betting on a dream · relativity space, a company using 3d-printing technologies to manu-facture...
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APRIL 9, 2018BUSINESS | POLITICS | PERSPECTIVE
I N S I D E
n A Wideband Global surprisen NASA’s tangled Webbn Eutelsat bails on ViaSat-3
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BETTING ON A DREAMFor SNC’s husband-and-wife team, Dream Chaser is much more than a spaceplane
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ABOVE: Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo reached a peak altitude of more than 25,000 meters and a top speed of Mach 1.87 on its April 5 flight before safely landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The flight was the first powered flight test of SpaceShipTwo since a fatal crash of the first vehicle, VSS Enterprise, in October 2014.
C O N T E N T S 0 4 . 0 9 . 1 8
DEPARTMENTS
FEATURES
11Fixing a FerrariNASA is struggling to
get the James Webb
Space Telescope across
the finish line.
16A WTF moment for WGSAn out-of-nowhere budget
decision to buy two more
WGS satellites resets the
debate on the future of
milspace communications.
18Betting on a dreamIn their first joint interview,
SNC’s husband-and-wife
explain why Dream Chaser
is a vehicle to transform the
industry.
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3 QUICK TAKES
6 NEWS Blue Origin makes a
New Glenn engine swap
Analysts balk at Eutelsat-
Viasat split on European
broadband
Space insurances prices
could rise if new rocket
and small satellites lead
to costly accidents
24 ON NATIONAL SECURITY With a bigger budget,
DoD will be pressed to
show returns
26 COMMENTARY Elżbieta Bieńkowska In space, no one is
powerful enough to
boldly go alone
29 COMMENTARY Louis Friedman Back to ‘back to the
moon’
32 FOUST FORWARD For commercial space, a
question of forgiveness
versus permission
Come See Us! April 16-19Stop by the SpaceNews booth during the 34th Space Symposium to get your free trial subscription to the magazine.Booth 730 in the Ball Aerospace Exhibit Center
2 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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SECOND SPACESHIPTWO PERFORMS FIRST POWERED TEST FLIGHTVirgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle successfully performed its first
powered flight April 5, the first such test flight since a fatal crash nearly three and a half years ago.
The vehicle, named VSS Unity, was released from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft at about 12 p.m.
Eastern and fired its hybrid rocket motor for 30 seconds. The vehicle reached a peak altitude of more
than 25,000 meters and a top speed of Mach 1.87 on the flight before safely landing at the Mojave Air
and Space Port in California. The flight was the first powered flight test of SpaceShipTwo since a fatal
crash of the first vehicle, VSS Enterprise, in October 2014. The company is planning an unspecified
number of powered test flights this year in preparation for commercial operations. “Space feels
tantalizingly close now,” Virgin founder Richard Branson tweeted shortly after the flight.
ARIANE 5 RETURNS TO FLIGHT CARRYING SATELLITE FOR AVANTI, SKY PERFECT JSATThe Ariane 5 returned to flight April 5, launching two
communications satellites. The rocket lifted off from Kourou,
French Guiana, at 5:34 p.m. Eastern and placed its payloads into
geostationary transfer orbits about a half-hour later. The rocket carried
the DSN-1/Superbird-8 for Sky Perfect JSAT and Hylas-4 for Avanti.
Both satellites suffered extensive delays: DSN-1/Superbird-8 was
damaged during transport to the launch site for its originally planned
2016 launch, while Hylas-4 suffered manufacturing problems and
financial difficulties. The launch was the first for the Ariane 5 since a
January mission that placed two satellites into orbits with the wrong
inclinations because the vehicle launched on the wrong azimuth.
SIGNIFICANT DIGITS
$35MRelativity Space, a company using 3D-printing technologies to manu-facture launch vehicles, has raised $35 million. Playground Global, a fund co-founded by former Google executive Andy Rubin, led the Se-ries B round, with Relativity’s past investors also participating. The funding will support continued de-velopment of Relativity’s Aeon 1 en-gine and Terran 1 launch vehicle, which make use of 3D printing to lower costs.
$25.5MWorld View raised a $26.5 million funding round led by Acel, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm making its first space-related investment. The Series C round will support ac-celerated development of the com-pany’s “stratollite” high-altitude balloon platforms, which the com-pany says can provide services tra-ditionally performed by satellites.
2The number of commercial telecom satellite orders announced by SSL in last weeks of March. The Maxar Technologies-owned satellite man-ufacturer will build the Amos-8 sat-ellite for Israeli operator Spacecom and the BSAT-4b satellite for Japa-nese operator B-SAT. SSL beat out Israel Aerospace Industries for the Amos-8 order, which IAI blamed on a lack of support from the Israeli government. B-SAT ordered its new satellite to provide ultra high-defi-nition television programming in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
VIRG
IN G
ALAC
TIC/
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QUICK TAKES
AGI/
SPAC
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4 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
TIANGONG-1 BREAKS UP OVER SOUTH PACIFICChina’s Tiangong-1 module reentered over the South Pacific at 8:16 p.m. Eastern
April 1, according to a statement by the U.S. Air Force’s Joint Force Space Component
Command, approximately the same time as reported by the China Manned Space
Engineering Office. There were no reports of anyone observing the reentry, which took
place not far from a remote region of the South Pacific used for deliberate spacecraft
reentries. The uncontrolled reentry of Tiangong-1 was met with some concern as
pieces of the 8.5-ton spacecraft were expected to survive reentry and reach the surface.
“If you read the Outer Space Treaty, it says basically don’t bring anything back that kills humanity.”–LEN FISK, PRESIDENT OF COSPAR, DISCUSSING PLANETARY PROTECTION
PROTOCOLS DURING A SESSION OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES’ SPACE
SCIENCE WEEK EVENT MARCH 27 IN WASHINGTON.
LUNAR X PRIZE COMPETITION TO RESTART, WITHOUT PRIZEDays after the decade-old Google Lunar X Prize
competition expired without a winner, the X Prize
Foundation announced it would “relaunch” the
competition, albeit without a prize purse for now.
In an April 5 statement, the X Prize Foundation
said it would reestablish a “lunar-focused
competition” on a non-cash basis. The details
of the prize competition, including what would
be needed to win, will be developed by the
organization over the next few months. The
original Google Lunar X Prize competition,
which offered a $20 million first prize and several
secondary prizes, formally expired March 31
after no team launched a lunar lander mission.
The foundation announced in January that, after
several extensions of the prize deadline, Google
decided not to continue its prize sponsorship.
The foundation hopes that continuing the
competition will spur on the teams that are still
developing landers, including making launch
arrangements and developing hardware. “These
space entrepreneurs are developing long-term
business models around lunar transportation, and
we cannot give up on them now,” said Chanda
Gonzales-Mowrer, senior director of prizes at
the X Prize Foundation. “I am confident that one
of these companies will land on the moon in the
near future and am excited for the next chapter
of this new space race.”
SpaceIL was one of the finalists for the Google Lunar X Prize when the competition expired at the end of March. The X Prize Foundation said April 5 it will restart a lunar-focused competition, initially without a prize purse.
FROM 210 DOWN TO 91The NOAA office that licenses commercial remote-sensing systems has
significantly reduced review times for license applications. At a meeting last
week of an advisory committee, officials with the Commercial Remote Sensing
Regulatory Affairs office said the average review time for license applications
has dropped from 210 days in 2015 to 91 last year. That decrease was due
in part to an improved interagency review process. The office is set to be
combined with the Office of Space Commerce and be moved from NOAA to
the office of the Secretary of Commerce as part of broader reforms announced
at the National Space Council meeting in February.
www.cobham.com/space
COBHAM ADVANCED ELECTRONIC SOLUTIONS
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6 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
BLU
E O
RIG
IN
Blue Origin quietly changed the design of its New Glenn rocket around the start
of the year in order to hold to a 2020 first
launch and increase the range of orbital
missions the rocket can complete.
Although the company’s website still shows
New Glenn with a second stage powered by a
reignitable version of the BE-4 it is developing
to power the main stage of both New Glenn and
United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, that con-
figuration is now out of date.
A Blue Origin executive told SpaceNews the com-
pany is shelving development of a vacuum-optimized
version of BE-4 and will instead use vacuum-op-
timized versions of flight-proven BE-3 engines for
New Glenn’s second stage and optional third stage.
“We’ve already flown BE-3s, and we were already
in the development program for BE-3U as the third
stage for New Glenn,” said Clay Mowry, Blue Origin’s
vice president of sales, marketing and customer ex-
perience. “It made a lot of sense for us to switch to an
architecture where we get there faster for first flight.”
The BE-3U is the upper stage variant of the liquid
hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine that has powered
Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard spacecraft on
seven suborbital test flights since its 2015 debut.
Mowry said switching to the BE-3U for New Glenn’s
second stage will allow Blue Origin to conduct the
rocket’s first launch in the fourth quarter of 2020. He
declined to say how much time the engine change
saves compared to the original configuration.
Blue Origin is developing two versions of New
Glenn: a two-stage version designed to launch a wide
range of satellites and a three-stage version for more
demanding launches such as deep space missions.
Before making the change, Blue Origin intended
to power the second stage of both versions with
a single BE-4U engine. Now the company plans
to forgo BE-4U development and rely instead on
a pair of BE-3U engines to power the New Glenn
second stage.
Mowry said New Glenn will need a longer second
stage to accommodate the dual engine configuration.
Blue Origin declined to give the expected lift
capability of the revised New Glenn configurations.
