NewSpace Nexus Day 1
Below are notes from Day 1 of NewSpace Nexus, featuring insights from Col Jeremy Raley, AFRL; Dr. Diane Howard, National Space Council; Col Rich Kniseley, SSC-COMSO (V); and Col Joe Roth, SSC/SZI. Below you will find key takeaways from the discussions.
Key Takeaways:
- Col Jeremy Raley:
Col Raley described the AFRL’s role in shaping future technologies, not just producing satellites but addressing broader technological challenges. He emphasized the importance of communication in R&D and the crucial role of partnerships in fostering an innovative ecosystem. - Dr. Diane Howard:Dr. Howard stressed modernizing policies such as export controls and integrating commercial capabilities into defense. She advocated for a strong commercial space sector to enhance international competitiveness and emphasized the role of government in fostering collaboration and supporting small businesses in the space industry.Dr. Howard stressed modernizing policies such as export controls and integrating commercial capabilities into defense. She advocated for a strong commercial space sector to enhance international competitiveness and emphasized the role of government in fostering collaboration and supporting small businesses in the space industry.
- Col Kniseley:Col Kniseley focused on the critical integration of commercial technologies into defense for enhanced operational capabilities, the necessity of robust cybersecurity measures against significant threats, and the importance of industry partnerships to drive innovation and address space threats effectively.Col Joe Roth:Col Roth highlighted the strategic importance of space in national security, advocating for the ‘exploit, buy, build’ strategy to leverage commercial technologies. He discussed the integration of operations, acquisition, and support to enhance agility in space operations and the importance of setting strategic goals for maintaining a competitive edge in space security.
29 May 2024
Speakers:
-Col Jeremy Raley, AFRL
-Dr. Diane Howard, National Space Council
-Col Joe Roth, SSC/SZI
Quotes:
Col Raley
On the Importance of Partnership and Collaboration
-“The number one thing is partnership. And so this room is, I don’t know, I’m not going to spend time on this because if you’re in this room, you already understand the value of partnership. You already understand the value of showing up face to face. You already understand the value of figuring out where it’s good to cooperate and where it’s good to compete with others in the room.”
On Challenges in R&D and Industry Interaction
-“One of the things that I see and I see it from the government side as well is we would rather kind of pretend the problem doesn’t exist until it comes to a head sometimes. And so what I want to encourage is a little bit more communication around “Hey these are the areas where we’re going to have unknowns not only at contract inception but like assets are executing.”
– “Sometimes I’ve seen some no news good news. So on the government side we’ll be like Oh yeah. Industry must have it under control because they haven’t called and asked for more money yet. And industry will say yeah the government must be cool with the requirements that we set you know 18 months ago because they haven’t called and said that something’s going to change yet.”
On Strategic Vision for Future Force Design
“It’s easy to see the payoff when it’s a “hey we matured this technology and therefore it was mature”. And so when we went to incorporate it in a future system, a future constellation of satellites or whatever it was, it was cheap for us to do that because we didn’t get stuck in tech development land while we were doing an acquisition.”
On Adaptability and Flexibility in Technology Development
-“And so that that kind of brings out what you know what I see as that second role and the thing that I really want to double down on right now which is informing our Future Force designs that’s where that return on investment from answering questions actually comes back.”
On Strategic Vision for Future Force Design
-“What we have to do as the lab is sometimes to have the moral courage to go. I don’t think this is going to work out. There’s a recent example where where do that? And you know the answer came up: the answer that we ended up settling on with the space war fighting Analysis Center was physically possible but not advisable to do something that we wanted to do.”
On the Role of AFRL in Advancing Space Technology
-“I realized the product that we put out isn’t a satellite that’s flying in space. That’s a byproduct of what we’re doing.
-“The next thing I wanted to talk about is the role of AFRL space vehicles Phillips research site AFRL as an enterprise.”
Dr Dianne Howard
On the Importance of Commercial Space Sector:
“There is increasing recognition that a space program that focuses only on government needs without regard to a healthy commercial sector is not nor will it be competitive in the international market for a healthy commercial sector.”
“A diversified and competitive private sector supports these outcomes recognizing these benefits order to right size or space industrial base both DOD and a Space Force have recently provided us with strategies to improve the integration of commercial capabilities into their missions.”
“We opine long and often about the benefits that industry brings to the government things like lower costs, agility and accelerated schedules, improved performance, expanded capacity, and innovation.”
On Challenges in Space Industrial Base:
“Congress too recognizes the role of small business and our nation’s well being and has established a government wide policy of promoting them. The United States government benefits from diverse participation and procurement through increased competition which in turn can result in better pricing and better quality.”
“We just heard a little bit about that leaving many to wring their hands once confronted with the prospect of how to commercialize their product or their service as they enter the valley between phase two and phase three commercializing is the key here.”
“One of the recommendations that flowed from last year’s State of the space state of the space industrial base report was to improve access to financial tools.”
On Government’s Role in Space Industry:
“Our superpower is convening and coordinating. And we do that with the interagency primarily other advisors to the President and also we convene with other stakeholders from time to time often.”
On Export Control and Policy Modernization:
“At our Third National Space Council meeting in December of 2023 vice president Harris tasked us with export control modernization. And I can tell you that the Departments of Commerce and state are hard at work.”
On Integration of Novel Space Activities:
“Instead we see near return goodness and drawing upon existing expertise in the Departments of Commerce and transportation with a consultative process to bring federal government expertise from other departments and agencies as our missions continue to evolve and scale provides clear roles and responsibilities.”
