Conference on Small Satellites, Day 2

8/15/06

This morning, Kris Winkler and I presented our paper, “Microspacecraft and the Vision for Space Exploration.” It was very well received. We owe major thanks to our employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, for sponsoring our efforts. (The paper, it must be noted, does not reflect the company's positions, only those of the authors).

Other highlights:
General Lance Lord (ret.) , formerly Commander, Air Force Space Command, said, “There are small satellites, but no small missions.”
According to Gen. Lord, this is the point at which to shape the future: small satellites are increasingly accepted, and the pace of change in space is accelerating. Smallsats are best for high-risk R&D, testing and training of space professionals, and some military applications.
Smallsat promoters have to answer the big questions of the near future: how can smallsats help deter enemies? How can they help the individual warfighter? How can they make force applications more precise? If we can answer these questions, resources to develop small space systems will follow.
He stressed the importance of a good concept of operations established between the satellite provider and the warfighter before war begins. This was done with GPS before the shooting started in the first Gulf War. The same idea applied to civilian applications.
In response to a question on what the space industry will look like in 15 years, he said that, if we stay the current course, it will be a future of incremental improvements, not transformation.

The man who provided Lord’s introduction was Utah Congressman Rob Bishop. I had a chance to ask him whether the proposed $2B supplemental for NASA was likely to pass. He said, “no,” but he thought it was important and was willing to fight for it.

Presentations on the use of multiple payload mounting and ejection systems came from Jeffrey Roddish of NASA Goddard and Mike Marlow of the USAF’s SMC/Det 12, who manages the STP/SIV standardization initiative. Gene Katz of CISSP (General Dynamics C4 organization) provided an introduction to the use of information assurance (IA) principles in space systems, emphasizing how strictly DoD was insisting they be applied in military space systems and how system designers “need to be paranoid” about information threats.
Mark Wilkinson of the Space Dynamics Laboratory discussed what a purely tactical satellite reconnaissance system, as opposed to current ones oriented toward strategic reconnaissance, would look like. Principles offered included more on-board processing, direct downlink to mobile, simple ground terminals, and a focus on speed over detail.
Alex De Silva of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) presented the results of experiments by SSTL on studying the reflection of GPS and other GNSS signals from the Earth’s surface. SSTL has determined that this “free” resource provides accurate ocean surface data (wind speed and direction and wave height) information on the moisture content and height of land formations. Experiments to measure the thickness of sea ice by this method are still ongoing.