Mowry said the liquid hydrogen-fueled BE-3 has a
higher specific impulse, making it more efficient
than the BE-4, which runs on methane and liquid
oxygen. The BE-3 can produce 110,000 pounds of
thrust at sea level, compared to the BE-4’s 550,000
pounds of thrust.
Blue Origin is already gaining early success in the
commercial satellite launch sector, having secured
eight missions with satellite operators around the
world. But another motivation for tweaking New
Glenn’s design is to reach tricky orbits for national
security customers.
Blue Origin is lining up New Glenn to compete
with United Launch Alliance and SpaceX in launching
U.S. military satellites by giving the rocket enough
muscle to reach every orbit specified in the Launch
Service Agreement (LSA) solicitation the U.S. Air
Force issued last fall. The solicitation — which has
also drawn interest from Orbital ATK and Aerojet
Rocketdyne — specifies nine wide-ranging “refer-
ence orbits” the proposed launchers must be able
to reach in order to qualify for Air Force funding.
The Air Force plans to help fund development
of at least three launch system prototypes. Awards
are expected in July.
“If you look at LSA and all those mission profiles,
we can serve all of those with a single version of New
Glenn with this two-stage architecture,” Mowry said.
Blue Origin’s pursuit of defense business posi-
tions the company as a future competitor to ULA,
who Blue Origin would also like to supply with
BE-4 engines to for its next-generation Vulcan
launch vehicle. ULA is still deciding between Blue
Origin’s BE-4 and Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 for
Vulcan’s first stage. SN
Blue Origin makes a New Glenn engine swap
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8 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
THAL
ES A
LEN
IA S
PACE
Eutelsat’s decision to scrap an invest-
ment in Viasat’s ViaSat-3 system
in favor of a fully-owned satellite
means the two companies will now
be competitors in the European broadband
market — a stance satellite industry analysts
view as bad for both operators.
Eutelsat on April 5 said it would not
co-finance the second ViaSat-3 satellite,
which Boeing is already building to bring
massive amounts of capacity to Europe, the
Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Instead, the
Paris-based operator will tap Thales Alenia
Space to build Konnect VHTS, a so-called
Very High Throughput Satellite focused solely
on Europe. European telecom heavyweights
Orange and Thales are onboard as anchor
customers, Eutelsat said.
“This is a net negative for all parties, in
our view,” Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Andrew
Spinola wrote in an April 5 research note to
clients. “We believe the two companies were
stronger together and the European market
will be less attractive with two competitors
instead of one.”
California-based Viasat has made satellite
investments in recent years that leveraged
a growing partnership with Eutelsat. The
ViaSat-2 satellite, launched last summer,
has a footprint that bridges aircraft travelling
northern routes between the U.S., Canada
and Europe with coverage that hands off
to Eutelsat’s KA-SAT. Last year, when Via-
sat and Eutelsat created a joint venture to
tackle European broadband together, the
deal included $160 million by Viasat for a
49 percent stake in KA-SAT.
A larger, but reciprocal investment by
Eutelsat covering half of the ViaSat-3 EMEA
satellite’s $600 million-plus pricetag was
planned, but lacked a binding agreement.
Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg told SpaceNews
in March that determining which operator
would claim revenues from respective cus-
tomers was at the crux of the debate. “It’s
just details,” he said. “It’s not like there are
irreconcilable issues that we are beating
each other up over.”
Eutelsat spokeswoman Marie-Sophie
Ecuer said Eutelsat’s decision to order the
all-electric Konnect VHTS rather than invest
in ViaSat-3 EMEA has “no direct impact” on
the broader joint venture with Viasat.
Satellite industry analysts worry the Eu-
ropean market is too small for two operators
sparring with souped-up satellites. “[T]he
satellite industry needs consolidation, rather
than additional capacity coming online,” Louie
DiPalma, an analyst at William Blair, wrote
in a research note shortly after the news.
Viasat said April 6 that ViaSat-3 EMEA
remains “well underway and on track.” The
company expects ViaSat-3 EMEA’s total ca-
pacity to crest 1 terabit per second. Eutelsat’s
Konnect VHTS, in contrast, promises half
the capacity at 500 Gbps, but is substan-
tially more concentrated with coverage just
over Europe. Which satellite will offer better
performance will depend on more than just
raw throughput. Each is already touting the
flexibility of their satellites, meaning they
will be able to adjust beam characteristics
like shape, location and power to respond
to changes in customer demand.
Eutelsat’s pullout of the ViaSat-3 EMEA
investment caught analysts by surprise.
“[I]n recent months it seemed the par-
ties were moving closer to an agreement,”
Ric Prentiss, an analyst at Raymond James
wrote. “Eutelsat’s announcement of its
commitment to build a new satellite and
exit from the negotiations with [Viasat] were
very surprising … the decision means risks
around industry structure and competition
have increased.“
“Although we are surprised that the Vi-
aSat-3 partnership fell through, there was
definitely writing on the wall,” DiPalma wrote.
“ViaSat has indicated it has had contin-
gency plans if the EutelSat partnership fell
through,” he wrote. “While ViaSat has not
disclosed what those contingency plans are,
we would not be surprised if it announced
them very soon.” SN
Analysts balk at Eutelsat-Viasat split on European broadband
CALEB HENRY
NEWS SATELLITE BROADBAND
Eutelsat’s just-ordered Konnect VHTS is an all-electric satellite expected to deliver 500
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10 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
XL C
ATLI
N
Space insurance premiums are low by
historical standards but they could
rise if major accidents prompt firms
to leave the market, according to
speakers at the Space 2.0 conference last
week in San Jose, California.
“The good news is the premium rates
are the lowest they’ve been for a long time,”
said Adam Sturmer, senior vice president for
Marsh Space Projects, an insurance broker.
“The market has historically been volatile.
While there may be room for insurance to
go down a little bit more, there’s a bit more
headroom for it to jump up if we have a
couple of large losses.”
Chris Kunstadter, senior vice president
and space underwriting manager for XL
Catlin, a global insurance firm, said in-
surers will only leave the space market if
they experience a series of costly launch
or satellite failures, or disasters unrelated
to the space industry.
Because insurers continually evaluate
risk, XL Catlin has compiled an extensive
database on satellite and launch vehicle
performance. In 2017, 54 or 55 of the 91
rockets were insured, including commer-
cial communications satellites destined
for geostationary orbit and small satellites
sent into low Earth orbit constellations.
Most of the uninsured launches were
military and scientific missions, Kun-
stadter said April 3.
Companies increasingly are purchas-
ing insurance for cubesats. In most cases,
those insurance policies cover only launch
failures. “Once the satellite is deployed in
orbit, it’s very difficult for us as insurers to
assess the risk of each individual type of
cubesat,” Kunstadter said.
In the coming years, insurers will be
keeping a close eye on changes in the space
industry because of the added risk of new
launchers and small satellites, which tend
to have less redundancy and less testing
than larger spacecraft, Kunstadter said.
“Right now, the price of insurance is low
but these two factors could have quite a bit
of impact on the price of insurance in the
next several years,” Kunstadter said.
From 2000 to 2018, rockets have failed
31 percent of the time on their first flight
and 30 percent of the time on their sec-
ond flight. Beyond 10 or 20 launches, the
failure rate drops to roughly five percent,
Kunstadter said.
XL Catlin’s database covers 571 GEO
satellites launched since 2000 and includes
data on 3,000 anomalies reported on 382
of the spacecraft that led to partial or total
loss of capability. Launch failures caused
37 percent of the losses. For satellites that
reached orbit, 36 percent failed within the
first two months, Kunstadter said.
Half of the GEO satellites launched since
2000 that experienced anomalies within
their first 10 years of operation said the
problems stemmed from electrical power
subsystems, Kunstadter said.
Since 2000, the average mass of GEO
satellites has increased by 33 percent while
the payload power measured in kilowatts
has increased by 100 percent.
“That means the power density of the
satellites has increased quite dramatically,”
he said. “That is the result of miniaturiza-
tion and refinements in technology but it
also means you have differential voltages
closer together and technical issues that
can wreak havoc.” SN
Space insurances prices could rise if new rocket and small satellites lead to costly accidents
DEBRA WERNER
NEWS INSURANCE MARKET
$2,000,000,000
$1,500,000,000
$1,000,000,000
$500,000,000
$0
The space insurance market is volatile. Insurance premiums, shown in blue, totaled around $700 million in 2017. They peaked at slightly more than $1 billion in 2000. In 2005 and 2016, insurers reported losses of less than $100 million. In 1998 and 2000, those losses topped $1.5 billion.
SPACENEWS.COM | 11
NAS
A JO
HN
SON
SPA
CE C
ENTE
R
WEBB’S WOES
On the evening of Feb. 2, a C-5 plane
landed at Los Angeles International
Airport, having taken off a few
hours earlier from Ellington Field
in Houston. A truck unloaded its contents, a
customized cargo container called the Space
Telescope Transporter for Air, Road and Sea
(STTARS), and drove it several kilometers away
to the sprawling Space Park campus of Northrop
Grumman.
Inside STTARS was the optical telescope
assembly for the James Webb Space Telescope,
including its giant segmented mirror and suite
of instruments, which had recently completed
thermal vacuum testing at the Johnson Space
Center. The telescope part of JWST was now,
for the first time, in the same clean room as its
spacecraft bus and sunshield, ready to put to-
gether — if all went according to plan.
But, with JWST, not everything goes ac-
cording to plan. “With all the flight hardware
100 percent complete, we’re approaching the
finish line for launch readiness,” said Thomas
Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for
science. “However, it looks like we have a ways
to go before we cross that finish line.”
