Gen. Jay Raymond, United States Space Force chief of space operations, addresses basic military graduates December 10, 2020, at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. U.S. Air Force photo by Sarayuth Pinthong
Space Force Seeks $831.7M for Unfunded Priorities
Projects left out of 2022 budget would boost Cheyenne Mountain security, space-based cryptology.
The Space Force is seeking an additional $831.7 million from Congress for improvements on Earth and in space that it says are necessary to continue building the force.
Among the larger projects on the unfunded priorities list submitted by service officials to Congress this week are:
- “Critical blast door, water, ventilation, and sewer improvements at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado,” $83 million.
- New payload and propulsion system development, $61 million.
- Procurement of space-rated crypto systems that support the Space Force’s anti-jamming protected tactical satcom satellites, Wideband Global Satellites, GPS III, and Next-Gen OPIR satellite launches, $22 million.
The requests were submitted in a document obtained by Defense One. The unfunded priorities list comes on top of the $17.4 billion requested for the Space Force in the Biden administration’s 2022 budget proposal submitted last Friday.
Space Force also requested an extra $130 million to sustain current satellites and launch facilities.
More than $275 million of the service’s unfunded priorities were marked as classified, with no additional details provided.