MAUI, Hawaii — By the end of October, Space Force Space Systems Command (SSC) hopes to wrap up its ongoing reorganization into “system deltas” designed to speed capabilities to the field, according to SSC Commander Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant.
“We have stood up five, and three more to go, ” he told Breaking Defense on Wednesday during the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies conference here.
The new SSC deltas (the equivalent of Air Force wings) put Space Force operators side-by-side with Guardians charged to acquire hardware and software so as to ensure new kit meets warfighter needs on a timely basis, Garrant said.
“The closer we get, the tighter we get, the better the entire service and the capability,” Garrant said.
Importantly, the system deltas mirror the “mission deltas” set up under Space Operations Command (SpOC) that put acquisition specialists in system sustainment into operational units, organized along Space Force mission areas, in order to boost readiness, Garrant explained.
“So, for the first time, you have two 06s, two colonels — an operator and a capability developer — who are singularly focused as a team on a specific mission,” he said.
Col. Jason West, who heads up the new(ish) System Delta 85 reporting to SSC’s Battle Management, Command, Control and Communications and Space Intelligence (BMC3I) program office, stressed that the raison d’etre of the system deltas is to support the operators in the SpOC mission deltas.
“The system delta’s job is to accelerate capability delivery to the mission delta,” he told Breaking Defense on Wednesday. “So, all of the major upgrades, the block upgrades, the new systems, fielding new systems, that is all something that’s the responsibility of a system delta.”
SSC stood up its first two system deltas in July, both of which are under SSC’s Program Executive Officer for Space Sensing: System Delta 84 responsible for Space-Based Missile Warning and Tracking, and System Delta 810 for Space-Based Sensing and Targeting.
Systems Delta 85 stood up on Aug. 8 and is organized into three subunits —Battlespace Awareness, Battle Management and Space Access and Networked Services — each headed by a “system program director.”
Its mission also includes providing capabilities for ground-based space domain awareness (i.e. radars and telescopes), following SSC’s move “some six months ago” to split the space domain awareness mission between the BMC3I and the Space Combat Power program offices, Shannon Pallone, BMC3I program executive officer, told Breaking Defense on Wednesday.
Space Combat Power, headed by Col. Bryon McClain, is responsible for space domain awareness systems “on orbit,” she said, including the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites and their planned follow-on constellation.
System Delta 81, underneath the SSC program executive office for Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI), stood up on Sept. 9. It will support Space Training and Readiness Command, as well as SpOC.
Because OTTI “is still a relative small organization,” Garrant said that for the moment its program executive officer, Col. Corey Clopstein, is double-hatted as System Delta 81 commander.
System Delta 88, responsible for Satellite Communications, stood up on Sept. 12 reporting to the program executive office for Military Communications & Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT).
That office will get a second system delta to manage PNT in the coming weeks, Garrant said.
The SSC program office for Assured Access to Space will have one system delta, he said, noting that “it’s a little unique,” because the “customers” for it are Space Launch Deltas 30 and 45, which actually fall under SSC not SpOC.
Finally, one system delta will be created under the Space Combat Power office, Garrant said.
Once the reorganization is complete, it will ensure “a common military experience for all Guardians and a singular focus with a counterpart of mission unity of effort for a particular mission area,” he said. “And then that lets the [program executive officers] really be strategic and focus up and out, and work on bigger issues, bigger stakeholder engagement.”
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