“We do not support a monolithic one stop that would take an enormous amount of planning and resources and bipartisan functionality and perhaps it’s something to start strategizing for and to think about the very long term kind of like your last point Colonel Raleigh about you know there’s some things that you just you kind of like you discuss you work on any table.”
Col Kniseley
On Integration of Commercial Capabilities in Defense:
“We are equally focused on integrating commercial technologies in our technology roadmaps and operations while delivering at speed those very same game-changing commercial capabilities and innovative capabilities to our warfighter.”
On Cybersecurity and Threat Mitigation:
“According to the Space ISAC, the full extent of China’s cyber capabilities is more significant than previously acknowledged. China possesses a more extensive hacking program than every other nation combined.”
“These cyber attacks, if successful, would affect the entire space industry given the attack vector but also impair and potentially degrade US and US allied foreign relationships.”
“The reality is, the cyber threat landscape is evolving rapidly, and we need to not only understand these threats but be several steps ahead to protect our interests in space and related domains.”
On Collaboration and Partnership with Industry:
“We’re galvanized by a singular focus and that is to outthink, outpace, and ultimately outmaneuver the multifaceted threats we face in an increasingly congested, contested, and competitive space domain.”
“We’ve made a lot of changes, we’ve realized a lot of progress in the young year that we’ve been in existence and we’re just only getting started.”
“In order to stay ahead of these threats, we must continue to expand collaboration between the DoD and industry.”
On Integration of Commercial Capabilities in Defense:
“We are equally focused on integrating commercial technologies in our technology roadmaps and operations while delivering at speed those very same game-changing commercial capabilities and innovative capabilities to our warfighter.”
“Each day at SSC, we’re galvanized by a singular focus and that is to outthink, outpace, and ultimately outmaneuver the multifaceted threats we face in an increasingly congested, contested, and competitive space domain.”
Emphasis on Innovation and Future Force Design:
“What we’re trying to do is really drive that innovation, not just for innovation’s sake but to make sure that we’re thinking ahead about the challenges we might face and designing the force of tomorrow.”
“The Space Forces commercial space strategy is an acquisition and operational commitment to optimize the integration of commercial capabilities focused on improving the resiliency of our nation’s space enterprise.”
On the Role of Leadership in Shaping Space Capabilities:
“Leadership in this space means more than just managing resources; it involves being visionary and proactive about where the space industry needs to go and how we need to get there.”
“So using the threat discussion as a backdrop, I’d like to talk about the recently released Space Force commercial strategy.”
On Strategic Decision-Making and Risk Management:
“We must continue as defined by international norms and the DoD tenants of responsible behavior in space.”
“We will strengthen resilience by increasing the number of commercial providers, diversifying supply chains, and expanding the variety of solutions used.”
On the Importance of Speed and Flexibility in Acquisition:
“The Space Force will depend on industry support and active engagement.”
“We will strengthen interoperability between government and commercial solutions without stifling innovation, speed, or scale.”
Col Roth
On Great Power Competition and Space Security:
“We are in a significant bind, and you know our whole goal is to deter conflict in space.”
“We are in a race to protect and defend our assets on orbit which also protects our joint warfighter anywhere our joint warfighter goes.”
“We’ve been focusing on kill chains to do all of our budgeting and planning. So, we are finding the gaps that we have in our kill chains and reverse kill chains and aligning resources and budget to go after those.”
On Innovation and Commercial Partnerships:
“If industry is already building it, why does the military have to build it? We could just buy that commercial service or we could exploit tons of data out there.”
“Exploit what you have, buy what you can, and only build the military things that you must.”
“We’re also trying to leverage through all of our there’s a lot of innovation going in the Space Force and across the Department of Defense.”
On Reorganization and Agility in Space Operations:
“We are organizing to go into integrated mission deltas. So an integrated mission Delta the ops the acquisition of the support contracting finance all in one organization in a specific capability area.”
“This is at the squadron level so a smaller unit but ops and acquisition and s and t all combined together and it’s providing us very good benefits of having that integration.”
“We are moving my number one program in the Delta. And we’ve got 59 different programs. But the most important one is our cloud based ground system.”
On Strategic Importance of Space and Deterrence:
“It’s plain and simple that way and it’s getting in that era of great power competition the Secretary of the Air Force published and here in February how the Air Force and the Space Force are getting after great power competition.”
“It really lays it out plain and simple. We are in a race where the earlier discussion about lunch was a race to the moon.”
On Leveraging Commercial Technologies:
“It also leverages the general good line that started this and you’ll see this a lot with our comp. So office under Colonel nicely but the exploit buy build strategy if industry is already building it.”
“We could just buy that commercial service or we could exploit there’s tons of data out there and we have a few programs within my delta that are exploiting really good data and we’re finding cool and interesting things that we didn’t know for pennies on the dollar and it’s very valuable.”
On Operational Efficiency and Innovation:
“We actually have a program we’re working on that we transition from the Air Force Research Lab that’s showing a lot of promise on our ops floor.”
“We are organizing to go into integrated mission deltas. So an integrated mission Delta ops the acquisition of the support contracting finance all in one organization in a specific capability area.”
“We have launched more experiments to the International Space Station than NASA has, which is pretty powerful.”
“This is at the squadron level so a smaller unit but ops and acquisition and s and t all combined together and it’s providing us very good benefits of having that integration.”
On Future Outlook and Technological Advancement:
“So through the Space Test Program all our mission partners Navy research lab Air Force Army we have launched more experiments on the ISS.”
“We are at a relatively stable almost flat budget but we are launching more things because the cost of launch is going down and so we are innovating and taking advantage of that and our goal is to get as many experiments on orbit as possible.”
[End]