Zurbuchen spoke at a media teleconference
March 27, announced less than 24 hours ear-
lier, to dispense the latest dose of bad news for
the mission. JWST, whose launch had already
slipped last year from October 2018 to between
March and June 2019, would be delayed again,
now until approximately May 2020. The delay
has obvious implications for the mission, and
the scientists who have been waiting for years
to use the telescope. However, it could have JEFF FOUST
Fixing a Ferrari:NASA struggling to get JWST across the finish line
A custom cargo container holding JWST’s optical telescope assembly is loaded into a C-5 aircraft in Houston on Jan. 31 for transport to Northrop Grumman’s Redondo Beach, California, facility.
WEBB’S WOES
12 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
NAS
A
repercussions that go far beyond this
single mission.
Human error and optimistic schedulesThere was no single technical issue that
caused this latest schedule slip. “The change
in launch timing is not indicative of hard-
ware or technical performance concerns,”
Zurbuchen said on the call. “Rather, the
integration of the various spacecraft el-
ements is taking longer than expected.”
That work suffered a number of problems
involving the spacecraft and sunshield,
rather than the telescope and instruments.
When NASA delayed JWST’s launch last
year, it cited issues with thrusters on the
spacecraft and delays with the testing
of the five-layer deployable sunshield.
Both those issues factored into the new,
longer delay.
The biggest problem, said Dennis An-
drucyk, deputy associate administrator for
science at NASA, was with the spacecraft’s
thrusters. “The propulsion system’s issues
were all introduced by human error, un-
fortunately,” he said in a briefing at the
National Academies’ Space Science Week
meeting just a couple hours after the official
announcement of the delay. Technicians
cleaned the thrusters with an “incorrect
solvent,” he said, damaging seals in valves.
They had to be refurbished, causing a slip
of about nine months.
In addition, pressure transducers in
the propulsion system were damaged
when workers applied the wrong voltage
to them, requiring them to be replaced, at
a cost of three months. A similar voltage
problem damaged a heater for a catalyst
bed used for a thruster, causing another
month of delays.
The sunshield suffered different prob-
lems. “It took much longer to deploy, fold
and stow the sunshield,” Andrucyk said.
Original plans called for deploying the
sunshield in a week and folding it back
up in a month.“That was an optimistic
schedule,” he said, noting it actually took
twice as long.
Moreover, the sunshield experienced
several tears during that deployment test,
the largest of which was about 10 centi-
meters long. Andrucyk said those tears
have been repaired, and steps have been
taken to reduce the slack in cables used to
deploy the sunshield that contributed to
the problem. The sunshield work caused
about seven months of delays, although
some of that was in parallel with the
thruster work.
A third issue, he said, was that the
integration and testing schedule of the
spacecraft and sunshield needed to be
stretched out to take into account lessons
from past work. That added three months
to the schedule, and the project tacked on
another three months of schedule reserve.
The result, he said, was an 18-month delay
to about May 2020 from the October 2018
launch date that the mission had been
holding until last fall.
Webb’s exact launch date, though,
remains unclear. The mission’s standing
review board, whose schedule assess-
ment led to the announcement of this
delay, offered the May 2020 date at the
70 percent confidence level. “We need to
reach a higher confidence level before we
make a final launch date determination,”
Zurbuchen said.
To assist in that work, NASA announced
1996: NASA initiates the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) program to develop Hubble’s successor
2002: NGST is renamed James Webb Space Telescope to honor the former NASA administrator. An $825 million prime con-tract awarded to TRW (which later becomes Northrop Gruman Space Technology)
2005: JWST’s price tag grows to $4.5 billion, up $1 billion over earlier estimates
2007: NASA inks deal with the ESA to launch JWST on an Ariane 5 rocket in 2013
2010: Independent review finds JWST’s cost has grown again, to $6.1 billion
2011: JWST survives brush with cancella-tion when NASA agrees to launch by October 2018 without busting an $8 billion cost cap
2017: Launch slips to March-June 2019
2018: Launch slips to May 2020 as NASA warns cost cap will “likely” be breached
Deploying and refolding JWST’s many-layered sunshield took much longer than NASA expected. Moreover, the sunshield experienced several tears during the deployment test.
SPACENEWS.COM | 13
the formation of an independent review board, to
be chaired by Tom Young, a former NASA center
director and aerospace executive with extensive ex-
perience on space projects and a willingness to speak
his mind. (When the delay was announced, Young,
who serves on the National Academies’ Committee
on Astronomy and Astrophysics, was grilling other
NASA officials about the status of JWST’s already
imperiled successor, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey
Telescope, or WFIRST, mission.)
“The reason I’m asking for an independent review
to look at this is that, frankly, I don’t think I have a con-
cise answer to how we ended up there,” Zurbuchen
said. “There are a lot of symptoms out there, but root
cause is different than a description of symptoms.”
That independent review was scheduled to start in
early April and wrap up at the end of May. Its results
will be incorporated into continued internal analysis
of the state of the project, with a report to Congress
by late June that will include a revised launch date
and development cost.
Even as those reviews continue, NASA announced
several managerial changes to the program. Those
include more interaction between agency leader-
ship and executives at Northrop Grumman, as well
as putting more senior NASA project managers on
site at Northrop’s facility. The company also estab-
lished a direct reporting line between its JWST project
manager, Scott Willoughby, and company president
Kathy Warden.
In the days following the announcement of the
delay, NASA shuffled some project leadership. Eric
Smith, who served as JWST director at NASA Head-
quarters, was moved to the position of program sci-
entist. Greg Robinson, deputy associate administrator
for programs in NASA’s science mission directorate,
took over as program director.
Three ways to measure costsPerhaps the biggest question facing JWST is what
effect these delays, and the work to overcome them,
will have on the mission’s cost. In the 2011 “re-plan”
of JWST, when cost and schedule overruns threat-
ened the mission with cancellation, Congress set a
$8 billion cap on its development. The mission has
remained within that cost cap — at least for now.
While JWST’s reviews continue through June, just
how much its cost will increase isn’t known, or even
if it will breach the cap, which would require Con-
gress to formally reauthorize the mission. “We think
it’s likely that we will, but we don’t have the data in
hand to establish a new cost,” explained Paul Hertz,
director of NASA’s astrophysics division, at a meeting
of the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics the
day after the announcement. “We’re not 100-percent
confident that we’re going to breach that $8 billion.”
The implications of a cost increase on JWST are
complex and depend on the timescale you examine.
“There are three different costs at play here,” Hertz
said, from the short to the long term.
One cost, he explained, is simply how much money
the mission needs in any given year. “What matters
to me as the astrophysics division director is, is the
money I need in any given year more than the money
that is currently budgeted for Webb?”
Hertz said that, for fiscal years 2019 and 2020,
money that had been budgeted for operations could
instead be spent on development. As a result, he
did not expect to need much additional funding to
accommodate the Webb delay. “I don’t believe it will
be a large impact,” he said, and not until 2020. “The
amount of money we need in [fiscal year 2020] will be
modest compared to the whole astrophysics budget.”
However, a shift of funds from operations to de-
velopment — NASA requested $305 million for JWST
in its 2019 budget proposal and expected to need
nearly $200 million in 2020 — would count against
that $8 billion cost cap, the second of Hertz’s costs.
Whether the mission breaches the cost cap, and by
how much, won’t be known until June.
The third cost is the mission’s total life-cycle cost,
including its development and operations. That will
go up, he said, because operations will extend at least
18 months longer than previously planned. While NAS
A
The telescope’s combined science instruments and optical element exits the massive thermal vacuum testing chamber after about 100 days of cryogenic testing inside it. Scientists and engineers at Johnson Space Center put JWST through a series of tests designed to ensure the telescope functioned as expected in an extremely cold, airless environment akin to that of space.
14 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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WEBB’S WOES
JWST has a prime mission of five years, Hertz
said planning assumes that it will be extended to
perhaps 10 years or more “just in case it passes
senior review” — a line met with laughter by a
roomful of astronomers who have long assumed
that NASA will operate the telescope as long as it’s
technically feasible to do so.
Long-term effectsWith such an extension, Hertz said expects JWST
to be operating into the 2030s, assuming it enters
operations in late 2020 or 2021. That will put its op-
erations in parallel for years with NASA’s next astro-
physics flagship mission, WFIRST — if it gets built.
NASA’s 2019 budget proposal sought to cancel
WFIRST, citing a desire to use at least some of fund-
ing projected for WFIRST for exploration programs.
However, Congress provided WFIRST with $150
million in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus bill, more
than requested, and included report language in-
directly criticizing any proposal to cancel it.
That windfall, though, came before the new
JWST delay, leaving some fearing that Congress
may not be in such a generous mood when it takes
up the 2019 budget proposal. Zurbuchen went to
great lengths in presentations to clarify that the sins
of JWST are not also the sins of WFIRST.
“There’s going to be an impact of perception,”
he said, acknowledging recent efforts to reduce the
costs of WFIRST. The difference, he emphasized,
was that WFIRST relies little on new technologies:
its telescope is a hand-me-down from the National
Reconnaissance Office, and its main instrument
is more mature than JWST’s instruments were at
a similar phase of development.
“WFIRST and Webb are as similar to each other
as the Malibu that I drive and the Ferrari my neigh-
bor drives,” he said. “They’re both cars, but they’re
really different classes of both cost and complexity.”
