Space Force to finalize acquisition portfolio structure over next two months

COLORADO SPRINGS — The Space Force intends to wrap up the reorganization of its acquisition structure within the next two months, establishing the final three of nine new Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) offices in the “June-ish time frame,” according to the head of Space Systems Command (SSC).

Gen. Philip Garrant told reporters during the 41st Space Symposium here in Colorado Springs that the issue now is how to “most effectively execute and implement” the new structure to best support the acquisition mission.

“There are conversations at the highest levels of the Department of the Air Force on what the org structure will look like,” he said.

For example, Garrant noted that there are currently some SSC personnel working for the Space Development Agency, and vice versa.

“We’ve got to clean the books up.”

Garrant said that he expects the remaining Space Force PAEs will be sorted out “soon,” and then “probably[in the] June-ish timeframe [there will be] information we’d be able to share on what the org is going to look like.”

The service has already announced the establishment of six of nine planned PAEs, although not all the paperwork is finished to reassign personnel. The three new ones will cover the current SSC mission areas of Space Control; Electronic Warfare, Cyber Warfare and Orbital Warfare; and Integration.

He added that Pentagon acquisition czar Michael Duffey is expecting the new structure to be at full operational capability by Nov. 27.

Meanwhile, Garrant said, SSC also is working to rebuild its acquisition workforce that was hit hard by reductions due to Elon Musk’s DOGE and the Pentagon’s Deferred Resignation Program (DPR).

“A mix of all of our hiring caps have been lifted,” he said, with the plan to bring in “under 1,000; several hundreds of employees” both to “back fill” open billets and put people into new billets across all of SSC’s various locations. Of that total, about 200 are brand new billets — with “a lot of 27 billets” in the five-year budget plan focused on “new programs coming in.”

SSC has been “challenged” to hire “100 people per month” to get to the goal, Garrant added.