Acting Defense Secretary and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Patrick Shanahan officially unveiled the new space development agency, CNN reported Wednesday.
Fred Kennedy, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s tactical technology office, will lead the agency as part of the proposed space force, according to a copy of Shanahan’s memo obtained by the publication. The document says the new agency will advance the development and deployment of military space platforms needed to keep the country’s tech advantage in space for national defense. The agency will focus on building a network of low-Earth orbit satellites to monitor hypersonic missiles.
Michael Griffin, defense undersecretary for research and engineering and fellow 2019 Wash100 Award winner, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that the country needs space assets to track adversaries’ hypersonic missiles.
The Wash100 award, now in its sixth year, recognizes the most influential executives in the GovCon industry as selected by the Executive Mosaic team in tandem with online nominations from the GovCon community. Representing the best of the private and public sector, the winners demonstrate superior leadership, innovation, reliability, achievement and vision.
Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2019 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2019.