The delay in JWST could also affect planning
for later missions beyond WFIRST. Astronomers
had hoped JWST would be operational in 2019
so that initial science results could influence the
next astrophysics decadal survey, scheduled to be
completed in late 2020. That survey will identify,
among other things, the top-priority flagship mis-
sion that would be in line for NASA to develop and
launch some time in the 2030s.
“We recognize that the timing of the decadal is a
multi-stakeholder type of discussion,” Zurbuchen
said, suggesting “we should flip planetary and
astrophysics and move astrophysics to the right.”
With the next planetary science decadal scheduled
to be completed in 2022, this would likely delay the
astrophysics decadal to perhaps 2024.
For now, the community shows little sign of
supporting such a delay. “I would as soon just not
delay it a couple of years,” said Anne Kinney, head
of the NSF’s mathematics and physics sciences
directorate. NSF is involved with the decadal as it
funds ground-based observatories. “From NSF’s
perspective, let’s keep going.”
“We’re still holding discussions both internally
and with NASA and NSF as to what the astrono-
mers should do,” said David Smith of the National
Academies at an April 4 meeting of a NASA Mars
advisory committee. “My hope is that we stick to
the schedule.”
The delay and additional expense is worth it
for both JWST and future missions, Zurbuchen
emphasized. “The stupidest thing we could is to
somehow rush to a deadline,” he said. “What’s
really important here is that when we’re done, we
launch this and we have a telescope on orbit that
works and fulfills on its promise.”
He added that a lesson that should not be taken
away from JWST’s woes is that NASA should avoid
complex missions like it. “We should push the en-
velope,” he said. “But what we should also do is not
make stupid mistakes.” SN
“WFIRST and Webb are as similar to each other as the Malibu that I drive and the Ferrari my neighbor drives. They’re both cars, but they’re really different classes of both cost and complexity.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science
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WHY THE FUNDING?
The question of what
will replace the con-
stellation of military
Wideband Global
Satcom satellites known as
WGS has been the subject of
extensive Pentagon reviews.
The latest “analysis of al-
ternatives” is scheduled to
wrap up next month and,
according to government and
industry officials, is poised to
recommend a future “hybrid”
network of military satellites
and commercial services.
The Pentagon did not
request any money in the
2018 or 2019 budgets to buy
new WGS satellites beyond
the 10 already ordered from
Boeing. This was viewed as a
sign DoD was ready to begin
a transition to a new system
and give commercial satcom
providers a bigger share of the
pie. WGS-9 was deployed last
year, and WGS-10 is scheduled
for launch in 2019.
So it came as a shock when
House appropriators last month
slipped $600 million into the
$1.3 trillion omnibus spending
bill for WGS satellites 11 and 12.
This add-on had not appeared
in any previous marks of the
overdue 2018 spending bill
by the congressional defense
committees. The appropriators
justified it as a necessary bridge
to prevent capacity gaps until
the future satcom architecture
is in place.
An expansion of the WGS
constellation to 12 satellites
guarantees that the military
will have more of its own
satcom capacity and may
need less from commercial
services, dealing a setback to
the industry that has argued
for years that it can provide
a better value for the money.
Like other DoD procure-
ments, WGS started out as a
short-term project that solidi-
fied its role over time. Boeing
was selected in 2002 to build
two satellites for what the
Air Force was still calling the
Wideband Gapfiller System.
The Pentagon at the time
was planning a sophisticated
new constellation called the
Transformational Satellite
Communications System.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin
were still vying for the TSAT
prime contract when the by-
then-projected $25 billion
program was canceled in 2009
after years of cost growth. WGS,
newly rechristened Wideband
Global Satcom, became the
military’s largest satcom system
by default.
WGS is now an international
constellation. Australia paid for
WGS-6 and Canada, Denmark,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands
and New Zealand collectively
financed the WGS-9 satellite.
International partners receive a
proportional share of the band-
width based on their financial
contribution.
Ken Peterman, president of
government systems at Viasat,
a satellite broadband services
provider, told SpaceNews that
the industry is disappointed to
see more money go to WGS.
Peterman called it a “political
earmark” that blindsided DoD.
Like others in the satcom
industry, Peterman insisted
that commercial technology
has far surpassed what WGS
can offer. He compared the
investment in more WGS satel-
lites to buying first-generation
A WTF moment for WGSAn out-of-nowhere budget addition resets debate on the future of military space communications
16 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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Congress slipped an extra pair of WGS satellites into the 2018 omnibus bill.
BlackBerry devices instead of
taking advantage of the latest
smartphone technology. “These
are warfighters we’re giving
this technology to,” he said.
“To give them 10-to-15 year-old
technology when we could be
giving them something that is
three to five generations more
advanced is just wrong.”
Industry consultant Loren
Thompson of the Lexington
Institute — a think tank funded
by Boeing and other defense
firms — pushed back on the
criticism. A payload upgrade
introduced with the launch of
WGS-8 in 2016 increased the
satellite’s bandwidth roughly
50 percent over earlier WGS
spacecraft.
Thompson said usage of
WGS voice, video and data ser-
vices is growing at double-digit
rates annually, and a capacity
shortfall is projected for 2020
if the system is not upgraded.
Congress saw that Air Force
did not have a solid transition
in place, Thompson said, so
it moved to buy more of the
existing satellites.
“Experience teaches that
when key performance features
for spacecraft are changed,
there are often technical and
funding delays that lead to
schedule slips,” said Thompson.
“So Congress is reluctant to stop
buying satellites that work until
the risks that arise in replacing
them have been retired.”
Air Force officials would not
comment on how the WGS
add-on might impact the anal-
ysis of its future replacement.
Industry sources who did not
want to be quoted by name said
the decision at the very least
casts a cloud of uncertainty
and might delay a transition
to more commercial services.
William Gattle, president of
Harris Corp.’s Space and In-
telligence Systems, said WGS
illustrates how tough it is for
the military to shift gears on
major programs.
Harris is a supplier of WGS
antennas so the company is a
clear beneficiary of the budget
add-on.
The government has moved
much slower with space com-
munications than it has in other
areas, Gattle said in a interview
with SpaceNews.
“The challenge is that they
don’t control the commercial
market,” he said. “They’re try-
ing to mix large government
owned with smaller commer-
cial satellites” but DoD is not
as comfortable working with
systems it doesn’t own.
“If you already have a capa-
bility like WGS, you’re a winner
because they need capability
quickly,” Gattle said. “It’s harder
for them to figure out how to
steer exactly what they want.”
That is a key reason why the
wideband communications
analysis of alternatives — which
kicked off in late 2016 — has
dragged on so long.
The situation is different on
the intelligence side where the
government owns constella-
tions of surveillance and mis-
sile-warning satellites. “They
have a better ability to control
that,” said Gattle. “They can
design the architecture any
way they want it.”
The government is mov-
ing faster and investing more
aggressively in intelligence,
surveillance and reconnais-
sance, or ISR, constellations,
while “communications has
almost slowed to a stop.”
It also doesn’t help the
commercial industry that
communications technology
is in transition. “Commercial
people are now debating:
Should they build another big
satellite? Should they join with
OneWeb?” Gattle said. “That’s not
happening on the ISR side. It’s
more cohesive and there’s no
confusion in the marketplace.”
As DoD continues to analyze
options, said Gattle, “Congress
steps in and says ‘you probably
need more WGS.’”
One immediate reaction
to the WGS plus-up was that
Congress had extra money to
spend and that’s where it chose
to spend it. But there is probably
some “strategic judgment” for
why the money was added, said
Jamie Morin, executive director
of the Center for Space Policy
and Strategy and vice president
of The Aerospace Corporation.
It is always difficult to accu-
rately forecast recapitalizations
of military space systems, said
Morin.
“Without a lot of certainty
about how long constellations
will last, you have to decide:
Buy more of the same or some-
thing different?” Morin said in
an interview. “Also, you have
a history in DoD of underes-
timating how long it will take
and how much it will cost to
produce major systems.”
The Air Force has “some
good ideas on how to accelerate
things that could well work,”
said Morin. “But Congress has
some concern that transitions
historically have been harder
than advertised.”
The WGS funding was indeed
a surprise, said Morin. “DoD has
been doing things to maximize
the value of WGS, working to
make it more resilient. It’s been
great in engaging allies.”
Congress holds the power
of the purse and it made the
call. SN
SPACENEWS.COM | 17
BOEING
Boeing technicians push the WGS-5 satellite into an acoustic test chamber.
SIERRA NEVADA CORP.
Sierra Nevada Corp. plays a unique
role in the aerospace industry. Like
traditional contractors, it’s a major
systems integrator with billions of
dollars in annual revenue stemming from
civil, commercial and military work. But it’s
also a private company, like SpaceX and Blue
Origin, making enormous investments in
future space capabilities.
SNC’s largest investment to date is in
Dream Chaser, the spaceplane NASA se-
lected in the initial rounds of its campaign to
encourage companies to build private
space taxis to transport astronauts
to and from the International
Space Station. After awarding
SNC more than $312 million
for Dream Chaser develop-
ment, NASA passed over
SNC to award commercial
crew contracts in 2014 to
competitors Boeing and
SpaceX. That loss was
incredibly painful, Eren
and Fatih Ozmen said in
their first joint interview, but
they quickly decided to continue investing
in Dream Chaser.
