U.S. Navy PEO Space Systems

Rear Admiral Victor C. See, Jr.
Director, Communications Sytems Acquisition and
Operations Directorate,
National Reconnaisance Office,
Commander, SPAWAR Space Field Activity,
Program Executive Officer for Space Systems

Editor’s note: While we originally requested RADM See highlight his PEO Space Systems command, he graciously included an update of his other two commands.

Rear Admiral Victor C. See, Jr. became director, Communications Systems Acquisition and Operations Directorate, National Reconnaissance Office in August 2004. See is also commander, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command’s (SPAWAR) Space Field Activity (SSFA) and program executive officer for Space Systems. See is a 1980 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He received his Naval Aviator Wings in October 1981 and was assigned to Helicopter, Anti-Submarine Light Squadron 32 (HSL-32) in Norfolk, VA.

In 1985 he reported to the Naval Air Systems Command Washington, D.C., as Avionics System project officer. See was selected as an Aerospace Engineering duty officer (AEDO) and sent to the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. The admiral graduated in September 1989 and became the community manager for AEDO. See reported to the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., in June 1992 as the System Engineering Division head for the Special Systems Program and subsequently became deputy program manager then program manager in January 1995. In July 1995, he assumed command of the Defense Contract Management Command Lockheed Martin Federal Systems, Owego, N.Y., overseeing management of 660 DoD contracts, including delivery of the Navy’s SH-60B and MH-60R programs.

In August 1998, See reported to the SPAWAR SSFA, National Reconnaissance Office, Chantilly, Va. Prior to his current position he held positions as the chief of Systems Engineering for the Integrated Overhead SIGINT Architecture-Phase 2 (IOSA-2) Program, program manager for Advanced SIGINT Architectures and Technology and director of the Acquisition and Engineering Group in the Communications Directorate.

ORGANIZATIONAL OVERVIEW AND MISSION

The NRO Communications Acquisition and Operations Directorate (COMM) is comprised of hundreds of government employees, both military and civilian. COMM works closely with a large contractor work force in the development, acquisition and operations of a worldwide space, terrestrial and enterprise network. COMM provides telephone, video teleconferencing, networks, information technology and enterprise services to a large number of government and contractor personnel in support of a national intelligence mission. The directorate provides mission critical capabilities for the intelligence community (IC) and DoD partners. Utilizing a large bandwidth high-speed network COMM successfully moves the bits and bytes through cyberspace to the warfighter and our nation’s decision-makers.

The commander, SPAWAR Space Field Activity, oversees a cadre of Navy space acquisition professionals. The command consists of 120 officers, 65 enlisted and more than 100 civilians. As part of the Navy Space Cadre, the SSFA reports to Rear Admiral Michael C. Bachman, commander, SPAWAR, in San Diego. We are responsible for providing the naval perspective and acquisition expertise in support of national objectives through the medium of space, “the ultimate high ground.”

As PEO for Space Systems, I lead a government/industry team of roughly 150 people. PEO Space Systems is the DoD executive agent for narrowband UHF communications. We purchased all the UHF spacecraft currently launched and on orbit. We also manage the Leasat contract, a partnership with industry in which we lease commercial UHF SATCOM. We are responsible for the procurement of the next generation UHF SATCOM, The Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). MUOS will be a five spacecraft satellite constellation (four operational, one spare) with a 10-fold increase in capability, as well as networking capability for the Army and agencies.

NEAR-TERM (NEXT 12–18 MONTHS) COMMAND GOALS

At PEO Space my focus is on successfully delivering and launching the first MUOS satellite within cost and on schedule. As with any acquisition and low-rate production of an advanced technology there are challenges and successes. We have an outstanding government/contractor team (Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale, Calif., and Newtown, Pa., Boeing Satellites in Los Angeles and General Dynamics in Scottsdale, Ariz.); all working toward mission success focused on delivering disadvantaged, highly flexible, mobile forces a life-saving communications capability.

As director, COMM, my immediate goal is to support IC transformation and to help enable the NRO to deliver a much more integrated product to that community. The Communications Directorate is a big piece of helping the NRO integrate its products and capabilities to deliver a more refined and integrated service to all of our customers. In recent past a customer would have to request services or capabilities from SIGINT, IMINT—you name the “int.” In the future we want the operator to ask the question once and get an integrated delivery of the best product in a correlated fashion. As an organization that provides critical services supporting DoD and IC partners, we strive for perfection and are working to reduce service delivery timelines. We’re focused on delivering improved quality of service while applying commercial bestpractices to enable streamlined delivery.

As commander, SSFA, I’m striving to continue building our Navy space cadre both in numbers and experience. I continue to work with the Naval Academy in molding our midshipmen through a focused aerospace engineering curriculum, while continuing our close relationship with the space curricula at The Naval Postgraduate School. As the Navy Space Subject Matter Expert, I continue to work to improve our outreach and education to Naval leaders and other seniors on top space capabilities and issues.

YOUR COMMAND’S TOP THREE PROGRAMS IN DOLLAR VALUE

MUOS is the largest single program in excess of $3 billion currently on contract. We continue to march towards the production and launch of MUOS No. 1, the production of MUOS No. 2, the long lead for MUOS No. 3 and options for satellites 4 and 5.

INDUSTRY INTERACTION PROCESSES AND OUTREACH EFFORTS TO SMALL BUSINESSES

Most of my work in the two acquisition jobs entails working with the satellite and information technology industries.

PEO’S EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE JOINT SOLUTIONS IN DOD SPACE SYSTEMS

One of the real benefits to the Navy of the way my three commands are set up is my ability to look across classified space here in the NRO and unclassified space through my PEO space hat interfacing with the Air Force (DoD Executive Agent for Space) and make capability trades and improvements.

From a capability perspective, MUOS answers the call to the DoD and especially the Army, who needs communications on the move to benefit all users. With the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) terminals and maritime fixed radios, the 10-fold increase in capability provided by MUOS coupled with many more accesses than the current system provides will yield a greater a force enhancement to all users for years to come.

SUCCESSES IN SUPPORTING THE JOINT/SERVICE WARFIGHTERS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

The missions of NRO COMM, and PEO Space Systems are to directly support both military and IC warfighters around the globe, but especially in these two theaters.

CONVERSELY, THE CHALLENGES TO BETTER SUPPORTING THE WARFIGHTER THROUGH SPACE SYSTEMS

If you review Desert Storm and look at the way our operational forces used satellite technology, there was a large need for ISR, weather, positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). When you jump forward to OEF/OIF and look at the exponential growth in our reliance on these and other space enhancing assets it is daunting. The increase in connectivity and netcentric fighting places a tremendous demand on the DoD acquisition community to field more capability at a faster rate, as well as increased demand for commercial SATCOM. The nature of irregular warfare puts timely, actionable intelligence at a premium. Our challenges are derived not only from an unorthodox enemy, but also an acquisition process that requires tailoring. Many innovative ideas to enhance capability to the warfighters are being considered: commercial like contracting, operationally responsive space, hosted UHF payloads, Skynet, tactical exploitation of national capabilities (TENCAP) projects. These are just a few, but we must continue to strive for timeline reductions while insuring costs and performance are maintained. The bottom line is, capability to our warfighters is paramount, while protecting and managing resources provided us by OSD and the DNI. ♦