US Government Accountability Office GAO

DOD SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS: Reporting on Progress Needed to Provide Insight on New Approach

2025 US2025sateliteComm
SCALE
  • - the $500 billion global space market
  • - evolve from disparate systems into a single enterprise
  • - DOD averages 10 years to acquire and deliver new systems
COMPLIANCE FOCUS
  • - Senate report’s provisions
  • - Expert agency recommendations
  • - Enterprise Satellite Communications – Management and Control
PERFORMANCE ASPECT
  • - planning and coordination of acquisition of SATCOM capabilities
  • - efficiency of reporting
1. Outlook - Prioritization

We have reported for over a decade on the longstanding challenges DOD faces in acquiring and delivering SATCOM capabilities. These challenges include schedule delays of 5 or more years, cost increases of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, program cancelations due to development problems, and prioritization.

2. Reporting - Comprehensive update

While DOD is making initial progress toward enterprise SATCOM, the harder part of this shift—developing and integrating hybrid SATCOM systems and networks—lies ahead. GAO found that while DOD tracks progress on the components of enterprise SATCOM, it lacks comprehensive reporting on progress toward these outcomes. Such reporting would help DOD identify and mitigate delays as early as possible, as well as inform Congress of progress.

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The items above were selected and named by the e-Government Subgroup of the EUROSAI IT Working Group on the basis of publicly available report of the author Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI). In the same way, the Subgroup prepared the analytical assumptions and headings. All readers are encouraged to consult the original texts by the author SAIs (linked).