NASA has a history of firsts. Now it has a new first. A first chief artificial intelligence officer. Joining Federal Drive Host Tom Temin last week was that very chief AI officer, Dave Salvaginni 

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An academic course, endorsed by the Defense Department and delivered by accelerator company BMNT, aims to help science and engineering students develop their ideas into companies. It's called Hacking for Defense. One startup, called Pharos Aerospace, hopes to help both Defense and commercial satellite operators deal with space debris. For more, Federal News Network's Tom Temin spoke with former University of Chicago students Victor Tyne and Brian Klein.

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The company MSI-DFAT, has a unique specialty. It blasts very loud sound at satellites and spacecraft that mimics the incredibly loud and harsh rocket launch noise environments for launch certification. It's an important step in making sure these multibillion dollar pieces of equipment are going to be able to make the journey to the final frontier. I recently had a chance to speak with two of the company's leaders, Alex Carrella CEO of the MSI-DFAT, and Bradley Hope, who is the U.S. Area Sales Manager.

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We begin today talking about the weather. Well not the actual weather itself, but the hardware needed to track it. Recently, NASA selected Lockheed Martin to build he nation's next generation weather satellite constellation, Geostationary Extended Observations, or GeoXO. It's a contract with an estimated value of just over $2.25 billion. To find out what the GeoXO mission is all about, I spoke to Dylan Powell, Lead Strategist for Weather and Earth Science at Lockheed Martin.

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Voyager Space has entered into an agreement with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to help develop an airlock for the Mars Transit Vehicle, also referred to as Deep Space Transport. It's a 12-month study that will look at the applying the concept of Voyager's Bishop Airlock design, currently being utilized on the International Space Station, towards a future mission to Mars. To learn more, I spoke with Marshall Smith, Chief Technology Officer for Voyager Space.

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George Mason University will be the site of the recently approved Landolt NASA Space Mission. The mission will kick off in 2029 by launching a light into the sky that will help scientists determine the brightness of starts so they can more accurately study how fast the universe is growing. Leading the mission is GMU associate professor Peter Plavchan, who joined me earlier to discuss.

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The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, and NASA are collaborating with eight American universities for the second year of the Mission Concept Program. The program provides universities with assistance in helping students gain skills focused on early satellite mission design, through mentorship and guidance from space professionals. I had the chance to speak with two folks who are a part of the program, Seth Sisneros is a systems engineer with AFRL's space vehicle directorate, and Emi Colman is deputy program manager for the lab's University Nanosatellite Program. 

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There are a lot of regulatory boxes you need to check to get your space project underway. This can be hard for companies with smaller budgets and legal resources. To help, the firm Aegis Space Law has created a regulatory calculator tool to help commercial space companies understand which regulations apply to them. To learn more, I got the chance to talk to Bailey Reicheldt who is a partner at Aegis.

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The more nations launch satellites into space, the more crowded the orbit layers become. Especially in the burgeoning low earth orbit. NASA has a Space Environment Sustainability Advisory Board to help guide policy for an area of space that's starting to look like the Beltway at rush hour. The board has defined the problem in terms of five challenges. Federal News Network's Tom Temin got more from the associate administrator for NASA's office of Technology, Policy and Strategy, Charity Weeden.

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/nasa-space-sustainability-strategy-march-20-2024-tagged3.pdf?emrc=d1885c

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The professional organization AFCEA International has launched its 139 national chapter right in Orlando, Florida. It's meant to help facilitate connections for members of the space industry with government agencies. It's even calling it the Space Coast Chapter. To learn more about how this came together and what the chapter has planned, I spoke to Tony Brown, who is Director of the Products/Software Division for TM3 Solutions, Inc. and will be leading the new group.

https://spacecoast.afceachapters.org/

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