As part of the 2007 defense authorization, Congress included $767 million for the Transformational Satellite program, about $100 million less than the Administration requested. Lawmakers cited “unexecutable growth in the program budget” as the culprit, saying that the Government Accountability Office “questions whether the contractors associated with the space segment of the TSAT program will be able to increase development activities” to the level of the Administration request. However, lawmakers said they remain “fully supportive of the restructured TSAT program.”
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
