Congressional leaders have questions about the Pentagon’s strategy to provide space-based missile warning, according to a new spending bill for fiscal year 2020, but provided full funding for multiple space programs that help fill that need.

Specifically, Congressional appropriators want to see a plan for how the Department of Defense will develop, acquire and provide hypersonic and ballistic missile detection and tracking from space.

“The Department of Defense lacks consensus on its space architecture plans to meet requirements for strategic and tactical missile warning, missile defense, and battlespace awareness mission areas,” reads the joint explanatory statements on the legislation, released Dec. 16. “Currently, the Air Force, Missile Defense Agency, Space Development Agency, and others, are planning to spend tens of billions of dollars pursuing various potential satellite constellations, with a variety of sensor types, constellation sizes, and orbits ranging from proliferated low-earth to geosynchronous and others. The Department has yet to synchronize or harmonize these proposals into a clearly articulated executable and affordable integrated enterprise space architecture.”

Click here to read the full article.