President Trump has floated<\/a> a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, a level that would likely translate into new starts and expanded portfolios for the Space Force.<\/p>\n\u201cIf you\u2019ve been listening to the president, he\u2019s talking about a one and a half trillion dollar top line for the Department of War in 2027,\u201d Garrant said. \u201cThe Space Force is going to get a significant part of that, and SSC in particular, is going to get a number of new programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garrant emphasized that it is too early to speculate about which programs might be expanded, noting that those decisions would rest with the Pentagon. His immediate concern, he said, is ensuring that any new program offices can be staffed without draining resources from existing ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy top priority is to resource those brand new program offices without harming the existing program offices,\u201d he said. \u201cWe lost a number of contracting officers through voluntary early retirement and deferred resignation programs last year, and we are seeking relief on some of our remote contracting officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
SSC is considering hiring contractors to work as buyers to help ease the workload, but Garrant described that as a stopgap rather than a durable fix. \u201cThe problem with contracting buyers, while you get a great pool of seasoned professionals to do the work, you\u2019re not developing your next generation of contracting officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Programs move at slower pace<\/p>\n
The shortage has already had measurable effects. Garrant said insufficient contracting capacity slows procurement timelines, running counter to Pentagon directives to accelerate acquisition. During the government shutdown, he said, programs continued to move forward but at a slower pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not trivial, and I will tell you, during the shutdown, we saw real impacts,\u201d he said. \u201cThe work got done, but it took longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
To rebuild the pipeline, SSC is recruiting college graduates interested in starting government careers and reaching out to military spouses who could work remotely without special waivers. The command is also seeking broader exemptions to allow remote hiring across more positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working to try to get an exception to continue to do remote hiring\u201d more broadly, Garrant said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to hire more,\u201d he added. \u201cMy ability to get military contracting officers is pretty limited, because they have to support the Air Force as well. We would love to hire civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geography adds another layer of difficulty. SSC\u2019s main operations are in Los Angeles, a competitive and expensive labor market for technical professionals. To expand hiring options, the command has opened offices in Huntsville, Alabama; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Boston; and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m successful in getting an exemption for remote hiring, then all things are possible,\u201d Garrant said.<\/p>\n
He noted that recent developments have at least reopened the door to rebuilding the workforce. \u201cThe good news,\u201d he said, \u201cis we have been given all of the authority to restart all of our hiring, both on the Air Force and Space Force side, for our civilians. So we are aggressively hiring against our vacancies, prioritized by mission area, prioritized by location. I will continue to beat the drum that contracting is my priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Problems executing programs<\/p>\n
Outside analysts say the contracting gap represents a structural risk for the Space Force as its budgets grow. American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Todd Harrison highlighted the issue in remarks last week on a call with industry analysts hosted by Vertical Research Partners.<\/p>\n
Harrison argued that the Space Force\u2019s modernization risk in 2026 is not a lack of funding but an execution gap driven by a shrinking acquisition workforce managing increasingly complex programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I would say about space right now is they are flush with funding in the Space Force for space programs, and the challenge is really execution,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n
The problem, he added, is that the workforce needed to move that money has contracted. \u201cThe way I think of it is they\u2019re almost choking on funding, and how to move forward with these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Space Force leaders<\/a> told Congress last year that the service shed nearly 14 percent of its civilian workforce overall \u2014 roughly 780 personnel \u2014 through early retirements, voluntary resignations and hiring freezes, a significant blow to its acquisition and program support base.<\/p>\nThe bottleneck matters because contracting officers are the ones who \u201cget the money moving and the programs flowing,\u201d Harrison said. Without a rebuilt procurement workforce, he warned, additional funding or new program starts could further strain the system rather than accelerate delivery.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Space Systems Command, the primary acquisition and space development arm of the U.S. Space Force, is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":536080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[24],"tags":[24711,159,16988,783,48984,237088,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-536079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-procurement","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-space","tag-space-systems-command","tag-space-workforce","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115942238634302209","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}