The Space Hour

Space is growing more crowded with the risk of collisions growing exponentially. Data shows a 17% year-over-year rise in conjunctions or close approaches between satellites in the past year alone. The NOAA Office of Space Commerce is tackling this challenge with advanced space traffic coordination through TraCSS, or the Traffic Coordination System for Space, taking over the role from the DOD. To find out what that will look like in practice, I talked to Tim Solms, CEO of Slingshot Aerospace.

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Space is growing more crowded with the risk of collisions growing exponentially. Data shows a 17% year-over-year rise in conjunctions or close approaches between satellites in the past year alone. The NOAA Office of Space Commerce is tackling this challenge with advanced space traffic coordination through TraCSS, or the Traffic Coordination System for Space, taking over the role from the DOD. To find out what that will look like in practice, I talked to Tim Solms, CEO of Slingshot Aerospace.

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In the Spring of last year, the AFCEA Space Coast chapter was formed to help give industry partners and government representatives an avenue to get to know one another. So how's it going? We got an update from who is the chapter's president to discuss some of the recent developments, as well as learn more about a major event coming up this week.

https://www.spacecomexpo.com/

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A new partnership between the U.S. Space Force and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, looks to enhance Space Force service members' health and performance. For it's part, the ACLM will lifestyle medicine education, training and certification to the Space Force's Guardian Resilience Team. Front and center in this project will be Dr. Regan Stiegmann, who is Senior Advisor for Military and Veterans Affairs at the ACLM. She's also a former Airman herself who's training is in preventative and lifestyle medicine. I spoke with her to find out just how they intend to make the Space Force healthier.

https://lifestylemedicine.org/aclm-people/maj-regan-stiegmann-do-mph-dipablm-faclm/

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Facilitators play an important role in all aspects of government research and business. That is definitely the case in the commercial space sector. One of those facilitators is FedTech, a company that convenes entrepreneurs, technologists, and innovators from the private sector to leverage government technologies and resources to solve pressing challenges. To hear more about this mission, I had the chance to speak with Ben Solomon, Founder and CEO of FedTech. He was also joined by John Boyer, a senior associate at FedTech.

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A new research facility is being built right in the Johnson Space Center's backyard. Ground was recently broken for the new Texas A&M University Space Institute. It's a $200 million facility that will have some unique features, including landscapes that mimic the surfaces of the moon and Mars, each of which will be the size of the university's football stadium. To find out more about this project, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking to the person who will be running the institute, Texas A&M professor and NASA astronaut Dr. Nancy Currie-Gregg.

https://space.tamu.edu/institute/

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Recently, Major Kate Rubins became the first Army Reserve officer to receive the Basic Aviation Badge with Astronaut Device and Space Badge. Just tack it on as another accomplishment for her. As a microbiologist and NASA astronaut who also serves in the Army Reserve, I thought I would use this show as a good excuse to get the chance to meet her and hear her story, and that's just what I did. My first question, what do you consider your official job?

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With space equipment staying up there longer and longer, where's a good place to stop for gas? Well one company is looking to solve that problem. Orion Space Solutions an Arcfield company,has been awarded a recent contract from the U.S. Space Force to support the Tetra 6 mission. The mission looks to take the next step in on-orbit refueling. Orion's Tetra-6 SmallSat prototype spacecraft is already under development and is expected to launch in 2027. I got more info on the project from the company's President and GM Chad Fish.

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The company MetTel has completed agreements making it an Authorized Starlink Reseller for both government and commercial enterprises. Starlink as most of you know is a service provided by SpaceX that mostly provides internet in hard to reach places, such as space. MetTel is now able to provide SD-WAN broadband services via Starlink technology. To find out what some of the potential use cases are for this capability, I talked with Don Parente, VP for Public Sector at MetTel, along with Ed Fox, who is the company's Chief Technology Officer and who you'll hear from first.

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With so much equipment in geostationary orbit conducting monitoring and measuring operations, that means a lot of data for those who have to analyze the findings. Naturally this can take a lot of time and manpower, so what could help with that? You guessed it, this is another area where AI could potentially make things easier. One of the companies looking to help the Space Force out in particular with this is EdgeRunner AI. They recently announced their offline AI Battle Buddy to support the US Space Force Space Systems Command, by answering important questions that Guardians need to make decisions. To learn more about this new tool, I got the chance to speak with the company's CEO Tyler Saltsman.

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