Donor Profile

Northrop Grumman Gift Type: Cash Gift Amount: $50,000 Gift Designation: Center for Space and Defense Studies

In September 2006, Northrop Grumman made a $50K commitment to support the one of the Air Force Academy's most recent intellectual undertakings, the Center for Space and Defense Studies. The gift, expected to continue at the same level for three years, underwrites the Center's newest program, the Space Policy Summer Exchange. 

This "proof of concept" program consists of  yearly, two-week summer seminars, organized in cooperation with the Space Policy Institute of George Washington University. During the exchange, cadets, students and faculty will have opportunity to begin the process of building professional community around the profession of space early in their respective careers while developing a deep understanding of core issues in space policy. In successive years additional institutions would be added to the program, thereby expanding on the Center's reach and influence on behalf of the advancement of space policy. Funds will be used to underwrite participant travel, visiting lecturers, and curriculum and program development. 

The mission of the Space and Defense Policy Center is to provide the intellectual foundation for the integration of space policy in the overall national security policy of the United States. This program, underwritten by Northrop Grumman, represents a critical step in advancing the mission of the Center as it provides an early investment in the development of curriculum for space policy studies and helps produce successive generations of Air Force officers with a vocation for space.

About the Center:

The Center for Space and Defense Studies is the result of the confluence of three developments: a national recognition of the need to define space as a strategic environment, the Academy's recognition of the need to adapt its culture to prepare cadets as future leaders of a space-faring nation, and the Academy's capabilities-based strategic planning system. The Center's mission is to provide the intellectual foundation for the integration of space policy in the overall national security policy of the United States.

About Northrop Grumman:

Northrop Grumman company has been a leader in the space industry since the first developments of space technology over 50 years ago, providing NASA with the first satellite ever built by private industry, Pioneer 1. Since that time Northrop Grumman continued its leadership in space, producing more than 195 communications, defense and scientific spacecraft and more than 130 communications payloads and subsystems.