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GRAND FORKS, ND – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) member, and Director of the Space Development Agency (SDA), Dr. Derek Tournear, visited North Dakota this week to meet with stakeholders and view the state’s space assets.

“Dr. Tournear’s visit was another opportunity for North Dakota to demonstrate the role it can play in bolstering America’s presence in space,” said Senator Cramer. “Following visits from Space Command’s General Dickinson and Space Force’s General Raymond earlier this year, Dr. Tournear’s trip once again shows the strong interest our military leadership has in North Dakota’s space capabilities. I thank him for his time and hope to see his trip yield positive results for North Dakota.”

“I was honored by the opportunity to speak today at the University of North Dakota. It was a pleasure to participate in a dialogue about how academics, industry, and the Department of Defense can partner in creative ways to push forward critical technologies and deliver them into the hands of the joint warfighter at or ahead of the speed of the threat,” said Dr. Tournear. “Our agency’s motto issemper citius, when translated from Latin, it means ‘always faster’. Engagements like today’s roundtable remind me that there are so many bright minds all over this great country who are looking for ways to innovate. Together, we’ll harness their innovation through the National Defense Space Architecture to deliver capabilities to the warfighter faster than ever.”

Dr. Tournear is the first-ever Director of the SDA, an office within the Department of Defense (DoD) responsible for the development and fielding of DoD’s National Defense Space Architecture. SDA helps accelerate America’s military space capabilities to maintain our technological and military advantage in space for national defense.

Senator Cramer and Dr. Tournear began their visit with a trip to Grand Sky, where they met with leaders from Northrop Grumman and General Atomics and toured their facilities.


They then visited the Grand Forks Air Force Base and received a classified briefing.


The trip concluded at the University of North Dakota (UND), where they toured UND’s School of Aerospace Sciences and held a roundtable with faculty and university leadership.