A Novel Acquisition and Mission Assurance Strategy for Launching Higher Risk Missions for National Security Space Launch

The U.S. government made early significant investments in launch technology, and the commercial launch providers are now independently driving rapid innovation with select government investments. The U.S. commercial launch market in the past year saw over 100 orbital launches, but there were also several commercial launch failures in the last two years. The space industry now includes satellite constellations that provide redundancy, resilience, and global coverage. Different types of space architectures, from single high-value satellites to resilient networks of satellites, are needed to support a variety of capabilities and risk levels. The U.S. government requires low risk for valuable, irreplaceable satellites but can accept more risk for resilient satellite networks. This paper describes a novel dual-lane acquisition strategy to allow for the introduction of new commercial launch systems annually, support higher-energy missions, accommodate multiple payloads, incorporate new orbits, increase the number of launch systems and sites, and enable quick payload integration, all while preparing for more frequent launches. The new Phase 3 acquisition strategy has two lanes: one for commercial-like missions that accept more risk and allow new launch systems to join when ready, and another for high-value assets that require full mission assurance. The commercial-like lane includes early technical assessments, a new space flightworthiness certification approach based on nearly 20 years of NSSL success, and a tiered mission assurance method that adjusts efforts based on acceptable risk for the payload.