BETTING ON A DREAM · Relativity Space, a company using 3D-printing technologies to manu-facture...

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

“It’s a larger investment than Elon Musk made in SpaceX. We’re way beyond that.”

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

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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.

@SpaceNews_Inc youtube.com/user/SpaceNewsInc linkedin.com/company/spacenewsFb.com/SpaceNewslncFOLLOW US

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

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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.

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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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BLU

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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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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

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10 | SPACENEWS 04.09.18

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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

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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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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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