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how SSAG offers education to best meet defense requirements. Fast-forward to the present, and one sees just how much the space domain has changed. The Navy and Marine Corps have each established a new designator—Maritime Space Officer (MSO). Filling the ranks of MSOs will build a community of of- ficers with space expertise who will directly support Navy and Marine Corps activities. NPS graduates have become MSOs and newly designated MSOs have started arriving at NPS for their space-focused degree programs. Additionally, the establishment of the U.S. Space Force and the revival of U.S. Space Command (USSPACE- COM) as a unified combatant com- mand have reinforced the impor- tance of joint space operations and education within the DoD. As an ac- knowledgment of NPS’ role in space systems education, USSPACECOM has accepted NPS into its Academic Engagement Enterprise, a select partnership of colleges and univer- sities throughout the United States that contribute to current and future USSPACECOM domain superiority. FLTSATCOM and the Segmented Mirror Space Telescope Due to the rapidly growing need for space expertise in the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, NPS trans-
NPS Professor Emeritus Rudy Panholzer, left, former chair of the Space Systems Academic Group (SSAG), and Research Associate Dan Sakoda display components of the NPS Spacecraft Architecture and Technology Demonstration Satellite (NPSAT1), which launched in 2019. Source: U.S. Navy photo by Javier Chagoya
In 1982, the committee turned into the Space Systems Academic Group (SSAG). When building the SSAG, there was a strong belief that NPS stu- dents needed to get their hands on hardware, build things, make them work, and troubleshoot, if necessary. To accomplish this, SSAG sought to establish very strong space laborato- ries for the students. “The curriculum was developed to provide students with the necessary background to build satellites and op- erate them in support of defense re- quirements,” said Professor Emeritus
Herschel Loomis, who joined the NPS Electrical and Computer Engineering department in 1981 after develop- ing Navy intelligence satellites and coursework for the fledgling SSAG. The main components of the de- fense education requirements that SSAG addresses are communica- tions, navigation, reconnaissance, and weather and climate. “We formed a dual [curricula pro- gram] of Space Systems Engineering and Space Systems Operations. It’s a very complementary relationship hav- ing both students in operations and engineering,” said Loomis, discussing
NPS Space Systems Academic Group The Space Systems and Engineering Chair of the NPS Space Systems Academic Group, Mr. Gary “Grinch” Thomason, is sponsored through partnership with the Navy’s Communication and GPS Navigation Program office, PMW/A- 170, which is led by Captain Kris De Soto, USN, with support from Mr. Vince Squitieri, and Mr. Bill Joo. PMW/A-170 provides GPS protection for Naval purposes and provides Broadband Satellite service to ships and aircraft as well as other communications products that have Naval applications. NPS and PMW/A-170 host an innovative, education- ally focused technical interchange to foster active dialog among industry, government, and academia on topics that influence the development of military and government capabilities via the use of commercial Non-Geostationary Orbit (NGSO) constellations. This group will present a panel at the 22nd Annual Acquisition Research Symposium & Innovation Summit, to be held May 7-8, 2025. Register at event.nps.edu.
62 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION ONLINE | March-April 2025
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