Unlike SpaceX and Blue Origin, SNC is
not very well known. It was a small, fam-
ily-owned electronics business in Stead,
Nevada, when Fatih, a former Turkish
cycling champion with a master’s degree
in electrical engineering, joined as an
intern in 1981. In 1989, SNC hired Fatih’s
wife Eren as a financial consultant. Eren, a
Turkish immigrant with an MBA from the
University of Nevada, Reno, recognized that
SNC was struggling financially. Although
the Ozmens were newlyweds with a small
child, they used their house as collateral for
a loan and purchased SNC in 1994.
SNC’s relative obscurity is likely to end
soon as the company brings its 9,000-ki-
logram Dream Chaser to the 34th Space
Symposium in Colorado Spring, Colorado,
a move guaranteed to make headlines. Fa-
tih also is becoming more well-known as
a member of the National Space Council’s
18 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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Betting on a Dream…To Fatih and Eren Ozmen, Dream Chaser is more than a spaceplane. It’s a vehicle to transform the entire industry.
SNC’s Dream Chaser reusable spaceplane on the tarmac.
Sierra Nevada Corporation President Eren Ozmen and her husband Fatih Ozmen, the company’s CEO, have owned SNC since 1994 when they borrowed against their house to buy their struggling former employer.
encourage companies to build private
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
panel of experts known as the Users Advisory Group.
In addition to Dream Chaser, which is scheduled
to begin delivering cargo to the International Space
Station in 2020, SNC has a broad portfolio of space
programs including small satellites, rockets and pro-
pulsion, habitats, and environmental control and life
support systems. SNC components have flown on 13
Mars missions and the firm is designing and building
the Descent Braking Mechanism to help NASA’s Mars
2020 touch down softly on the red planet. SNC also is
developing a deep space habitat that pairs Dream Chaser’s
cargo module with electric propulsion to transfer it to
lunar orbit as part of NASA’s Next Space Technologies
for Exploration Partnership (NextSTEP)-2 program.
One of the reasons we wanted to speak with you is because it’s hard to imagine a publicly traded company sticking with Dream Chaser all these years. Why were you so persistent?Fatih: Which is the same point I heard from my
counterparts, the CEOs of Tier 1 companies. They are
driven by quarterly earnings-per-share targets. They
can’t afford long-term investments that are not going
to pay off for 5-10 years or more.
Eren: This is a very risky adventure for us. I don’t
think that we could have done that if we were a pub-
lic company.
Fatih : I would be fired by now. Our persistence goes
back to our core, the passion and excitement that led
us to come to the United States in the first place, Eren
and I, separately. We have big dreams. We go after those
dreams and don’t give up when the challenges pop up.
Why so committed to Dream Chaser?Fatih: We have been fortunate. A lot of wonderful
things have happened to us. This investment helps
U.S. leadership in space. It helps inspire the next gen-
eration. And it makes an impact that is sorely needed
right now. When you look at government contractors,
there is a tremendous need for innovation and chal-
lenge to the status quo. It’s very difficult for a small
innovative company to show up on the radar screen
and challenge the big guys. We can be a lot more effec-
tive now that we have broken the billion-dollar mark.
How do you challenge the status quo? Eren: We always look for innovative solutions. Our
model has been to provide an 80-percent solution for
20 percent of the cost and schedule. Our customers
need that kind of affordable solution. By applying
this model to space, we feel we can make big things
happen. When you look at the amount of money
being spent on deep space programs and the afford-
ability issues, it doesn’t look like the U.S. will be able to
maintain its leadership. Three innovative companies,
Blue Origin, SpaceX and us, offer a different path. We
are saying, “Hey you don’t have to spend that kind of
money. Hey, you don’t have to spend so many years
in development. Things can happen for a fraction of
the cost and time.”
Fatih: We are at the crossroads right now. With the
resources and capabilities we have, there is no limit
to what we can do. We are trying to show the world
and the government that the basic structure of Tier
1 — just a handful of prime contractors spending
most of the money in the budget — is slowing down
innovation. It needs to change.
Dream Chaser completed its free-flight test in November. What’s next?Fatih: We are going through a series of critical design
reviews right now. We have a contract in place to do
the first launch in 2020. That’s the next big milestone.
Eren: We also will be selecting the launch vehicle for
future missions. We are working with many launch
providers and they are coming up with very affordable
new launch vehicles in the 2021 timeframe. After
the first mission, we will have more opportunities
to reduce the cost because a significant cost of our
mission is the launch. We are looking at all those
different partnerships with different companies,
looking for synergies and strategic relationships.
SPACENEWS.COM | 19
NAS
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Dream Chaser glides to a successful landing at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California following a Nov. 11 free-flight test.
SIERRA NEVADA CORP.
20 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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We are in very heavy discussions with
all of them. That is helping us understand
how the dynamics are changing and how to
maintain our competitive place while launch
costs come down and technology improves.
How much have you invested in Dream Chaser? Eren: Normally we don’t give those numbers
out but you can have a really good feel for
it. We did the entire development of Dream
Chaser. This is a billion-dollar type of devel-
opment effort. We got some funding from
NASA both on the prior crew program and
the integration of the Dream Chaser on the
Commercial Resupply Services-2 program,
but we are investing the lion’s share of the
money. We also are building Dream Chaser
with our own money.
The entire space vehicle is in the $250
million to $300 million range. We are look-
ing for ways to make it more affordable but
the first couple of vehicles are the initial
prototypes. The goal is once we achieve the
mission to recoup all the costs because this
is a leasing arrangement and we are going
to depreciate the investment as we achieve
those missions. We are going to recoup our
initial investment through the amortization.
Fatih: It’s the most significant investment
we’ve ever made. And from a personal
perspective, it is a larger investment than
Elon Musk made in SpaceX. We are way
beyond that. We are very committed. We
believe in this and like Eren said, it is not a
shot in the dark. It is a very rational invest-
ment decision that will pay back but it’s
going to take a while; we may have to wait
five-plus years.
You seem very patient. Fatih: This is our legacy. People can look
back after we are long gone and say, “These
people did things that had never been done
before. They did it as private entrepreneurs
and realized the American dream.” That is
the best that we can hope for.
Eren: Leaving behind a huge capability is so
much better than leaving behind a bunch
of money in the bank. That’s what we are
doing, converting everything to a capability
that the next-generation can benefit from.
Are you interested in completing development of the crew version of Dream Chaser? Eren: Yes. The NASA crew contract that we
got awarded is still open. And actually, we
got an extension on that contract. There is
no current funding right now because two
other companies [Boeing and SpaceX] got the
award. But the reason we didn’t get the crew
contract is because supposedly we couldn’t
achieve the schedule. Now you see the other
two companies are behind schedule.
What would it cost to finish the crew version of Dream Chaser?Fatih: We don’t talk about those numbers for
competitive reasons, but it is a fraction of the
cost of developing the uncrewed version. It
would be a much smaller investment to make
because we left a lot of infrastructure in place
for that conversion possibility. Right now,
our focus is on that first uncrewed version.
Eren: I would say that 80 percent of the
capabilities that we are maturing right now
apply to the crew version. All our investments
right now will benefit the crew version. But
for the crew version, the certification is the
hardest part.
Fatih: In time and money.
“It’s the most significant investment we’ve ever made…it is a larger investment than Elon Musk made in SpaceX.”
SNC’s Dream Chaser at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California.
SPACENEWS.COM | 21
Why would certification be the hardest part?Eren: That’s something we don’t have a good feel for.
We can definitely bring it to a crew capability. We are
going to see how the two companies that got crew
contracts are faring in the next couple of years. That
is going to give us a better feel for how difficult it will
be to certify these vehicles and how difficult or easy it
will be to take people up there. It is definitely possible
and we would love to do that someday.
Fatih: Dream Chaser doesn’t have to go up, it can
come down. We can do an in-space crew version.
It doesn’t have to be the same as what Boeing and
SpaceX are doing today.
Eren: Actually, Dream Chaser was a rescue vehicle
initially.
A rescue vehicle?Fatih: That was one of the NASA contracts we won
in the space shuttle days when they were debating
cargo, crew, lifeboats — all these different things. There
were variations on the crew capability.
Eren: That may be the stepping stone. Just park it
up there and if some crisis happens, you can rescue
the crew and bring them down to land at an airport.
That capability is a lot easier than taking them up
there, as far as the risks and certification are con-
cerned. We are looking at all those capabilities to
get to the finish line.
Fatih: We see bringing a crew to any runway where
a commercial airplane can land as a huge advantage
over the capsules. There could be other circum-
stances where people don’t want the high-G reentry
of capsules. That is going to evolve once we show
Dream Chaser’s performance and execute a cargo
mission successfully. We are building credibility
and confidence every time we meet milestones.
We are not in a hurry. We want to do it the right
way and we will take our time to get that right. We
would love to see a crewed version of Dream Chaser
sometime in the future.
You have mentioned partners. Do you mean investors or industrial partners?Fatih: We are talking about industries and space
agencies. We have direct agreements with ESA, DLR
[the German space agency] and JAXA [the Japanese
space agency]. They are making investments on their
own part. We bring it together. We leverage what exists
around the world. If you look at Dream Chaser, it’s
more of an integration job. We are a best-of-the-breed
integrator. That’s our reputation in DoD. We bring the
best solution that makes sense — not what we build,
but what is the best and the most capable system.
If you saw the number of partnerships, the team-
ing agreements we have, it’s mindboggling. It’s very
different than the model SpaceX employs, which is
vertically integrated, everything in-house. We try to
do as much as possible outside of the house. We find
the best experts and bring them to the table. That’s
how we put together the best team.
