This 12 months’s SpaceNews Icon Awards celebrated the tremendous growth, recent successes, and all-around upswing of the business, military, and civil space industries. A highlight of the afternoon was a panel discussion hosted by SpaceNews senior staff writers Jeff Foust and Sandra Erwin, with among the award winners. Throughout the panel, guests were asked to debate the industry’s crowning achievements from the past 12 months, among the predominant obstacles or challenges currently posing a risk to continued development in space, and what most excites them concerning the future, amongst other things.
Joining the panel this 12 months were:
- Isar Aerospace CCO Stella Guillen, who accepted the award for Startup of the Yr
- OneWeb Technologies CEO Kevin Steen, who accepted the Deal of the Yr award for Eutelsat’s acquisition of OneWeb
- OSIRIS-REx project manager Richard Burns, who accepted the Civil Space Achievement of the Yr for the NASA mission’s successful asteroid sample return
- Mark Skinner, the Aerospace Corporation’s senior project leader for space traffic management who accepted the Space Stewardship Award on behalf of T.S. Kelso
- Small Satellite Conference Chair Pat Patterson, whose conference won the Unsung Hero Award
- Col. Richard Kniseley, who accepted the Military Organization of the Yr award on behalf of Space System Command’s Industrial Space Office and who delivered the award ceremony’s keynote address
Within the video above, the panel discussion begins at 50:30. A full transcript of the discussion is below.
Jeff Foust:
Pat Patterson: Okay, Wealthy, I got you, buddy. OSIRIS-REx. That’s the good mission I’ve seen for a very long time. But there are others. I realize this wasn’t precisely the past 12 months, but James Webb Space Telescope. Once I take a look at those images and I compare them to the photographs just like the Hubble Deep Field It really gives you a bit of perspective of where you’re on this world, right? It’s incredible science, each of those missions, that we’ll learn things from for many years to return. I believe those can be my biggest.
Mark Skinner: So my background is experimental astrophysics, I actually have a Ph.D. in that. So my answer could also be surprising. I note that not only are we inside the beltway here, we’re within the district. And so I believe that what I see as the most important contribution in space is to truly have Congress fund the Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commerce with a practical budget to get moving on their TraCSS program that was initiated by Presidential Directive 3 back in 2018. But as we all know, as mathematicians say, that’s needed but not sufficient in Washington for something to occur. Others may say that and five dollars gets you a cappuccino at Starbucks. So I believe that we’ve began that off. And I believe that’s a vital step in spacecraft coordination.
Col. Richard Kniseley: So for me, as a former launch guy, I’d definitely say what we did with Firefly Victus Nox would probably be one among the highlights. Now that the launch enterprise is as mature because it is, the success rates are where they’re at right away, and where we’re going with the threat, the space domain, and should be more operational, and relevant; taking those opportunities to diminish, mission assurance, have more on-orbit call-up. That’s going to be an enormous operational capability going forward that’s going to have the ability to be utilized in almost a launch -on-need [basis]. I do know definitely that the Space Systems Command is able to take among the next steps. We’re looking forward to integrating some CASR [Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve] concepts with the subsequent exercise as well. But the best way that they did that call-up in 24 hours to launch was truly amazing.
Stella Guillen: Also from the launch side as well, I believe Starship having that last flight was incredible. I believe that’s going to make an enormous difference and to see all of the micro launchers coming to launch as well — Firefly, ABL, and Relativity, and all of the others, I believe that changes the world of the demands within the launch industry. On the European side, from our view as well, is little signs that institutions like [what] ESA and [the European Commission] are doing to alter the best way they procure satellites and launches. And I believe that’s going good progress for this 12 months and I’m looking forward to more for next.
Kevin Steen: All right, so I believe I’m gonna go together with Col. Knisely. I believe that the U.S. government modified how they procure SATCOM services, specifically business SATCOM services. They moved from a historical CapEx model. They’d buy the hardware, buy what they needed, and figure it out themselves. They usually weren’t leveraging all of the technology advancements within the business arena. Now you’re seeing it as a service adoption model by the U.S. government that COMSO is driving. I believe it’s going to lead to a monumental shift within the capabilities that the U.S. government and the ecosystem receive from business SATCOM. Just by the change of their economics, they’re going to have the ability to harness what business corporations should offer in a way business corporations are used to selling or shifting design. So it’s going to alter the best way every part gets digested, especially by the U.S. government.
