Trump Wants The Next Generation Of Military Satellites. Pentagon Turmoil Is Endangering That

Forbes

The president is seeking to develop an impenetrable shield against missiles. But the head of a hard-charging unit building a futuristic satellite network that’s key to the idea has been suspended and investigations are raising worries over its independence.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2025/02/19/trump-iron-dome-pentagon-sda/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today, on Forbes, Trump wants the next generation of military satellites.

00:05Pentagon turmoil is endangering that.

00:09If President Donald Trump wants his Iron Dome, the space-based missile defense shield for

00:13the United States he proposed last month, it's going to require tens of billions of

00:18dollars and a lot of new satellites.

00:21For the last six years, the Pentagon's Space Development Agency, or SDA, has been working

00:26on a key part of what's needed, a first-of-its-kind constellation of over 1,000 small satellites

00:32in low-Earth orbit designed to detect hypersonic missile launches and keep tabs 24-7 on mobile

00:39launchers and other threats on the ground.

00:42SDA was set up with a mandate to move fast and skip many of the snarls of red tape that

00:47have bogged down U.S. weapons development and inflated costs.

00:51However, in the last month, SDA has been engulfed in crisis.

00:56Derek Tornier, the head of the agency, was put on leave a week before Trump's inauguration

01:01and marched out of the Pentagon.

01:03Now a bureaucratic power struggle over the program is slowing progress on the constellation,

01:08and the future of the agency itself is in doubt.

01:11A senior staffer speaking on the condition of anonymity told Forbes, quote,

01:15It seems like they're just going to dismantle us.

01:19SDA has faced long-simmering resentment among acquisitions bureaucrats over the agency's

01:23alleged circumvention of their authority, as well as turf concerns among Space Force

01:29brass, this according to what current and former staffers and a former Air Force official

01:34told Forbes.

01:36Tornier has openly acknowledged that he rubbed some officials the wrong way, writing in 2023

01:41that he was happy to play the, quote,

01:43bad cop in stiff-arm attempts to make the agency comply with what he thought were pointless,

01:48time-wasting procedures.

01:50Fueling suspicion over the motives for Tornier's suspension, he was said to have been under

01:55consideration by the Trump team for a higher Pentagon position, where he could have pushed

01:59for wider use of faster acquisition practices.

02:03When Tornier was suspended, the Air Force announced that it was, quote,

02:06pending the results of an investigation.

02:09Into what, it didn't say.

02:10A person familiar with the probe said it involved allegations that Tornier communicated improperly

02:16during the bidding process with Tyvac, which was one of two winners of a satellite contract

02:21that was protested by the loser, Viasat.

02:24The Air Force decided earlier this month to cancel the $254 million award to Tyvac and

02:30re-compete it.

02:32In the weeks after Tornier was sidelined, the SDA, a lean organization with a headcount

02:36of $450 million and a budget of $5 billion, has been targeted with two investigations.

02:43Former Congressman Mac Thornberry is leading an outside team, assembled by the Air Force,

02:48to conduct a 30-day review of the agency's performance and methods, and its independent

02:52status within Space Force.

02:55And last week, the Air Force's inspector general informed the agency's acting head that it

02:59would be subjected to a week-long probe in March.

03:03The Air Force did not answer questions from Forbes about the actions against Tornier and

03:07SDA.

03:09Observers say it's an unusually vigorous series of moves by interim leadership before the

03:14new administration's appointees are put in place.

03:17Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, a member of the Senate Armed Services

03:22Committee who's championed the agency, said, quote,

03:25The establishment in the Pentagon and in the Air Force, and even the Space Force, to a

03:29great degree, have had long knives out for SDA and specifically Derek since it was stood

03:34up to be independent.

03:36It sends a chilling message to industry and to acquisition professionals about trying

03:40to buck the status quo of how weapons are developed.

03:44That status quo is widely regarded as imperiling Washington's efforts to retool the military

03:49to counter rapidly expanding Chinese forces after decades of fighting lightly armed insurgents

03:55in the Mideast and Afghanistan.

03:58Major DoD weapons development programs that have been completed in the last few years

04:02have taken an average of 11 years from start to finish, three years behind already glacial

04:07plans, according to a 2024 report from the Government Accountability Office.

04:13For full coverage, check out Jeremy Bogaski's piece on Forbes.com.

04:19This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:22Thanks for tuning in.

04:32Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Category

Transcript

Recommended