How is SNC’s faring financially?Eren: We are financially very stable right now. We
have a pretty significant line of credit, about $700
million that we can tap into if we have additional
programs that require investment, or if we want
to take Dream Chaser to the finish line. It’s a syn-
dication loan that we don’t often tap into. Yes, it is
nerve-wracking. We don’t like to borrow money.
We have never done it. We took the company from
really nothing to a multibillion dollar company
without borrowing money.
Fatih: Financially, we are very healthy but we are
basically putting all our earnings and life savings
into Dream Chaser and programs like this. If you
look at the so-called NewSpace companies, they’re
investing more. They are really not profitable. And
then on the conventional side, the Tier 1 companies
are risk averse and they have to be. They have to
be very careful how much money they invest to
turn a profit. That’s where our private ownership
and entrepreneurial spirit comes into play. We can
get the best of both worlds and leverage this. SIER
RA N
EVAD
A CO
RP.
Illustration of a cargo version of Dream Chaser docked to the International Space Station.
SIERRA NEVADA CORP.
22 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
What’s ahead for SNC?Fatih: There is a lot more we can do, but
we are waiting for the dust to settle. NASA
leadership is not established yet. The
National Space Council just started. The
National Space Strategy was just released.
Once it’s clear how this is all going to play
together, there are a lot of options we have
from investments to financial partnerships.
We are going cautiously right now while
still making sure we are involved in these
deep space programs.
What’s your view of the National Space Council?Fatih: It’s very critical that it’s been estab-
lished because the U.S. space programs
are not as coordinated as they need to
be given the national security challenges
we face. There are a lot of good things
happening with the current leadership of
Air Force space, DoD and the intelligence
community. Everybody is lined up saying,
“Hey, we have a challenge. We have to co-
operate. We have to do things differently.
It’s not business as usual anymore.” The
timing is very exciting.
At the first meeting of the Na-tional Space Council, Fatih talked about infrastructure in-vestment. What space infra-structure investments should U.S. government make?Fatih: There are several. I hope part of
this critical infrastructure we are trying
to build will go to space. Budgets went
up but the plan is still not clear. The right
infrastructure in space — space stations
and transportation systems — would
stimulate that new space economy.
There is tremendous potential. The gov-
ernment has done that successfully in
the past. It put in railroads to stimulate
the economy and get everybody to the
next level. With the right public-private
partnership approach, which NASA has
done successfully on the commercial
crew programs, there is a lot of potential.
I’m excited the Commerce Department
is getting involved more.
The critical infrastructure in space
will help not just the commercial side,
but the national security side as well. And
bringing international partners onboard
will help the U.S. maintain its leadership.
If we are not proactive, China is going to
build a space station and everybody will
go in that direction. And somebody else
is going to go to the moon and somebody
else will land on Mars. That infrastructure
investment is very important.
Do your small satellites play a role in a contested space environment?Fatih: Yes. Both the classified and un-
classified capabilities that we have in
the small satellite area. They are a part of
an architecture that we are developing.
These things are not all independent.
For instance, Dream Chaser can launch
small satellites and small satellites can
be part of a network. You heard Air Force
Secretary Heather Wilson talking about
multi-domain command and control.
We need an integrated approach. Not just
low Earth orbit or airborne or deep space.
We need full awareness and everything
needs to play together. Smallsats are part
of that equation.
Eren: Our interest in space started with
small satellites. In 2008, we made three
different acquisitions all in space. The first
was MicroSat, a smallsat company with
a great capability. We actually proposed
building small satellites for $50 million. At
the time, everybody said, “Small satellites
don’t make sense.” We were a little ahead of
our time. We could not convince anybody
that that was the way to go. We were talking
about the threats that people are talking
about now, how vulnerable big satellites
are and how small satellites could help.
Does Dream Chaser feed into SNC’s NextStep-2 work?Fatih: Yes. The Dream Chaser investment is
already paying off. We have two contracts
in the NASA NextSTEP-2 program both
the power propulsion module element
as well as the habitat piece, Lunar Orbit
Platform Gateway. Dream Chaser is built
into a common interoperable architecture.
That is part of the bigger picture. Most the
hardware and software is going to be the
same. It’s a capability we can build on.
What role could Dream Chaser play in low Earth orbit? A replacement for space sation is very
much on the table right now, which
gives us a very short period to look for
options. How are you going to transition
from the space station into other things?
Whether commercial companies would
take over, which is not likely because it
is an aging asset and very expensive to
maintain. We are looking for ways to
partner with other companies to create
an 80-percent solution for 20 percent of
the cost and schedule.
Instead of paying billions of dollars
to maintain an aging asset, you can put
those dollars into research, satellite ser-
vicing, robotic arms, 3D manufacturing,
and debris cleanup. There is so much
that can be done. A Dream Chaser-type
of capability could do all those things. It
can stay in space for months at a time.
It can become a small laboratory. There
are so many possibilities.
What’s unique about Dream Chaser? Fatih: A key discriminator between Dream
Chaser and our competitors is that we are
the only rocket-agnostic space vehicle. We
are not married to any particular program.
With Dream Chaser, we have a lot of
partnerships internationally. We have
applications across the board, from the
United Nations to working with pharma-
ceutical companies.
It is a unique approach that is different
than what we’ve been doing for the last
40-50 years: sending capsules into space
and bringing them back to splash down
in the ocean. Dream Chaser lands like
the space shuttle did and it leverages all
the lessons learned over the years into a
next-generation spaceplane.
SPACENEWS.COM | 23
You’ve been very private. Why did you agree to this interview? Fatih: Our public relations campaign
has not been a priority for us. We
keep our heads down and focus
on getting things done. But right
now, everybody says, “You are the
poster child for the next-genera-
tion companies. You have the best
of both worlds: old space and new
space. You can make a difference
and you need to get up on the ra-
dar screen.”
We wanted to let people know
there are companies like SNC that
are going to be the next-genera-
tion companies. They will operate
differently than people are used
to seeing. You do not have to rely
on traditional space companies
to build a very complex system to
accomplish a critical mission.
Is that why you are bring-ing Dream Chaser to the Space Symposium?Eren: Yes. We feel that based on the
types of programs we are going af-
ter, and with Fatih on the National
Space Council right now, we need
to do a little more PR and get more
awareness. I was talking to my
friend from Seattle yesterday. She
said, “How come nobody in Seat-
tle knows about SNC and Dream
Chaser? They know about Boeing,
Blue Origin and SpaceX.”
That’s a little bit by design. We
have been private, but I believe the
time is right for us to get out there
a little bit and create awareness of
who we are and what we do. This
is the future. How do we shape the
policy and how do we be part of the
future requirements? We feel we
are in a good place. Vice President
Pence recognized that and gave
us a seat at the table. How do we
make that into something good?
How do we make our impact? We
cannot make an impact if we are
not publicly known. The timing is
right for us to do a little more PR.
We need to get our mission state-
ment out there.
Fatih: For a couple with our back-
ground to come here with no
English and no money, if we can
survive and realize the American
dream, anybody can do that. We
have all these internship programs
and efforts to inspire kids growing
up, to show them that there is no
limit. This is the country where
you realize your dream. There is no
better place to do it. That’s why we
wanted to display Dream Chaser at
the Space Symposium this year. It’s
going to generate excitement and
inspiration way beyond current
programs. People will be exposed
to it for the first time. They will be
able to see it, touch it, feel it.
What is your mission statement?Fatih: Our mission statement
is: Dream, innovate, inspire and
empower the next generation to
transform humanity through tech-
nology and imagination. Dream
Chaser is the vehicle that we use
to do this. You can’t do this with a
special defense system, a box that
you build for DoD.
But Dream Chaser excites people
at the international level. ESA signed
an agreement directly with us. And
the United Nations said it wants
this. We have 84 countries signed
up to do experiments. They want
to have access to space.
That’s where we look at Blue
Origin, Jeff Bezos’ kind of vision.
That’s when we talked to him
about making space accessible
and millions of people going to
space, doing experiments, finding
the next-generation solutions
and making Earth more green,
moving heavy industry up there.
All these ideas from mining an
asteroid to finding new habitats
for humanity and making Earth
a better place are symbolized in
this one vehicle. SN SIER
RA N
EVAD
A CO
RP.
Dream Chaser, shown here atop an Atlas 5, is being designed to be “rocket agnostic.”
“We are working with many launch providers and they are coming up with very affordable new launch vehicles in the 2021 timeframe” says SNC President Eren Ozmen.
“We are trying to show the world and the government that the basic structure of Tier 1 — just a handful of prime contractors spending most of the money in the budget — is slowing down innovation.”
ON NATIONAL SECURITY Sandra Erwin
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
over the past year laid out the
case that the United States for
too long has under-invested in
the modernization of the military. Power
competitors like China and Russia are ad-
vancing while the Pentagon suffers from
strategic atrophy, Mattis warned in the
National Defense Strategy: “Our competi-
tive military advantage has been eroding.”
Congress responded in a big way.
Though six months late, the spending
bill for fiscal year 2018 boosted military
modernization accounts by 20 percent
compared to last year’s budget, adding
nearly $40 billion for research, develop-
ment and procurement of new systems.
Mattis was visibly enthused when he
spoke with reporters at the Pentagon a
few days after a bipartisan two-year bud-
get deal was reached. “We have the best
budget predictability we’ve had in a dozen
years,” he said. “You’ll see more money
going into research and engineering.”
With a track record of questionable
spending and many failed programs,
DoD has little room for error. The Pen-
tagon and defense contractors will have
to show “visible improvements” relatively
soon, cautioned industry consultant
James McAleese.
