Friday, June 03, 2022

GAO finds flaws in Air Force's selection process for SPACECOM headquarters


Vice President Kamala Harris interacts with U.S. military officers in the Command Space Operation Center at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Lompoc, California, on April 18. The Government Accountability Office said the Air Force had shortcomings its its selection process for a new SPACECOM headquarters in a report on Friday. 
File Photo by Etienne Laurent/UPI | License Photo


June 3 (UPI) -- The Air Force had "significant shortfalls" in its process of selecting the new Space Command headquarters, the Government Accountability Office said in a report on Thursday.

The news paralleled complaints from Colorado legislators who criticized the process after Peterson Space Force Base, where the provisional SPACECOM headquarters is located, lost out to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., for the permanent location.


"While the January 2021 selection of Redstone Arsenal as the preferred location for U.S. Space Command headquarters was consistent with the Air Force's analysis, our assessment of the Air Force's revised selection process and attendant analysis against our Analysis of Alternatives best practices identified significant shortfalls in its transparency and credibility," the GAO said in its report.

GAO recommended the Air Force develop guidance for future basing decisions aligned with the agency's best practices.

"GAO believes that the [Analysis of Alternatives] best practices are relevant and, if effectively implemented, can help ensure such basing decisions are transparent and deliberate," the GAO report said.

"Developing basing guidance consistent with these best practices, and determining the basing actions to which it should apply, would better position the Air Force to substantiate future basing decisions and help prevent bias, or the appearance of bias, from undermining their credibility."

The Air Force manages most of the Pentagon's military space systems and was ordered with selecting the headquarters location for SPACECOM in 2018. The Air Force then announced six candidate installations, four in Colorado, one in California and one in Alabama.

The military branch started conducting site visits after service validated those preferred locations in 2019.

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