Acting Defense Secretary and 2019 Wash100 Award recipient Patrick Shanahan said the Department of Defense’s objective is to accelerate the “margin of dominance†in space to protect the country’s $19 trillion economy and military systems, the DoD website reported Wednesday.
Shanahan said Wednesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that DoD’s reorganization efforts to recognize space as a warfighting domain supports the goal and involves the creation of a new Space Force within the Department of the Air Force, development of a new Space Command and formation of a new Space Development Agency.
“The Space Force will operate like other branches of the armed services, organizing, training and equipping the force with Title X authorities. It will have formalized leadership, including a new undersecretary for space, and a chief of staff of the Space Force, to focus on developing space warfighting doctrine and culture,†he said.
Shanahan noted the new service branch will operate with approximately 15,000 to 20,000 personnel and funding similar to the Special Operations Command. He cited the need to leverage commercial space investment to address future warfighting challenges and technology capabilities the Space Development Agency plans to focus on in the future.
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.
