S.Amdt. 1662

SA 1662. Mr. WARNER submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to
amendment SA 1463 proposed by Mr. McCain to the bill H.R. 1735, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities
of the Department of Defense and for military construction, to
prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle A of title XVI, add the following:

SEC. 1614. COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO THE UNITED STATES
OVERHEAD SATELLITE ARCHITECTURE.

(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The current approach to the overhead satellite
architecture of the United States is increasingly
unsustainable in the long run

[[Page S3799]]

due to high and growing costs, long design time, over
reliance on large, expensive vehicles that need heavy launch
and represent potential single points of failure, an
inability to take full advantage of rapid technological
innovation in the commercial sector, a lack of commercial-
like acquisition practices, a lack of competition, inadequate
communications paths and ground processing systems, and the
vulnerability to anti-satellite attack without an adequate
capability to replace and replenish lost or damaged space
vehicles.
(2) The overhead satellite capabilities of the United
States are in grave peril due to an over reliance on a big
government, centralized planning, and an acquisition model
based on a series of 10-year plans.
(3) In past years, the National Reconnaissance Office was
the United States model for excellence in acquisition and
program management. This was in no small part due to
competition within the National Reconnaissance Office between
Program A (the Air Force satellite reconnaissance element),
Program B (the Central Intelligence Agency satellite
reconnaissance element), and Program C (the Navy
reconnaissance element), for the best, most innovative, and
most cost-effective satellite and aircraft reconnaissance
systems, which were delivered on time and under budget.
Programs A, B, and C existed from 1962 to 1992.
(4) On September 23, 1971, National Security Adviser Henry
Kissinger issued a short memo regarding the President's
decision to pursue the first electro-optical imaging (EOI)
satellite, to be undertaken ``under a realistic funding
program, with a view toward achieving an operational
capability in 1976.'' It took almost exactly 5 years to
design and launch the first KH-11 satellite into orbit on
December 19, 1976. The United States needs to get back to
this kind of timeline in designing and launching United
States overhead reconnaissance satellites.
(5) The United States cannot afford to wait a decade or
more from design to launch of a satellite if the United
States is to maintain its technological edge.
(6) The culture of innovation and competition must be
fostered and reinforced in the requirements, planning,
design, and research and development processes for the United
States entire overhead satellite architecture, to take into
account and prioritize--
(A) the intelligence requirements of United States
warfighters and national policymakers;
(B) the need for resiliency and rapid reconstitution of the
architecture in an increasingly contested space environment;
and
(C) the ability to leverage rapid developments and
innovation in commercial sector satellite, processing and
sensor technology.
(7) Space is no longer an uncontested environment, as it
had been in the past. The United States must be open to
innovative solutions such as distributed, disaggregated
architectures that could allow for better resiliency against
the space threat, and also allow for ready reconstitution,
constant replenishment, and frequent technological refresh.
(8) The current cost-constrained budget environment
dictates that the United States can no longer ignore the
costs of systems and potentially less expensive alternatives.
(9) In April 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said
that the United States needed to reform acquisition across
the Department of Defense, that the costs of the ``exquisite
solution'' were making defense unaffordable, and that ``we
needed to shift away from the 99-percent exquisite service-
centric platforms that are so costly and so complex that they
take forever to build and only then in very limited
quantities. With the pace of technological and geopolitical
change and the range of possible contingencies, we must look
more to the 80 percent multi-service solution that can be
produced on time, on budget and in significant numbers.''.
(10) The National Space Policy of the United States of
America issued on June 28, 2010, states ``To promote a robust
domestic commercial space industry, departments and agencies
shall:
``Purchase and use commercial space capabilities and
services to the maximum practical extent when such
capabilities and services are available in the marketplace
and meet United States Government requirements;
``Modify commercial space capabilities and services to meet
government requirements when existing commercial capabilities
and services do not fully meet these requirements and the
potential modification represents a more cost-effective and
timely acquisition approach for the government;
``Develop governmental space systems only when it is in the
national interest and there is no suitable, cost-effective
United States commercial or, as appropriate, foreign
commercial service or system that is or will be available;''.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of the Congress
that--
(1) overhead satellite collection and processing known as
commodity overhead satellite collection and processing should
be undertaken as much as possible by the commercial sector in
order to offload cost and risk from the taxpayer, while
national programs should continue their tradition of
excellence in innovation to address the truly complex
exquisite problem sets and requirements that cannot be
addressed by the commercial sector;
(2) overhead satellite architecture should be designed in
such a way that a number of elements common to nearly all
spacecraft should be standardized, which would bring costs
down, simplify execution and preserve the industrial base;
and
(3) the entire overhead satellite architecture of the
United States, including programs funded by the Department of
Defense or by an element of the intelligence community,
commercial imagery providers, and foreign partner
capabilities, should be viewed and treated as an integrated
whole, not simply as a series of satellite systems of the
Department of Defense, the intelligence community, or private
entities;
(4) the state of the current overhead architecture and
planning for the future architecture should receive priority
personal attention from the President, the senior national
security and scientific advisors to the President, the
Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense,
and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to ensure that
the architecture--
(A) meets the needs of the United States in peacetime and
in wartime; responsibly stewards the taxpayers' dollars;
(B) accurately takes into account cost and performance
tradeoffs of the architecture;
(C) meets realistic requirements;
(D) produces and fosters excellence, innovation, and
competition;
(E) produces innovative satellite systems in under 5 years
that are able to leverage common, standardized design
elements and commercially available technologies;
(F) takes advantage of rapid advances in commercial
technology, innovation, and commercial-like acquisition
practices; and
(G) fosters competition and a robust industrial base.
(c) Strategy on the United States Overhead Satellite
Architecture.--
(1) Requirement for strategy.--The Director of National
Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall develop a strategy, with
milestones and benchmarks, to ensure that there is a
wholesale review of the entire approach of the United States
to overhead satellite architecture, including programs of the
Department of Defense that are funded under the Military
Intelligence Program, programs of elements of the
intelligence community that are funded under the National
Intelligence Program, programs carried out by the commercial
satellite and imagery sectors, and foreign partner
capabilities, to ensure that such architecture comports with
the principles of the Sense of Congress in subsection (b).
(2) Report on strategy.--Not later than 180 days after the
date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National
Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall report to the Committee on
Armed Services and the Select Committee on Intelligence of
the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services and the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of
Representatives on the strategy required by paragraph (1).
______