Wealthy Burns: Jeff gave us a bit of heads up on the query but he didn’t mention that you just needed to exclude your personal personal accomplishment. I had my answer all able to go, which wouldn’t have been very surprising. Difficult query for me, because I’ve been down in my OSIRIS-REx focus with my blinders on for a really very long time, since launch. But I’ll say, listening to this group here, the transformation that’s happening within the business industry is each fascinating and an enormous opportunity, not only for the military, but in addition for the civil side of space. So I’m really focused on what Col. Knisely needed to say. That transformation, in fact, has already been mentioned on the launch side, and the spacecraft side in reentry as well. It’s a very fertile ground on the market for innovation, and progress is moving at an uncharted territory. So it’s really inspiring to see. And I believe there’s a number of opportunities for NASA and other spacefaring organizations to leverage as Col. Knisely already described for the military. So I’m really looking forward to the subsequent adventures.
Jeff Foust:
Wealthy Burns: Sure. There are really two elements, it’s form of a bifurcation of the mission. The first mission, the samples being processed, recovered in a cleanroom in Johnson Space Center. Our science team has already extracted greater than 70 grams of sample from the gathering head, with more to return. And so that they’ve begun to distribute that to our science team for study. And I believe over the subsequent 12 months, you’re going to see some astounding findings from that study of the sample; it’s gonna be really exciting to, for me, to form of be in observer mode for that portion of the mission and in fan mode. I’m going to be really rooting for our science team to make some fundamental discoveries concerning the nature of the formation of the solar system and life here on Earth. So stay tuned for that. I’m sure it’s going to be groundbreaking.
[O]ver the subsequent 12 months, you’re going to see some astounding findings from that study of the sample; it’s gonna be really exciting to, for me, to form of be in observer mode for that portion of the mission and in fan mode. I’m going to be really rooting for our science team to make some fundamental discoveries concerning the nature of the formation of the solar system and life here on Earth. So stay tuned for that. I’m sure it’s going to be groundbreaking.
, project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Meanwhile, back in space, our spacecraft continues on. I used to be just at Lockheed Martin, where our operation center is, last week, preparing for the spacecraft’s first perihelion. The close approach we made with Earth reduced the orbit energy, such that our perihelion distance is now about at half the space between the Sun and the Earth. So it’s a thermal environment that the spacecraft was not designed to accommodate. So, being a mission of ingenuity and innovation, a team of ingenuity and innovation — that may’t be said enough our team is remarkable and has overcome each challenge that the mission and the asteroid offered us … But our team, being one among ingenuity, has invented a spacecraft orientation, configuration of our solar arrays to shield the sensitive parts of the spacecraft from the Sun. So we expect we’re going to be doing well to survive these close passages to the Sun. Now we have several on our option to a soon-to-be famous asteroid called Apophis.
Apophis goes to make a really close approach to Earth in 2029, and, shortly thereafter, OSIRIS-APEX, which is the name of the prolonged mission, will rendezvous with Apophis. It’ll conduct a really similar global mapping campaign as we did with Bennu. It’ll be more difficult because A: Apophis is somewhat smaller. It’s about 370 meters in diameter in comparison with 500 meters. So we’ll get to interrupt our own Guinness World Record of smallest body ever recorded. After which the close approach with Earth is more likely to have major disruption to the surface and the spin characteristics of Apophis. In order that global-mapping campaign around Apophis goes to be significantly more difficult than Bennu. Bennu is an easy spinner. Difficult because it was, this one goes to be more difficult, so we’re going to be really leaning on our team to innovate. After which, on top of that, we’ve committed to the agency to be more efficient, to execute our proximity operations phase at Apophis with a leaner staff, which implies within the meantime, between now and 2029, we’re going to be investing in latest capabilities on our existing flight system to operate more autonomously, in proximity, via robotics.