Much of the responsibility for over-
seeing investments will fall on Deputy
Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.
In a speech at the Center for a New
American Security, Shanahan said the
Pentagon was in awe over the increase.
The consensus in the building was that a
budget hike of this size would not happen,
he said. But it happened. Now Congress
implicitly is saying: “Show us that you’re
going to produce the results,” Shanahan
added. “And also show us that there’s real
accountability for achieving those results.”
Accountability is going to be a major theme in Mattis’ Pentagon. Industry
analyst Byron Callan said Shanahan’s
comments are “evidence that DoD lead-
ership is aware of the risk that spending
plans are short-circuited by another bout
of fraud, waste and mismanagement.”
In that vein, Mattis met with defense
and aerospace industry executives April 5
to drive the message of “good stewardship”
of taxpayer dollars, DoD spokeswoman
Dana White said. “The secretary wants
to create a culture of performance.”
One change proposed by Shanahan
is to expand the role of the Pentagon
comptroller, a job now held by David
Norquist, and give him the title of “chief
financial officer.” This would broaden his
responsibility from just keeping track of
the money to measuring the return on
the investment, something that private
sector CFOs are expected to do.
With regard to space modernization, a
number of key lawmakers will be paying
special attention to how DoD moves in
this area. The National Defense Strategy
mentions “resilience, reconstitution, and
operations to assure our space capabili-
ties” as a top investment priority.
The phrase “bold moves in space” has
appeared in almost every speech and con-
gressional testimony by Air Force leaders
in recent weeks. “Bold moves” include
the service putting more resources into
space warfighting training and technol-
ogy. It also means departing from tradi-
tional satellite procurements and using
commercial approaches.
Congress is demanding faster mod-
ernization but it remains to be seen how
much tolerance they will have for failures
or for DoD betting on the wrong technol-
ogy. The space industry was surprised
that lawmakers did not support Air Force
plans to buy commercial communications
services instead of military satellites, but
did not challenge the service’s decision
to stop buying SBIRS missile-warning
satellites and shift to a new constella-
tion that conceivably would have more
commercial technology.
Congress in fact cut SBIRS funding
in 2018 to align with the DoD strategy.
This is significant, said Jamie Morin,
executive director of the Center for Space
Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace
Corporation. Congress is willing to give
the Air Force an opportunity to prove
it can field faster, he said. Government
programs by nature are “incremental,”
said Morin. “But the Air Force is clearly
making a serious effort to move to more
rapid acquisition.”
Shanahan suggested faster modern-
ization calls for a more aggressive use of
private-sector technology. “Our version of
R&D will be ‘rip off and deploy,’” he said.
“The mindset has always been we’ll
grow it ourselves,” Shanahan said. “What
you’ll see with the team that’s in place
is that we’ll leverage things that have
already been done. This also gives us a
chance to bring in new companies and
new ideas.”SN
With a bigger budget, DoD will be pressed to show returns
24 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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In space, no one is powerful enough to boldly go alone
Europe is getting stronger and stronger
as a global player in space and our two
flagship programs, Galileo and Coper-
nicus, are performing even better than
we expected. In October 2016, we adopted a
space strategy which set the European vision
on space. Space matters in Europe and it is a
top political priority. But the European Union’s
efforts to achieve autonomy in space don’t
mean we act in isolation.
During the extreme hurricane season
experienced by the United States in 2017,
the EU’s Earth-observation program Coper-
nicus turned out to be extremely useful and
cooperation between the EU and U.S. went
very well thanks to our agreement on data
exchange signed in October 2015. The U.S.
activated Copernicus’ emergency services as
Hurricane Harvey approached Texas in August
2017. In the next few hours, the Copernicus
team provided free, real-time, all-weather
radar satellite images of the affected areas.
They enabled first responders and rescue
management to see exactly where urgent help
was needed. As the last of Harvey’s impact
maps were being delivered, the U.S. Federal
Emergency Management Agency’s attention
had to quickly turn into Hurricane Irma. U.S.
authorities asked again to activate Copernicus’
services for rapid mapping of the hurricane,
which would go on to hit Florida. Data sharing
again went very well.
Copernicus satellites offer the most accu-
rate climate and environmental data 24/7. Its
COMMENTARY Elżbieta Bieńkowska
26 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
ESO
/N. B
ARTM
ANN
/SPA
CEEN
GIN
E.O
RG
U.S.-European collaboration led to the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system. This artist’s impression shows the view from the surface of one of the seven or more planets orbiting the ultracool dwarf star 40 light-years from Earth.
emergency services were activated four times
in 2017 in the U.S. Moreover, our cooperation
on sharing of data from Copernicus and U.S.
systems allows various science centers in the
U.S. and Europe to test, check and compare
their weather modelling programs. That’s
one of the areas where competition is useful
for all players.
But there is more to Copernicus, which is
the most comprehensive Earth-observation
program in the world today. Copernicus sat-
ellites, which make the EU one of the biggest
data providers in the world, provide information
on temperature variation, the state of forests,
and sea currents and waves. Copernicus data
is already used by thousands of entities to help
farmers decide when to plant or harvest, to
mitigate the erosion of our coasts, to fight de-
forestation. NOAA and NASA scientists already
use Copernicus data to detect and monitor oil
spills, harmful algae, measure wave heights,
wind speeds and sea ice. Sharing EU and U.S.
space data can help monitor air pollution in
our cities and climate change.
It’s worth highlighting here that we, in
the EU, have decided to make all Copernicus
data and information available globally, in a
full, free and open policy. In May 2018, we
will launch the Copernicus DIAS (Data and
Information Access Service) program, in which
several commercial consortia set up platforms
to make access to Copernicus’ data far easier
for the business community. Europe wants to
make itself an attractive place for public and
private investors, including Americans, who
want to invest in space startups and other
businesses. Venture capital investment will
be incentivized in Europe.
Europe is making great progress in satellite
navigation. The United States was a pioneer
in the field with its Global Positioning System
(GPS) for dual military and civil use. The EU
satellite navigation system Galileo is managed
by civilians and has provided data for civilian
needs since 2016.
Four more satellites were successfully
launched last year bringing the total to 22.
We plan to launch four more satellites in the
second half of 2018, heading towards full
operational capacity in 2020. I am fully con-
vinced that it will provide the most precise
navigation in the world.
SPACENEWS.COM | 27
AIRB
US
The Sentinel-2B satellite launched in March 2017 is part of Europe’s Copernicus system of Earth-observation satellites.
Galileo is making strides in the mar-
ket. About 75 million Galileo-ready mobile
phones were sold last year and 95 percent of
chipsets on the market are Galileo compatible.
Major manufacturers such as Apple, Google,
Samsung and Sony now offer Galileo-enabled
products. Users don’t have to be even aware
their devices can use both GPS and Galileo
signals. Nevertheless, users are to enjoy much
better geo-positioning thanks to combined
signals from U.S. and EU satellites.
We still need to conclude our negotiations
with the U.S., who is keen to access full Galileo
services in the robust and encrypted Public
Regulated Service signal, which will boost the
resiliency of GPS for security use by the U.S. all
over the world. One European goal for Galileo
is its permanent complementarity with GPS
and other navigation systems developed by
other countries at present and in the future.
The use of data provided by two indepen-
dent systems, Galileo and GPS, will increase
the resilience of satellite navigation, banking
applications, healthcare applications and nu-
merous others thanks to satellite positioning
data. In the near future, an emergency system
based on Galileo should be able to inform
distressed users that their emergency signals
have been received. A castaway would get
a sign that rescue responders are on their
way. The combination of GPS and Galileo
data makes positioning more reliable and
accurate. Moreover, Galileo data will be im-
proving vertical positioning, which might be
crucial in finding the exact floor where an ill
user is calling from for medical help. As free
marketers, we obviously trust that innovation
and free competition on new ideas how to
use combined GPS and Galileo data will drive
business on both sides of the Atlantic.
We also intend to strengthen the secu-
rity and defense dimension of both Galileo
and Copernicus. This includes the capabil-
ities to track space debris, protect critical
infrastructures, and ensure secure satellite
communication.
Finally, on space exploration and satel-
lite navigation the European Space Agency
— which is composed mainly of EU member
countries — cooperates with NASA on the
International Space Station, telescopes and
robotic space missions. ESA provides the ser-
vice module for the future Orion capsule and
will launch the James Webb Space Telescope.
ESA is also a crucial driver in space research
funded by the European Union. The EU, the
European Space Agency and the EU member
states’ national financing together make up
the second biggest space budget in the world.
To give a recent example of successful
collaboration between the EU and the U.S.,
the Belgian Michaël Gillon led the interna-
tional team which discovered the planetary
system TRAPPIST-1 in February 2018. While
Gillon and his colleagues are looking for new
planets using the NASA and European tele-
scopes TRAPPIST and SPECULOOS, he has
been supported by EU money. The discovery
came from cooperation between Americans
and Europeans. In space, no one is powerful
enough to boldly go alone. SN
28 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
ELŻBIETA BIEŃKOWSKA IS THE EUROPEAN UNION
COMMISSIONER FOR INTERNAL MARKET AND INDUSTRY.
COMMENTARY Elżbieta Bieńkowska
Galileo, Europe’s constellation of positioning, navigation and timing satellites, currently consists of 22 spacecraft with four more launching this year.
ESA
The Trump administration has set out a
new civil space policy. The announce-
ment and first meeting of the newly
reconstituted National Space Council
emphasized two new directions and one old
one: 1. Human spaceflight is to be focused
on the moon; 2. Direct government funding
for the International Space Station (ISS) is to
cease after 2024; and 3. The new Space Launch
System (SLS) is to be built.
