For Immediate Release: February 25, 2004

Contact:

Harald Stavenas Angela Sowa (202) 225-2539 Mike Lewis (Everett) (202) 225-2901

Opening Statement of Chairman Terry Everett
Hearing on the Department of Defense Space Programs and the Fiscal Year 2005 Budget request for Space Activities

The Strategic Forces Subcommittee meets today to receive testimony on Department of Defense space programs and the fiscal year 2005 budget request for space activities.

I want to welcome Under Secretary Peter Teets who is testifying today as the head of National Security Space Programs. I also want to welcome, seated behind Secretary Teets, the Service Space Program heads:

. representing the Air Force, General Lance Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command;

. For the Army, Lieutenant General Larry Dodgen, Commander, Space and Missile Defense Command;

. the Navy, Rear Admiral Rand Fisher, Commander, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command;

. and finally Brigadier General John Thomas, Director of Command, Control and Communications (C4), and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Marine Corps.

Following Secretary Teets' remarks, I invite you to join him at the witness table as committee members ask questions.

We have a great deal of ground to cover today, and I want to allow each of our members as great an opportunity as possible to ask questions, so I will be brief. Likewise, I would ask you Mr. Secretary to be brief with your prepared remarks - the entirety of your written statement will be entered into the record.

This is the second gathering of this panel, led by Under Secretary Teets. He is the first person to serve as overall head of National Security Space Programs. Consolidation of space activities under a single executive agent was a strong recommendation of the Space Commission. On the one hand, the Secretary oversees an area of technology that is rapidly growing in importance, and on the other hand, he has inherited many space programs that have experienced cost growth and schedule delays. These issues are of paramount concern of this committee and this Congress as an institution.

When we last met, one year ago, we were at the lessons learned stage coming off of a major conflict: Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Now, we've come full circle and have further applied these precious space resources to another conflict, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Our success in these difficult missions would not be possible without the spaced-based capabilities used by the witnesses who appear before us today.

The Secretary faces the institutional hurdle of better integrating military and intelligence community space activities, which promises to benefit both user communities, as well as provide more value to the taxpayer. Are we using these resources to the best of our abilities, and if not Mr. Secretary, I ask you today, how is it that the Congress can better help you?

Further, Secretary Teets is faced with the difficulty of maintaining assured access to space while transitioning from legacy space boosters to the new family of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles during a period when reduced commercial launches places added financial pressures on both suppliers.

Finally another challenge, highlighted almost daily in the press, is the planned transition from existing space-based communication systems to a new transformational communications system based on laser interconnection. That system is to provide the increased information handling capability our future forces require.

The bottom line is that it is very difficult to see how, with the constrained resources available, we will be able to adequately fund maintenance of existing capabilities while simultaneously fielding Future Imagery Architecture and developing expensive future systems like Space Based Radar and the transformational communications satellite system.

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