Jeff Foust:
Wealthy Burns: So, things are going well. We bumped into a little bit of a hurdle — two of the fasteners that removed the bottom plate to the sample collection had set in insets. They usually’ve been a bit of stubborn about coming loose. And we should be very careful. Our foremost concern is with the integrity of the sample. So we’re going to do nothing to compromise that. The work that’s being done on the sample collection head is inside a cleanroom. People in bunny suits — you saw our principal investigator, Dante Lauretta, very completely happy with the sample collection within the movie. And so bunny suits after which also the sample is inside a glove box, which was a really arduous thing to be working in.
So … the team has to work slowly, fastidiously, and methodically. Those fasteners we’re planning to get loose with latest tools which are fabricated to be consistent with not contaminating the sample. So we’re within the strategy of fabricating those latest tools to ultimately deliver the sample that is still within the sample collection. I’ll say our sample collection requirement was 60 grams, and already the mixture of sample that was on the avionics deck and that was easily extracted from the sample collection already exceeds our requirement. We’re already in excess of 70 grams, with more to return.
Jeff Foust:
Stella Guillen: It’s been an incredible 12 months for us, not only on the fundraising side, but we had the Andøya Space Center open. So our launch site is open, ready for us to ship our rocket. We’re in the course of doing that and expect to have some testing done on the primary and second stage. Our engines have been fully qualified now. So we’re on the brink of integrate every part and launch. As soon as we test the stages, we’re able to go.
Jeff Foust:
Stella Guillen: Yes, the start of the brand new 12 months.
Jeff Foust:
Stella Guillen: Yeah, absolutely. It’s an enormous incentive. And, you recognize, we’re form of late right away. Europe is behind on the launch supply, let’s say. And this is definitely an incredible sign that they’re pushing not just for the normal way of doing business in Europe, but actually opening as much as us, following very much the U.S. government as they are saying, “we’re here.” But I believe it’s an incredible competition. We’re looking forward to it. And yeah, it’s hopefully going to open up the market a bit of bit more and have a selection for a European launcher.
The thing that hasn’t modified because the very first day, which is before I got there. People like Gil Moore, who lots of you recognize, Frank Redd, Rudy Panholzer, Bob Twiggs, the people within the industry who really began the muse of the small satellite work for student research. We still call heavily upon the industry to assist guide us where to go. If it’s automation, prefer it’s going to be this 12 months, whatever, the community helps us get there. That has not modified. The topics we’ve covered, the dimensions, what number of gallons of ice cream you’ve to purchase, all that form of stuff has modified. But who runs the conference, which is absolutely your entire community, has not.
Pat Patterson, Director of Advanced Concepts at Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), on what’s modified — and what has not — within the X many years because the 1987 founding of the annual Small Satellite Conference he has overseen since 2000.
Jeff Foust: Y
Pat Patterson: Great query. So when SmallSat began in 1987, the entire point really was to get educators, students, [and] professors together so that they can learn, get some hands-on experience to enhance the classroom training that they were receiving. Because there was no real option to get hands-on experience before you went to work for Lockheed or before you went to work for an enormous company, right?
Through the years, we’ve got essentially worked with the industry to assist guide us where things went. In order that first day, I don’t know what the numbers were. I attempted to truly look them up a couple of months ago, but it surely was probably 95 percent university-affiliated in 1997. [That number started] happening. Today, we’re 20 percent still university-affiliated, 20 percent military and government, 20 percent international, and the remaining 40 percent are made up from all of us inside the industry. So aside from size, which is an obvious thing while you come to Logan and also you see every part’s falling apart on you because there’s too many individuals on the town. But yeah, I mean, it really has moved together with the industry, and I believe we’ve got a fairly good cross-section of individuals inside the industry helping to guide us. And I believe that’s probably the most important thing, aside from we’ve got to have plenty of food.
