The U.S. Department of Commerce is working with the Air Force, NASA and National Reconnaissance Office on a “deep dive” assessment of the nation’s space industrial base supply chain.
Led by the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, the principal goal of the nine-month effort “is to gain an understanding of the intricate supply chain network supporting the development, production, and sustainment of products and services across the defense, intelligence, civil, and commercial space sectors,” according to briefing charts the department released at the end of July.
More than 9,000 surveys have been sent to U.S. companies, universities, nonprofits and government agencies; a second wave of the survey will be sent out this fall to “the supplier of suppliers” in order to look beyond the primes, subassembly manufacturers, electronics distributors, software developers, sheet metal providers, engineering service companies, etc., that were the focus of the first mailing, according to the charts.
The project aims to map the space industrial base, identify relationships between organizations with different roles, characterize the financial health of the industrial base and share data with government stakeholders to improve strategic planning.
