19.03.2026

The Space Force is "serious" about integrating cislunar capabilities, with plans to work closely with NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory on new tech, Tom Ainsworth, Air Force space acquisition officer, said today.

WASHINGTON — The Space Force now has put into place all of its mission-focused acquisition portfolios, including offices dedicated to space control and orbital warfare, according to the top space acquisition officer.

Tom Ainsworth, who is performing the duties of the Air Force assistant secretary for Space Acquisition and Integration, told the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference today that while the department is “still working through the detail of which programs specifically go into each one,” the final seven portfolio acquisition executive (PAE) offices now are being put in place.

All totaled, there will be nine PAEs, which are designed to implement the wide-ranging reforms in how the Pentagon buys weapon systems championed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The first two Space Force PAEs, Space Access and Space Based Sensing and Targeting, were announced in January.

Of the seven new PAEs mentioned by Ainsworth today, only four have been officially established according to a Space Force press release today:

• Missile Warning and Tracking — responsible for constellations across all orbital regimes, according to Ainsworth. This includes, he said, low Earth orbit satellites, which now fall under programs managed by the Space Development Agency.
• Infrastructure — responsible for “delivering data management, Space Force training and test capabilities, and personnel management capabilities,” according to the Space Force press release.
• Battle Management, Command and Control, Communications and Space Intelligence — responsible for “data, networks, C2, intelligence and space domain awareness to detect, characterize, attribute, anticipate and target activities,” according to the press release.
• Satellite Communication and Position, Navigation & Timing — responsible for managing both military and commercial programs in each of those two mission areas.

Ainsworth mentioned three other PAE categories not included in the Space Force announcement, which he said cover Space Control; Electronic Warfare, Cyber Warfare and Orbital Warfare; and Integration.

He explained that the Integration PAE would serve the “chief engineer function and … overall enterprise system architect function” — focused on new technologies that cross-cut the other PAEs, as well as commercial innovation.

In addition, he said, the Integration PAE will be the focal point for maturing tech for new mission areas, including in the near term cislunar activities.

“I don’t have a final plan for it yet, but specifically coming out of the president’s Executive Order for Space Superiority, we do need to begin integrating cislunar capability into the Space Force, and so we are serious about that,” Ainsworth said. “We are going to be standing on leadership positions and integration points where we can start bringing that those technologies in and actually have a plan to execute them going forward.”

He noted that as the service moves out on developing cislunar capabilities, it will partner with NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory to bring forward promising technologies.

Ainsworth did not go into detail about the the other two PAEs. Up to now, space control has been defined by the Space Force as including both defensive actions to protect US and friendly space forces and offensive actions to “negate” adversary space force. It is unclear how those missions might be differentiated from those defined as orbital warfare.

In response to a question about the status of the three PAEs mentioned by Ainsworth but not included in today’s announcement, a Space Force spokesperson said in an email:

“The Space Force will have 9 PAEs and six have been announced: Space Access; Space Based Sensing and Targeting; Infrastructure; Battle Management, Command, Control, Communication & Space Intelligence; Satellite Communication and Positioning, Navigation & Timing; and Missile Warning and Tracking.”

Quelle: BREAKING DEFENSE