Jeff Foust:
Pat Patterson: The thing that hasn’t modified because the very first day, which is before I got there. People like Gil Moore, who lots of you recognize, Frank Redd, Rudy Panholzer, Bob Twiggs, the people within the industry who really began the muse of the small satellite work for student research. We still call heavily upon the industry to assist guide us where to go. If it’s automation, prefer it’s going to be this 12 months, whatever, the community helps us get there. That has not modified. The topics we’ve covered, the dimensions, what number of gallons of ice cream you’ve to purchase, all that form of stuff has modified. But who runs the conference, which is absolutely your entire community, has not.
Sandra Erwin:
Mark Skinner: So, it has taken some time. Nothing could occur faster than the speed of funding. It wasn’t until this 12 months that the numerous budget – and I see several folks within the audience which have been involved heavily on this mission up to now and for those who talk over with them, you’ll discover, hey, while you only get $18 million and you wish $77 [million] or regardless of the numbers are, it’s hard to do what you do. Congress also put plenty of wickets that we needed to clear to get to that. I’d invite everyone to go to the Department of Commerce Office of Space Commerce webpage. And watch the TraCSS video, primarily narrated by Dr. Sandra Magnus, a former astronaut. It’s like 40 minutes long, but you’ll get all of your questions answered. So, TraCSS is a system for space traffic coordination. It’s going to be rolling out in Q4 ’24, that hasn’t modified. And it’s not going to be a one and done, it’s going to be a phased approach where there’s phase 0, phase 0.1. It’s designed to be a cyclic development in order that it’s not only static. I believe people have learned from among the approaches that we had up to now legacy systems that were hard to upgrade. And I believe that was a few of Congress’s fears that that they had seen things, procurements that didn’t work out as planned, and so they desired to attempt to avoid that by putting plenty of conditions before they may get things going.
But TraCSS will probably be rolling out at the tip of fiscal 12 months 2024. And we’ll be constructing step-by-step by step-by-step in a really incremental approach from there. There’s plenty of pent-up demand from industry and from users, and that will probably be met as we go forward. It’s designed to maximise business participation.
It wasn’t until this 12 months that the numerous budget – and I see several folks within the audience which have been involved heavily on this mission up to now and for those who talk over with them, you’ll discover, hey, while you only get $18 million and you wish $77 [million] or regardless of the numbers are, it’s hard to do what you do.
Mark Skinner, the Aerospace Corporation’s senior project leader for space traffic management, addressing the funding challenges facing the Office of Space Commerce’s Traffic Coordination System for Space ().
Sandra Erwin:
Mark Skinner: So what we’ll see is we’ll see something that is just not loads different than the present system that the Space Force operates, with some distinct improvements: evolving owner-operator ephemeris, and maneuver coordination, that sort of thing, which is just not as ubiquitous today as it should be then. After which there’ll be plenty of things that fall into the brand new features, latest features, latest features. Industry will be involved by one, getting involved with the public-facing activities they’ve. Commerce had a geopilot, there’s going to be plenty of studies which are ongoing now, that may involve business participation, each from satellite owner operators, in addition to business data providers and business evaluation providers. There are plenty of RFPs, RFIs, that sort of thing which are on the road, those ought to be checked out and responded to. Feedback ought to be given to the Office of Space Commerce by industry in the event that they’re seeing things that aren’t like “Hey, I can’t see that, that doesn’t make sense, have you ever considered that.” There’s plenty of industry days which have been held; this will probably be an ongoing situation, listening sessions, to try to know how industry sees it, how industry solutions can fit into this.
Sandra Erwin:
Kevin Steen: Good query. So I believe from the contract itself while you take a step back and take into consideration what they got down to do [with] the p-LEO contract. It was the power to contract rapidly for a broad number of SATCOM services. It’s not only to contract for LEO-only SATCOM, right? So that they need a broad number of services from the industry, to run it through a contract vehicle where they’ll issue a task order and have it issued and awarded in lower than 10 days, perhaps seven, but very, very rapid and unprecedented within the history of the U.S. government awards.
[T]he U.S. government modified how they procure SATCOM services, specifically business SATCOM services. They moved from a historical CapEx model. They’d buy the hardware, buy what they needed, and figure it out themselves. They usually weren’t leveraging all of the technology advancements within the business arena. Now you’re seeing it as a service adoption model by the U.S. government that COMSO is driving. I believe it’s going to lead to a monumental shift within the capabilities that the U.S. government and the ecosystem receive from business SATCOM.
