The United States lacks enough engineers, technicians and assemblers to rebuild military space assets destroyed early in a prolonged war with China or Russia, a RAND study says. The report sets a 12-to-24-month benchmark for restoring lost space capabilities, but finds that current workforce shortages could make that timeline unattainable. Defense News reported the findings from the study, titled Breaking Glass, Missing Hands.
RAND examined whether the space defense industrial base could replace satellites and supporting systems between 2027 and 2032. That pace would be substantially faster than the roughly decade-long period the report says is typical for replacing an aging satellite. The study defines this wartime restoration as reconstitution, or the recovery of capability lost during a conflict.
The report divides the labor problem into engineers, skilled touch labor and highly specialized technical experts. Nearly 3 million Americans work as engineers in positions requiring at least a bachelor’s degree, but RAND counted only about 3% of them in industries supporting space through satellite communications, semiconductor manufacturing and optical-glass production. Aerospace manufacturing was excluded from that calculation.
Those three industries account for an estimated 7,000 of 208,000 annual engineering openings, according to RAND. The study says space companies face competition from artificial-intelligence, software and data-analytics employers that often offer higher pay and more flexible working conditions.
The shortages are sharper among workers who physically build spacecraft. RAND estimates about 30,000 annual technician openings against roughly 11,000 people earning the required qualifications each year. For assemblers, including cleanroom technicians, the report identifies about 244,000 annual openings and only 13,000 credentialed workers, producing a gap of roughly 19 workers needed for every qualified entrant.
Specialists in infrared and electro-optical detection, along with engineers who design systems to withstand natural and man-made radiation, present a longer-term constraint. RAND says developing that expertise can take 15 years or more and that few schools offer advanced degrees in laser and optical engineering. Seventy percent of recent doctorates in the relevant fields went to foreign nationals, the report says, reducing the pool available for classified work.
Security-clearance processing adds time to hiring. Initial Secret investigations averaged more than 87 days in fiscal 2024, while Top Secret cases took nearly six months, according to a Trusted Workforce 2.0 progress report cited by RAND. People interviewed for the study also said fully credentialed workers can take up to a year to become productive, while cleanrooms and secure facilities limit how quickly companies can absorb new hires.
The report describes the central industrial-base challenge as “surging from zero.” Companies that do not maintain steady production between contracts risk losing specialized skills and experienced personnel, along with the institutional knowledge needed to expand quickly. RAND found no consensus that emergency mobilization could solve the problem: Defense Production Act authorities might draw workers from other industries, but interviewees questioned whether those workers would have the required clearances, certifications and domain expertise.
RAND recommends about $5 million annually for scholarships, internships and academic outreach, along with an $800,000 study on retraining workers from other fields for surge production. It also proposes expanding the National Imperative for Industrial Skills program, assessing the Navy’s Talent Pipeline Program as a trades model, and allowing some Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and SMART scholarship recipients to meet service obligations at qualifying space companies.
The study assigns responsibility for the workforce issue to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, framing it as a supply-chain and production risk rather than solely a Space Force staffing problem. RAND also recommends writing surge-planning requirements into future contracts so companies can prepare to expand before a crisis. The study did not independently assess whether robotics, process automation or artificial intelligence could reduce labor requirements, although it identified that question as a gap in reconstitution planning.