If one replaces the 2024 retirement of ISS
with the 2010 retirement of space shuttle, you
pretty much have the “back to the moon” space
policy of the George W. Bush administration.
Back then, shuttle funding would be phased out
to pay for development of a heavy-lift rocket.
We know how that turned out. If these three
guidelines are followed, it will likely lead to the
end of human spaceflight by the United States
— not by intent, but by atrophy.
Let’s examine these guidelines:
1. Back to ‘back to the moon’: This will be the
third presidential declaration for this goal. The
previous two failed because of lack of funding
support and lack of political rationale. Those
go hand-in-hand. This time we actually have
less of a financial commitment to the moon,
including no plan at all for landing humans
there. That the goal lacks a political rationale
can be seen when at the most recent meeting
of the National Space Council, the moon appar-
ently was barely mentioned. The administra-
tion proposal makes the Deep Space Gateway
— initiated by the Obama administration as a
gateway into the solar system, a destination in
itself — sort of a mini-space station or platform
around the moon. The only rationale offered
thus far is that it might support robotic landers
(emphasizing putative private missions)
SPACENEWS.COM | 29
NAS
A
Back to ‘back to the moon’
COMMENTARY Louis Friedman
“From the voyages of
Columbus, to the Oregon Trail, to the
journey to the moon itself,
history proves that we have never lost by pressing the limits of our
frontiers.”
U.S. President George H. W. Bush,
announcing the Space Exploration Initiative
JULY 20, 1989
or human missions from other nations. Is
this now a sustainable rationale for what will be
a very expensive human spaceflight program?
Given current U.S. commitment to decreased
government funding and its track record on lu-
nar initiatives, other nations — European, Russia,
India and even Japan — might find in China an
alternative and more reliable leader to the moon.
2. End direct government support for the ISS: The notion is that the space station will be made
available for commercial operation and support.
What is the commerce? The aging space station’s
primary mission will soon be maintenance and
repair. Is it imagined that tourists (no more than
three at a time) will pay for that? Space station
science is good, but it has resisted any commer-
cialization or privatization. Picture-taking holi-
days in space will be far more cheaply supplied
by robotic spacecraft operated in various forms
of Virtual Reality from the ground.
3. The Space Launch System: With the aban-
donment of the Mars goal and the initial success
of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy, one has to look
hard to find the niche market that SLS will
fulfill. Is NASA likely to get big enough budget
increases in the next five years to cover both
the cost of developing SLS and the construc-
tion and habitation of its Deep Space Gateway
destination? Likely the Gateway infrastructure
will be delayed, reducing the addressable market
for the SLS even further. The Trump adminis-
tration’s proposed NASA budget indicates no
increases for the Gateway and proposes new
investment only for commercial space (one
of the few Obama administration policies ad-
opted by Trump). But those commercial space
investments are far more likely to compete
with the SLS than to create a new market for it.
In short, we have a new human space pro-
gram policy resting on three weak, artificial
legs. In the space race between humans and
robots, humans would be left badly hobbled.
Robotic lunar and Mars missions will advance
and missions seeking signs of life on astrobi-
ological targets (Mars, the ocean worlds of the
outer solar system and exoplanets) will domi-
nate exploration interest. Human spaceflight
in the near term will primarily interest those
who seek the commercial venture or private
access to space. That is, it will be confined to
Earth orbit with maybe a gimmicky trial run
around the moon.
This bodes badly for the government pro-
gram, and I fear the public interest will slip away
along with its lack of rationale and absence
of vision. Maybe that’s OK — it didn’t matter
much that the Vikings were the first Europe-
ans to make it to the Western Hemisphere,
or that a Norwegian was first to the South
Pole. The human exploration of other worlds
doesn’t have to be American just because we
were first. But it is a shame to give it up or let
it wither away in yet another unsustainable
venture of our industry. SN
COMMENTARY Louis Friedman
30 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
NAS
A/AU
BREY
GEM
IGN
ANI
LOUIS FRIEDMAN IS THE CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR EMERITUS OF THE PLANETARY SOCIETY.
“With the experience and
knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready
to take the next steps of space
exploration: human missions
to Mars and to worlds beyond.”
U.S. President George W. Bush,
announcing the Vision for Space Exploration
“This time, we will not only
plant our flag and leave our
footprints — we will establish a foundation
for an eventual mission to Mars,
and perhaps someday, to
many worlds beyond.”
U.S. President Donald J. Trump,
upon signing Space Directive-1
JANUARY 14, 2004
DECEMBER 11, 2017
SPACENEWS.COM | 31
ON THE HORIZON
DATE EVENT PLACE DATE EVENT PLACE
9-12 Earth and Space 2018earthspaceconf.mst.edu Cleveland, OH
16-19 Space Symposiumspacesymposium.org
Colorado Springs, CO
APRIL
24-27International Space Development Conferenceisdc.nss.org/2018/
Los Angeles, CA
28-014S Symposium (Small Satellites Systems & Services)atpi.eventsair.com/QuickEventWebsite-Portal/4s2018/4s
Sorrento, Italy
28-014S Symposium (Small Satellites Systems & Services)aiaa.org/SpaceOps/
Marseille, France
MAY
JULY
4-9 Small Satellite Conferencesatellite.conferenceseries.com Logan, UT
AUGUST
15-16 Space Forumwww.spaceforum.com
Luxembourg City
15-17 IAA SciTech Forum 2018 Moscow, Russia
MAY
21-234th IAA Conference on Dynamics and Control of Space Systems (DYCOSS)dycoss2018.com
Changsha, China
21-23 Global Space Applications Conferencewww.glac2018.org
Montevideo, Uruguay
22-24 Space Tech Expo 2018www.spacetechexpo.com Pasadena, CA
16-18 44th Aerospace Mechanisms Symposiumaeromechanisms.com Cleveland, OH 14 IAA Academy Day
iaaweb.org/content/view/721/948/ Pasadena, CA
14-22 42nd COSPAR Scientific Assemblyiaaweb.org/content/view/721/948/ Pasadena, CA
15-16 Satellite & Space Missions Conferencesatellite.conferenceseries.com Rome, Italy
FOUST FORWARD Jeff Foust
A phrase commonly linked to Silicon Valley
startups is “move fast and break things,”
whether those things are the old ways of
doing business or rules and regulations for
doing so. An older saying, with a similar sentiment,
is, “It’s better to seek forgiveness than get permission.”
That philosophy seems to have rubbed off on the
space industry. In early March, the magazine IEEE
Spectrum reported that Swarm Technologies, one
such Silicon Valley startup, had launched four tiny
“SpaceBee” satellites — each one-quarter the size
of a single-unit cubesat — on an Indian rocket in
January. The problem? Those satellites launched
even though the FCC had not granted authoriza-
tion for an experimental communications license
for them, citing concerns the satellites were too
small to be tracked.
Swarm Technologies has remained silent in the
weeks since the news broke, making no public com-
ment and not responding to media inquiries. The
FCC revoked an authorization it previously granted
for four more satellites, which were to launch later
this month on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. The
rest of the industry condemned the unauthorized
launch, and launch providers said they would take
additional measures in the future to ensure their
customers have all their required approvals.
A few weeks later, a much bigger company found
itself in regulatory trouble. On the March 30 launch
of 10 Iridium Next satellites on a Falcon 9, SpaceX
had to cut off live video from the rocket shortly
before the upper stage and payload reached orbit.
The company said at the time that “restrictions”
imposed by NOAA kept them from broadcasting.
It turned out SpaceX did not have a commercial
remote-sensing license that is required for broad-
casting images of the Earth from orbit. NOAA officials
said at an advisory committee meeting a few days
later that SpaceX applied for a license just four days
before the launch and, while the agency was able to
expedite most elements of the application to allow
the launch to proceed on schedule, it couldn’t give
approval for public release of the images.
In SpaceX’s case, the violation of regulations is
far less clear-cut than Swarm’s FCC transgression.
SpaceX and other launch providers had long placed
cameras on their rockets capable of transmitting
images while in space, often through payload
separation, but none had been licensed before.
NOAA officials claimed they simply weren’t aware
of those prior launch broadcasts, and the tiny office
that licenses commercial remote-sensing systems
didn’t have the resources to track them down.
That office, though, probably couldn’t avoid
noticing February’s inaugural Falcon Heavy launch.
The mission broadcast video from orbit for several
hours, showing Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster with
a spacesuit-wearing mannequin in the front seat
and the Earth frequently in the background. That
might explain why company sources say they
were only recently informed by NOAA that they
needed a commercial remote-sensing license.
Fortunately, little harm has been done, other
than perhaps to Swarm’s business prospects. The
SpaceBee satellites, it turns out, can be tracked in
orbit despite their small size, according to commer-
cial space situation awareness company LeoLabs.
SpaceX’s NOAA licensing issue is unlikely to hurt
the company in the long-term and could even
further the cause of commercial remote sensing
regulatory reform.
The incidents, though, may result in more
scrutiny of space companies by these and other
regulators, like the FAA, even as the White House
backs efforts to update and streamline rules govern-
ing commercial space activities. As the industry’s
ambitions grow, from developing megaconstel-
lations to human spaceflight, so do the risks, as
well as the consequences of not complying with
regulations. In those cases, if something goes
wrong forgiveness will be much harder to come
by than permission. SN
For commercial space, a question of forgiveness versus permission
32 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18
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