Space Force aligns for wartime footing with third tranche of PAEs

Published July 10, 2026
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs

ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) -- In the latest milestone of the ongoing Department of War-driven Acquisition Transformation, the Space Force has designated its third tranche of mission areas that will be assigned Portfolio Acquisition Executives including: Advanced Capabilities, Electromagnetic Warfare and Cyber, and Space Combat Power.

“Moving our portfolios into the PAE model completes a vital shift in our culture and operations,” said Thomas Ainsworth, performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration. “By pushing accountability and authority down to the mission level across every single capability we field and all our acquisition avenues, we are cutting through legacy bureaucracy. The Space Force is now positioned to design, acquire, and field integrated systems at the speed of relevance.”

The portfolios are broadly arranged by mission area to minimize cross-organizational seams and dependencies while strengthening integration.

Space Force Portfolio Acquisition Executive	Strategic Mission Focus	Appointed PAE Lead
Space Access	Delivers national security, civil, and commercial capabilities to orbit and provides logistical support, payload processing, and on-orbit services. Operates and sustains the Eastern and Western Ranges.	Col Eric Zarybnisky (Acting)
Space-Based Sensing & Targeting	Delivers persistent space-based battlespace awareness for terrestrial, maritime, and air domains to enable joint all-domain military operations and to close long-range kill chains. This includes delivering environmental monitoring capabilities.	Col Ryan Frazier (Acting)
Missile Warning & Tracking	Delivers a diverse, integrated, and resilient missile warning, tracking, and defense space architecture supporting global, all-domain warfighting operations.	Dr. Gurpartap Sandhoo
Infrastructure	Delivers data management, USSF training and test capabilities, and personnel management infrastructure.	Col Corey Klopstein
BMC3I	Delivers cross-cutting capabilities such as data, networks, C2, intelligence, and space domain awareness to detect, characterize, attribute, anticipate, and target activities in the space domain to inform operational decision making.	Ms. Shannon Pallone
SATCOM and PNT	Delivers resilient commercial and military satellite communications (SATCOM) and integrated Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) capabilities to enable joint all-domain operations.	Ms. Erin Carper (Acting)
Advanced Capabilities	Delivers advanced capabilities for specific classified programs to enable joint all-domain warfighting operations.	Maj Gen Stephen Purdy Jr.
Electromagnetic Warfare and Cyber	Delivers space warfighting capabilities using the electromagnetic spectrum and cyber domains.	Mr. William Blauser (Acting)
Space Combat Power	Delivers space warfighting capabilities.	Col Bryon McClain (Acting)