The Space Hour

After all the time and money is spent building and launching satellites, you hate to see it when these expensive machines break down while in orbit. New technology though could soon make it easier to repair them without having to decommission, or sometimes even sending a human repairman. To get more info, I spoke to Tom McCarthy, VP of Business Development at Motiv Space Systems.

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In it's latest rendition of it's Hyperspace Challenge, this year the Air Force Research Laboratory is looking for technology that can provide the government and participating military agencies with secure, trustworthy autonomous and automated solutions for space. To find out some of the details of what exactly that means, I talked with Matthew Fetrow who is Technology Outreach Lead at AFRL and heads up the project.

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You saw the big news over the summer with billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos conducting their own space race. Ultimately completing the first civilian space launches. To get a sense on what this means for the future of space tourism as well as other areas, I got a chance to talk to Dan Dumbacher, who is executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He's also a former administrator for NASA on space exploration.

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The expansion of commercial space activities is driving the need for advanced software and digital platforms that require vast amounts of data processing and computing power, and that demand can come at a cost to the environment. All that data needs to be processed which can carry a heavy footprint. To learn how perhaps things could be a little more sustainable, I was able to speak with Steven Carlini, he's vice president of innovation and data centers at Schneider electric.

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To say the space industry is on the up and up is no longer a bold statement, but it helps when you have the data and research to back it up. One of those able to do so is Mehak Sarang, she's a research associate with the Harvard Business school where she's been helping investigate trends and practices of new space companies. I had the chance to pick her brain about what they've been finding.

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We start today with workforce initiatives, specifically, where are space agencies, companies, and military branches going to find enough people to fill these critical jobs? Also, with all three of those groups so intermingled, how do you make sure there's enough to go around? Two organizations are hoping they may have a solution. The Space Force Association along with management services vendor LMI have teamed up to create the Space Center of Excellence. To tell us more about it I spoke with Bill Woolf, President and Founder of the Space Force Association, and Patrick Mahoney, director of the space and air force markets at LMI.

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When you think of space, you don't think of it as the frontline of cyber war, but that's not the case. Many important aspects of U.S. critical infrastructure are controlled from space, and could be vulnerable to cyber attacks from malicious hackers. To help prevent that, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has formed a Space Systems Critical Infrastructure Working Group. I twill be a mix of government and industry members that will develop strategies to minimize risks to space systems. To learn more, I spoke with Jim Platt, the chief of Strategic Defense Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.

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The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency relies heavily on new space technologies to accomplish its mission. It can't do it all on its own though, as usual that's where the commercial side of things comes in. To help connect the two sides is David Gauthier, he's the director of Commercial and Business Operations at NGA. He's also the chair of the new Commercial Space Council, which has been set up to help recently to help assess the best way to utilize unclassified commercial satellite data. I spoke with David to learn more.

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One of the biggest arenas for growth in the commercial space field is within the intelligence community. A main driver of that has been JP Parker, who is Space Executive with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The relatively new position is to help bridge the gap between the IC and its industry partners. We begin by discussing how space policy is now playing a bigger role when its comes to decision making for policymakers.

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The Federal Aviation Administration and NASA recently entered into a memorandum of understanding with the aim of growing American commercial space transportation capabilities, including commercial crew and cargo activities. The agencies hope this will help create a framework that companies can operate in a safe and cost-effective manner, as well as streamline spaceflight standards and requirements.

To get more details, The Space Hour spoke to Wayne Monteith, FAA's Associate Administrator for commercial space transportation, and Mike Gold, who at the time was NASA's Associate Administrator for space policy and partnerships.

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