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takyon writes:

Shanahan officially establishes the Space Development Agency

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Tuesday officially established the Space Development Agency as a separate organization within the Department of Defense that will be led by Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin.

"A national security space architecture that provides the persistent, resilient, global, low-latency surveillance needed to deter or, if deterrence fails, defeat adversary action is a prerequisite to maintaining our long term competitive advantage," Shanahan wrote in a March 12 memo obtained by SpaceNews.

"We cannot achieve these goals and we cannot match the pace our adversaries are setting if we remain bound by legacy methods and culture. Therefore, effective immediately, I establish the Space Development Agency as a separate defense agency," the memo said, noting that the agency is being created under existing legal authorities and will be under the "direction and control of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering."

[...] It is likely that resources from other agencies or military departments will transition to the SDA in the future. The undersecretary for research and engineering will work with the Pentagon comptroller to "determine any realignment of FY19 and FY20 resources." The SDA will transfer to the U.S. Space Force once approved by Congress. The Pentagon requested $149.8 million for the new space agency in its budget for fiscal year 2020.

See also: Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin: Space Development Agency to bring new capabilities that don't exist today

Previously: U.S. Vice President Pence Details Plan to Establish a Space Force by 2020

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