Page 16 - CARAHSOFT, June/July 2021

The Path to Future-Ready Government IT
Executive Viewpoint
A conversation with
COL. JENNIFER KROLIKOWSKI
COL. JENNIFER KROLIKOWSKI
Senior Materiel Leader, Space C2, U.S. Space Force
An acquisition leader discusses why Space Force embraces data- centric apps, agile development and industry partnerships
What is Space Force’s mission, and why is creating data-centric applications essential to its success?
At Space Force, we’re responsible for providing capabilities to our warfighters across the board. We are here to help support the warfighter but also to make sure we can protect and defend the assets we have in space so we can continue
to provide capabilities like GPS to the warfighter and the commercial world. We are striving toward more data-
driven decision-making in the space domain, which is a lot more congested and contested than it ever has been. Having knowledge of what’s going on in the space domain, being able to figure out what’s normal and what’s not normal, knowing how to respond, and taking action require a lot of data.
We pull together information from our different sensors — both ground-based and space-based — from our commercial partners and our coalition partners and then do the analysis so that we can make data-driven decisions very, very quickly.
A lot of our applications help automate those processes so we can get through them much faster than we ever could with manual processes.
Why did Space Force partner with VMware on an agile platform for app development?
A traditional waterfall approach to acquisition had been around for a number of years. A lot of money was spent, but
it didn’t necessarily deliver a whole lot. When I took over a couple of years ago, we formed the Kobayashi Maru Program to modernize our apps and moved
We are striving toward more data-driven decision- making in the space domain, which is a lot more congested and contested than it ever has been.
16
SPONSORED CONTENT