Over the past few years, the Department of Defense has grown more dependent on space systems and is spending more money to address what it calls space situational awareness (SSA). SSA is defined as DoD's effort to track where objects are in space.

The Government Accountability Office examined the key systems DoD is using to provide SSA and whether the projects are meeting cost, schedule, and performance goals. GAO found DoD has struggled with this and "in the past 5 fiscal years, DoD has not delivered significant new SSA capabilities as originally expected."

Federal News Radio spoke with Christina Chaplain, GAO's director of acquisition and sourcing management issues, about the report and what other agencies can learn from DoD.