The Pentagon has formally launched an independent Space Development Agency, naming its new director, Defense News reported Wednesday.
Citing a memo signed Tuesday by Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, the news outlet said the Department of Defense stood up the SDA as a new office that will be directed by retired Air Force Col. Fred Kennedy, who has also served as a senior policy adviser for national security space and aviation during the Obama administration.
"The SDA will define and monitor the Department's future threat-driven space architecture and will accelerate the development and fielding of new military space capabilities necessary to ensure out technological and military advantage in space for national defense," Shanahan wrote, Defense News reported.
And though the SDA is independent for now, the plan is to eventually transfer it inside a stand-alone Space Force, Defense News reported.
"Coordination of requirements and transition decisions will occur through the normal processes once SDA transfers to the U.S. Space Force," Shanahan wrote in the memo.
The news outlet noted outgoing Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson was an early skeptic of a Space Force — and last month told an Air Force symposium she still has "some concerns."
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