Deborah Lee James, chair of the Defense Business Board and former secretary of the U.S. Air Force, said opening up the National Security Space Launch program to the addition of a third launch provider would endanger assured access to space for the country’s most critical satellites.
“Although I’m all for competition … I’m flatly against lowering the standards of the certification process for high-risk launches. And I’m also against allowing a vendor who has not yet successfully launched to compete on the basis of a paper proposal alone,” James, a previous Wash100 awardee, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday on Defense News.
According to James, Space Force indicated that the addition of another vendor to support the second lane’s missions could raise costs by more than $5 billion and reduce the incentive for contractors to submit price-competitive offers.
“These realities have not changed over the last six months, so neither should Space System Command’s procurement strategy,” she added.
In July, the Space Force announced plans to bring on a third provider to handle more difficult launch missions under the third phase of the NSSL program by implementing a “dual-lane” approach to acquisition.
SpaceX and United Launch Alliance are responsible for launch services via NSSL Phase 2 contracts awarded in August 2022.