Kevin Steen, CEO of OneWeb Technologies
So it’s a really creative and, I believe an revolutionary option to award things. So back to the center of your query is [what does a combined] Eutelsat and OneWeb mean for that? So what they’re searching for is a wide selection of service offerings or capabilities. They usually’d like to get as much as they’ll bundle from one company. After which you’ve your partners as that you must add partners and subs and primes to bring the complete suite together. So from the Eutelsat-OneWeb perspective, we’re in a novel position. We’re the one company now with this mixture to have the ability to supply a LEO-GEO hybrid offer effectively on a single rate card. We don’t should partner with another person, which we do, we’ll — you wish your GEO satellites in the best spot for those offerings to make sense — but we are able to now offer a hybrid fully integrated solution onto the p-LEO vehicle. I believe that’s one element. And what they’re searching for, I believe you rattled off a complete host of capabilities you’re taking a look at, like Alt PNT [alternative precision navigation and timing…and resiliency. So we can create integrated resilient solutions for SDN on the back end that bring a very, very specific tailored set of capabilities to match what the US government wants.
And then with [the] already revolutionary, and I’d say the scope, for those who will and partnership model we’ve got with the U.S. government, we’re trying to bring customized creative solutions to bear as well. So in the newest round of this on-ramp, we’re going to offer our Alt PNT and other solutions directly into that contract vehicle. So I believe that while you consider the mixture of the 2 corporations, we are able to bring our broader set of capabilities, technologies, and offerings to bear and deliver them right onto that p-LEO contract vehicle to support that rapid turnaround cycle.
Sandra Erwin:
Kevin Steen: That may proceed. So from the U.S. government perspective, where our focus is is bringing one of the best solutions to bear. So with OneWeb technologies, there’s no mandate for us to be exclusive to that GEO Eutelsat constellation. That’s not a requirement. You concentrate on where their satellites are; they’re in very specific locations. Implausible satellites. But when the U.S. government has a necessity in a spot where there’s none, we’re fully expected to supply one of the best solution to the U.S. government no matter who the mixture was with Eutelsat and OneWeb. So there’s no expected mandate to be exclusive to that GEO constellation.
Sandra Erwin:
Col. Richard Kniseley: So, yeah, the business integration strategy for the Space Force, which is being led by the CSRO office, will probably be a dual signature with General Saltzman in addition to the Honorable [Frank] Calvelli. We began within the February timeframe. So like anything, they stood up a really robust OIPT (integrated product team office), many alternative members across the Department of the Air Force and a few outsides right away. The present status right away, the team actually just a few weeks ago just got done meeting with the Space Operations Command to know their mission area teams. Performing some really good evaluation on where business can play and in addition performing some discussions; it’s possible you’ll hear the term civil inherently government, which is what I deem one among those no-fail missions where, while we could have a government constellation or a capability, I still see areas where business can still play in a smaller level. But the present status right away, they did just release one other revision of the strategy for coordination, and we’re actually actively taking a look at it right away. So hopefully, hopefully it should be released within the near future but CSRO [deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, requirements] may have the ultimate say in that.
Sandra Erwin:
Col. Richard Kniseley: I do. So the world that began drafting out that strategy was under Honorable Plumb’s office and OSD space policy. Coincidentally, they’ve been a foundational piece of our CASR [Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve] task force. So it’s been great working with them. And we’ve got actually been integrated and feeding into that strategy as well. Obviously, the goal is to have good alignment, each on the OSD side in addition to down on the service side. So, that’s just about the character of the beast and the five-sided puzzle piece. If one does a business strategy, the opposite one will. But I’m excited to see that one come out, and we’ve had eyes on that one as well. And we imagine it was last month, they sent that out for coordination, and we got the chance to inject ourselves at the bottom floor for that.
