The position of the National Security Space Architect (NSSA) was established in March 1998, with implementation guidance provided in a July 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between the Secretary of Defense and the Director of Central Intelligence Agency. The memorandum codified the presidential directive PDD/NSC-49, which commits the Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Intelligence to ensuring that defense and intelligence space activities are coordinated and that space architectures are integrated to the greatest extent feasible.
The history of the Space Architect's involvement in military satellite communications (milsatcom) begins in 1995, when NSSA's predecessor, the Department of Defense (DOD) Space Architect, was established. Its first responsibility was to develop a future milsatcom architecture that coordinated core DOD capabilities with commercial technologies and global broadcast capabilities. The results of that work influenced the development of the 1997 Senior Warfighters' Forum and the Joint Requirement Oversight Council's "Course of Action" road map that has guided acquisition planning into this decade. As its first task, NSSA is completing an architecture that will extend the DOD Satellite Communications road map from 2010 to 2015 and beyond and expand it to include the intelligence community and NASA.
NSSA's vision of the future is known as the Mission Information Management Communications Architecture. As in the case of the DOD Space Architect's milsatcom effort, an Architecture Development Team has been assembled from members of government acquisition, user, and support communities. These stakeholders will take the architecture into transition planning in 2002. Although the objective Mission Information Management Communications Architecture won't take shape until the next decade, the NSSA and stakeholder planning will affect milsatcom decisions being made throughout this decade.
In the past, the Space Architect reported to both the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence) and the head of the Director of Central Intelligence's community management staff. The Space Architect developed and coordinated mid- to long-range space architectures, but had no direct influence over space budgets or acquisition programs. However, under action initiated by the Secretary of Defense in response to the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, the Space Architect will report to the new Air Force Undersecretary/National Reconnaissance Office Director and will be responsible for ensuring that National Reconnaissance Office and Air Force program funding for space is consistent with policy, planning guidance, and architectural decisions. The office will remain jointly staffed and the Space Architect will retain the end-to-end architecture responsibility for all national security space systems. The office will also be responsible for assisting the undersecretary with trade-offs between space systems and non-space systems.