recognized space as a warfighting domain more than a decade ago, China has dramatically expanded its satellite deployments and counter-space weapons, Hyten noted. Intelligence officials have documented China’s development of capabilities that could monitor U.S. military movements from orbit and potentially disrupt American access to satellites that provide communications, navigation and surveillance capabilities essential for modern warfare.
These developments come as the U.S. Space Force — established in December 2019 as the sixth branch of the armed forces — continues to operate largely the same equipment it inherited from the Air Force, he said.
“Our entire U.S. commercial space industry has fundamentally changed. The Chinese have produced hundreds of satellites that are on orbit, and they produce weapons that are on orbit, and then you look at our on-orbit capabilities, they’re basically the same as they were 10 years ago, even though we’ve had multiple presidents, multiple secretaries of defense, multiple guidance all saying we have to do something different,” said Hyten.
Bureaucratic barriers
Hyten stressed that his critique isn’t aimed at current Space Force leadership but rather at the labyrinthine acquisition process that hampers rapid modernization. He pointed to multiple layers of bureaucracy and diffused procurement authorities that prevent military officers from moving quickly.
“I think we have to start giving military leadership—and I’m a military person, so I’m biased—authority and responsibility to go buy things and give them a flexible budget in order to do that,” Hyten said.
The current procurement system spreads acquisition authorities across multiple organizations, resulting in programs that typically take a decade to progress from concept to deployment. While Hyten acknowledged pockets of innovation within the Space Force, he characterized these as exceptions rather than the norm.
Changing space architecture
Defense experts have increasingly called for a shift away from large, vulnerable satellites toward distributed networks of smaller, more maneuverable spacecraft. This approach, known as a proliferated architecture, aims to create resilient systems that can withstand attacks.
“We have to buy offensive and defensive space control capabilities,” said Hyten. The Space Force also needs proliferated space networks with small satellites that can maneuver and are easier to defend than “the big fat, juicy targets that are still on orbit,” he added, repeating a phrase he was known for during his military service.
“That’s still how we do business,” he continued. “Even though we’ve made some progress… it is essential that we build a different space architecture, and figure out how to defend it, and then how to take the fight to our adversaries if we have to. And we haven’t done that. We are working all those things in the traditional bureaucratic, slow process. I’m worried that means we’ll fall further behind.”
While acknowledging Space Force leaders’ innovation efforts, “We’re still buying everything at a slow, glacial pace,” Hyten said.
Budget constraints
Congressional budget dysfunction is another obstacle, Hyten said. Continuing resolutions and delayed appropriations create funding uncertainty that further slows procurement.
“That’s got to be fixed somehow, but we have to also fix ourselves, which means we have to give people authority and responsibility to execute. And if they don’t do it, fire them and get somebody else,” he said.
In a moment of personal reflection, Hyten acknowledged that even as a four-star general, he wasn’t able to achieve the change he sought. “I felt like I said all the right words. I felt like I gave the right direction. But fundamentally, nothing got up in orbit, which means this process we’ve created is more powerful than any words. It is so structured and so slow, we never get ahead of where the world is going, and we have to get back to that now.”
Industry perspective
That sentiment is shared by experts at the Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded research and development center that advises the Pentagon on space and defense systems.
“We want to move away from those big, fat, juicy targets, where it just takes one shot and you’re blind and deaf,” said Steve Isakowitz, Aerospace president and CEO.
He pointed to ongoing Space Force efforts to adopt commercial space technology and incorporate it into more distributed architectures. “I think there’s a sense of urgency in terms of addressing that,” he said. “It’s being driven by the threat and that the quickest way we can get additional capability in space and be more resilient is with commercial technologies.”
Isakowitz identified the requirements process as a critical bottleneck.
“You’ve got to develop with speed from the start. And part of it is how you go about setting requirements. And if it takes you two or three years to set requirements, another two or three years with the acquisition, you’re already five years and you haven’t necessarily awarded anything yet.”
Isakowitz called for more flexible requirements that can adapt to emerging threats and technological innovations. “These things have to be written so that you can adapt much more quickly, rather than setting requirements that might be five to 10 years old based on obsolete thinking.”
Leveraging commercial innovation
Jamie Morin, vice president of Aerospace’s defense and space strategy business, emphasized the importance of America’s private sector innovation in space.
“U.S. capital markets and the entrepreneurial sectors are a critical source of U.S. advantage. And so it’s really incumbent on the government to figure out how to maximize the leverage we get from that,” Morin said.
While the commercial space sector offers tremendous potential for defense applications, Morin said, he cautioned that this advantage requires careful nurturing. “There is an urgent need for change,” he said. The commercial sector is a “huge source of strength, a huge source of leverage, but it’s also fragile” due to a challenging investment climate.
Morin emphasized that the government needs to not only invest in innovative companies but also clearly communicate its requirements to the private sector, enabling commercial investments to align with defense needs.