Sandra Erwin:
Marcia Smith, :
Col. Richard Kniseley: Obviously, like I said in my remarks, if you need to start turning the tide, our current PPV structure is just not built for a way we want to go about doing things right away in space. So we’ve got to say we’re very much funded to systems relatively than overall mission capability, where I actually have the pliability inside the funding to do pivots over to business, and even vice versa if I want to pivot onto a brand new program of record, in order that model and that function changes, I believe that that’s going to lend itself loads higher to integration of economic capabilities, in addition to innovation.
But until we get to that time, right away, with a view to do what we want to, and kind of work with the PEOs, we do must have some excellent dedicated funding to get after plenty of the combination tasks that we want to to get these business capabilities on the market. Certainly one of the things I probably missed in my remarks and one among the the reason why we’re constructing the CASR model the best way we’re, is that we’ve got to get after this in peacetime, because you’ll be able to imagine as a warfighter, for those who’re in a crisis or a conflict and also you get a brand new capability just handed to you, you’re not going to know what to do with it; it’ll just be something which may just find yourself within the background. So if we get it out to the warfighter early, you’ve a greater opportunity to integrate it into a job, a lifestyle that becomes a part of your CONOPS [concept of operations]; it becomes a part of your overall on a regular basis life. But at that very same time, you at the moment are introducing it into exercises, you’re finding do you’ve latest capability gaps? Where can we do innovation? That feeds right back to the market. So my overall thing right away is simply to have that overall dedicated funding to get after plenty of the combination things that we would have liked to.
I can be remiss if I didn’t herald space environment preservation. That could possibly be not even a full-blown Kessler Syndrome, but just an enormous increase in space debris, which has the best of way. In case you’re an operator, you do not forget that otherwise you won’t be operating for much longer.
Mark Skinner, the Aerospace Corporation’s senior project leader for space traffic management
Mark Skinner: I’ll pivot off funding and say I can be remiss if I didn’t herald space environment preservation. That could possibly be not even a full-blown Kessler Syndrome, but just an enormous increase in space debris, which has the best of way. In case you’re an operator, you do not forget that otherwise you won’t be operating for much longer.
But that has the power to rain on our parade by stopping us from using certain orbits or increasing the associated fee of getting in space due to crowded nature of space with each operational and debris objects up there. So I believe that’s something that’s in our control, but it surely’s not in our control that we should be apprehensive about that. So there are plenty of actions which have been taken involving mitigation and remediation, we do must move out on that. And a few of them are going to be cheaper, a few of them are going to be dearer, for instance, lively removal is more likely to be dearer. But I believe if we pivot off of plenty of the work that’s being done, for in-space service, assembly, and manufacturing, that may allow that segment, the active-removal segment to truly get some wings and begin flying because it should be used to, and the technology available. And there’ll be the best amount of transparency and plenty of issues with all of this. But I believe that’s the option to solve that exact query.
Pat Patterson: Yeah, those are really good. I believe, typically, we’re really good at funding and constructing widgets. We don’t spend enough time, in my view, developing architectures, leading to] funding behind those for long-term strategic plans. That is across the board. If we are able to get that setup, with this backbone that they were talking about, after which construct the widgets and the technical things to fill in those pieces. I believe that may be helpful, long run.
Stella Guillen: Again, on the European side of every part that’s established right away, it’s very heavy on processes. And it takes an extended time, you recognize, latest corporations don’t find funding on the regular capital markets as easily as here within the U.S., for instance. I believe institution funding takes an extended time. It’s a process that it’s just very difficult to interrupt. And I believe the worst that we are able to expect to occur is to truly fall back to the old ways of doing things. I believe we’re seeing some changes, but it surely’s not fast enough.
Kevin Steen: From my perspective, it’s the power of the U.S. government to truly rapidly adopt, digest, and procure, and acquire, and contract for those business capabilities as a business enterprise, right? If we are able to’t get that done in a timeline that works for us or our investors, we’ve got no selection, we’ve got to search for other customers. And that may just be a tragedy. Because I believe the shift in how the federal government is procuring is incredible. But there’s still an extended option to go, as you only highlighted. And I believe that’s the most important hurdle we got to beat, is ensuring that we are able to then connect the business offer to the warfighter’s needs rapidly, so that they can digest it. Otherwise, it’ll all just sort of begin to be diverted to other areas. That might really be a tragedy.
