The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (P.L. 119-21) which was signed into law last July created a significant amount (just over $152 billion) of funding for the Department of Defense. Because the bill was a reconciliation bill, this funding was not a discretionary appropriation, but rather mandatory—or direct—spending. The Act instructed DOD to create a spend plan to outline how the funds would be used and news outlets recently gained access to DOD’s Mandatory Funding Allocation Plan. The bill contained a dozen broad categories of spending (not broken out by the usual discretionary appropriations accounts). While there is no distinct category for space, there is significant funding that will impact DOD’s Space Force. The “Missile Defense” section of the bill provides resources that will be directed to the Space Force as does the USINDOPACOM Capabilities section.
Chart I. Source: DOD OBBBA funding allocation plan
Additional Space Force funding in the “Quality of Life” section of the Allocation Plan is primarily for Guardian housing and we won’t examine that here. Some of the narrative describing the initiatives in Chart I is classified. The unclassified information is described in more detail below:
- National Security Space Launch Infrastructure – The $500 million allocated for space launch is
- Air Moving Target Indicator Military Satellites – While the $2 billion is not listed as classified, it has not yet received full approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). A more detailed description is pending that approval.
- Space Based Sensors – This section has also not yet received final OMB approval for the $7.2 billion expenditure and the description is pending.
- Space Force Facilities – The $68 million in funding will be used for the design of a number of Space Force projects including the U.S. Space Command Headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.
- Ground Moving Target Indicator Military Satellites – The $150 million in funding will be used to support the development and the acceleration of a second vendor for a GMTI space vehicle.
- DARC and SILENTBARKER Military Space SA Programs – The $528 million supports:
- SILENTBARKER which is used to detect, collect, identify, and track deep space objects;
- Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) ground-based radar construction and integration of sites in INDOPACOM, EUCOM, and CONUS as well as continued integration of sites in Australia and the United Kingdom; and
- Installation and testing of the Ground Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) in Maui, HI.
- X-37B Military Spacecraft – The description of the $1 billion in funding for this program is CLASSIFIED.
- Military Satellites – The nearly $3.7 billion funding for the development, procurement, integration, and protection of military satellites is pending OMB approval.
- Space Communications – The $125 million for the development, procurement, and integration of military space communications is pending approval.
- Space C2 – The $350 million for the development, procurement, and integration of military space command and control systems is pending approval.
The Allocation Plan suggests that all of the obligations will be made in FY26, but we think some will slip into FY27 as contracts are negotiated prior to award. The Act requires the obligations to be made prior to FY29 and DOD is working to ensure contracts are moved to the left as much as possible in an effort to expedite work on these programs. The ongoing operations in Iran were not anticipated by DOD in its allocation plan and while we expect a supplemental appropriation to fund those operations, there is overlap, particularly in munitions spending, with the OBBBA.
We are the first to acknowledge the Allocation Plan, like OBBBA itself lacks details found in normal appropriations and will be sure to provide them as they become available. The most likely timetable for that coincides with release of President Trump’s FY27 Budget which has been delayed to at least March 30.