Wealthy Burns: Yeah, so I’ll make that analogy to operate a spacecraft where you set a spacecraft in a brand new regime, ask it to do things that it never has done before, you learn things about it. I believe the situation we’ve got, the transformation and launch vehicles cost to get to orbit is being transformed. Presently, we’re going to learn plenty of things about what the results are of that. What the results are, and advantages, of getting 1000’s of spacecraft available to us for communications. And the way can we utilize that? How can we operate in a responsible way? After which globally, we’ve got competition that we want to measure and reply to. And I believe all that mixes into one among the massive challenges: it’s having a coherent national space strategy, and an investment. Those things go hand in hand. It’s difficult in the present political environment, obviously. But when we don’t do this, we’re going to suffer as a nation. I believe the event of a coherent national space strategy is paramount on this industry in a way that it has never been.
Sandra Erwin:
Jeff Foust:
Wealthy Burns: I already gave mine away. We’re passing through near the Sun on OSIRIS-APEX. I’m looking forward to coming out on the opposite side in fine condition and able to execute the rest of the prolonged mission.
[O]n the European side…it’s very heavy on processes. And it takes an extended time, you recognize, latest corporations don’t find funding on the regular capital markets as easily as here within the U.S., for instance. I believe institution funding takes an extended time. It’s a process that it’s just very difficult to interrupt. And I believe the worst that we are able to expect to occur is to truly fall back to the old ways of doing things. I believe we’re seeing some changes, but it surely’s not fast enough.
Stella Guillen, Isar Aerospace chief business officer, on among the challenges specific to European launch startups.
Kevin Steen: Things will be commercialized within the hybrid solutions, right? Really offering your market LEO-GEO hybrid connection. And so while we’re doing demos and truly could deliver that service today, it is likely to be a bit of hard, but it surely’s going to be amazing this 12 months, the advances we are able to already see what we’ll offer in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, and I can see the way it’s going to seamlessly begin to integrate. It’s going to be really cool. Nobody’s ever done this before, really. We’ll be the primary ones to do it, and it’s gonna be fun to be a part of. That’s why I joined the corporate.
Stella Guillen: For us, in fact, [it] is launch. We’re excited to face the brand new 12 months with launch but in addition beginning to construct out our second launch site in Kourou in French Guiana, and to get more support to expand our factory capabilities as well.
Col. Richard Kniseley: So I’d definitely say from a business perspective, one thing that we’re embarking on is a tactical surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking pilot program with AFRICOM. I believe that’s going to be amazing going forward, since it’s been reported earlier, utilizing these business capabilities to get after real-world problems. We’ve already established good results with AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM. And we’re trying to proceed that and construct out that capability and really show what business has to supply.
Mark Skinner: The TraCSS rollout at the tip of the fiscal 12 months 24, together with a brand new way of doing things and latest development and the continuing participation of partnerships with the Space Force, EU SST, JAXA, other national systems in addition to U.S. essential business industry and academia and in developing space traffic coordination space lasers.
Pat Patterson: [The] Space Development Agency’s deployment of tracking and transport layers. There are such a lot of pieces that should get put together to make this all occur. It is a hard systems engineering problem. And I’m very excited to see that. I’m enthusiastic about Kuiper. Andseeing how Kuiper deploys things. I’m also really looking forward to the Sat cellphone stuff that’s coming. We’re hearing SpaceX goes to have text capability in 2024. I do know some others do already and a few tests, but some more operational type stuff. And possibly the very last thing and the one which’s closest to that I’m most focused on hearing about or seeing [is] the extent of automation, because smaller satellite systems are being asked to do very complex missions, sometimes very distant distances from the Earth. And people t wo sort of drive automation of some sort, whether or not it’s light touch, automation all of the option to full autonomy with AI. I’m really focused on watching the industry and the way they incorporate autonomy to make their systems function well and do the roles they need to do. I believe that we’ll be seeing that in the subsequent two or three years. So [that will] be exciting.
Jeff Foust: