LeoLabs: using ai to keep track of friends and enemies
Dr. Dan Ceperley, founder and COO at LeoLabs, said that AI seemed to be the hottest of hot topics and that while there seemed to be no shortage of investment cash, it was worth looking at where AI was operationally extremely useful.
LeoLabs operates a series of radars around the world to monitor satellites and debris around the clock. “This gives us a huge data set to mine and we put
a lot of effort into generating automated analysis of this data. AI enables us to take this up to another level and to augment what all the human analysts are doing.”
“But the threat landscape is changing dramatically. Satellite launches have grown every year and the situation is getting more an more congested. LEOs are getting more nimble. The fact is that it is easy for satellites to blend in, to hide. In 2019, there were 900 satellites operating in LEO. Today, it is more than 9,000, a ten-fold increase in just five years. We have to keep track of a very large, and growing, number of satellites and to identify what is a strange activity.”
Keeping track of 50 or 100 craft is relatively easy. Today’s numbers make human observation near-impossible and LeoLabs uses a variety of deep-learning and other algorithms to handle these tasks.
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
The ‘dream team” and the future for space resilience
Professor Andy Kwas, NG Fellow at Northrop Grumman, lead a panel which examined the future of sustained space resilience.
Dr. Andrew ‘Andy’ Williams, deputy Technology Executive Office (TEO) for Space S&T at the U.S. Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) admitted that it
was sometimes difficult to accurately describe ‘resilience.’ “How do I make sure the service that the warfighter depends upon is there when it is needed.”
Lt. Gen. (Rtd) Thomas J Sharpy, VP/Customer Development, Portal Space Systems, said all too often the budgets would not allow all project requests to be granted. “...everything on-orbit is a threat today.”
Richard Palmer (Deputy Director (J8) U.S. Space Command) wholly agreed — military assets needed to survive “the first punch...this is what the very first key to victory is in this domain.”
Lt. Col. Moses George, 53rd Space Operations Squadron Commander in the
U.S. Space Force, said when it came to the tactical level. “Absorbing the first punch means the entirety of the architecture... that’s what resilience is.”
Dr. Kelly Hammett, Director and Program Executive Officer, Space Rapid Capabilities Office, U.S. Space Force said everyone had to face the challenges and get things “just right.”
Todd Gossett, VP/Space & National Security Initiatives, SES Space & Defense, said that the commercial sector was aware of requirements for various layers of controls now in place, and the encryption requirements.
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
New spaceports aplenty but challenges remain
“Everything starts with spaceports,” said Chris Quilty of Quilty Space and who was the moderator of this session on future spaceport activity.
“But location is key,” said Quilty, who said he doubted whether all of them would be commercially successful.
Lloyd Damp, the CEO of Australia’s Southern Launch facilities and updated delegates to the progress made on Australia’s two pioneer spaceports.
John Leslie (the Trade & Investment Director, Space & Defence North America for the Australian Trade & Investment Commission). said Australia’ East coast was near-perfect for launches. “The challenges are huge. For the U.S. to use our Australian facilities we had to have in place suitable regulatory approvals as well as technical facilities. The regulatory negotiations started in 2018.”
Mark Lester CEO, Pantigo Lester, said that new spaceports needed common infrastructures in place. There needed to be permissions in place and confidence in a spaceport’s ability to take good care of a ‘foreign’, i.e., U.S. rocket and satellite asset. He said there are inevitable logistics costs and in getting your essential commodities to a new launch site.
Nate Gapp, Program Manager & Global Partnerships Lead, Defense Innovation Unit, Space Portfolio, said, “Establishing new launch sites was a major, major effort despite the logic of the diversification. Working with our allies helps hugely.”
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
Commercial Observation and Hyperspectral Imaging
Brian Weimer, Partner, Telecom Team Leader, Sheppard Mullin, moderated an expert panel that addressed the challenges during ‘Tooling Commercial Observation Services for Government Customers.
Frank Avila, Deputy Director, Source Operations Grp., National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, was a buyer of all aspects of imagery. He compared conventional imagery with hyperspectral to a highly detailed police fingerprint in the amount of detail possible. Calibration of the assets was crucial.
Tina Ghataore, CEO, Aerospacelab Inc., already has a series of satellites flying but wanted to satisfy government and commercial requirements. She said they constantly looked at how the end result image would be interpreted.
Alan Campbell, Principal Space Products Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS) said that they were handling hundreds of terabytes of data. AWS was enthusiastically using AI and machine learning team and in particular to enhance accuracy.
Tara Gattis, Strategic GEOINT Advisor & SME, Orbital Sidekick, was using AWS for its Cloud storage and pipeline delivery and said Orbital Sidekick would be adding new technology to its next iteration of satellites.
Askash Parekh, CCO, Pixxel, was also using AWS, although used its own ‘sandbox’ platform to make it easy for customers to access hyperspectral imagery. “At Pixxell we normally manage the data’s interpretation in 72 hours, and are working to handle different demands and most requests in 6 hours.”
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
Leading the Drive for Bold Action In Space
Lauren Barnes, President, Broadband Communications Systems, L3Harris Technologies, delivered a Prime Executive Presentation and updated delegates on how L3Harris Technologies was handling today’s space challenges and anticipating the future.
She said L3Harris welcomed the development of small satellites were enhancing information in many areas and applications and welcomed the establishment of the US Space Force, a separate branch of the military. She said the space industry needs to be bold and new initiatives were required. “The possibilities are endless.”
Barnes welcomed the growing important of space awareness which would reduce the problems of orbital mishaps. These developments, she said, reflect the dynamic and rapidly evolving nature of the space-based industry today.
“No single entity can conquer space alone. By pooling our resources, expertise and vision we can tackle the monumental opportunities that space presents. Our partnerships are not just big in scope they are also big in impact. Collectively we are driving advancements that ensure a safer tomorrow. In the space industry, being bold means taking risks and embracing new technologies and daring to venture into the unknown. Such bold initiatives must be driven by government and the industry itself. L3Harris has always been at the forefront of these bold initiatives, from developing cutting edge satellite systems to pioneering new methods for resilient communications.”
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
D0D procurement and launch choices
Jason Mello (CEO, The KMC Group) moderated the Launch Service Procurement session and said understanding what the DoD needed was extremely important.
Clint Hunt, Director, Intelligence & Defense Programs, ULA, said the DoD found itself in a different position, and while they might not be the major user of uplift services, they certainly have a vested interest in the services that are being placed into orbit today. “Reusability is simply a tool, and ULA has a strategy to reuse part of the rocket’s architecture.”
Brian Rogers, VP/Global Launch Services, Rocket Lab, said it was targeting mid-2025 for its Neutron debut launch and had some 42 satellites in its production backlog. He said space is not one place —there are many different missions, and cost-reduction is a big piece of that. There’s congestion and launch facilities overseas that could free up that congestion. Rocket Lab has its own launch site which is active every two weeks, and this could be appealing to the DoD as a one-stop shop.
Rogers praised SpaceX and the recent Starship launch and said the landing was especially spectacular. However, Starship needed filling up, and while it made sense for SpaceX to fill it with its satellites, it might not be a choice for everyone.
Dr. Anibal Villalba, Chief Strategy & Public Affairs Officer, PLD Space, said that reusability was key for his business and the consequential reduction in price should be appealing to the DoD. He said, “We need to be prepared for the threats and crisis to come.”
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
U.S. Space Force preparing for new threats
Maj. Gen. Rick Zellman, Deputy Combined Joint Force Space Component Commander at the U.S. Space Command outlined for delegates how the military had transitioned from the days of the Cold War through early satellite activity and Early Warning satellites and to today’s position, where space was tied to the strategic demands of war and protected by our nuclear deterrents.
The general said that cash had being invested over the years to ensure that space and satellite was wholly enabled via its tactical embracing of space.
The Russians today have tried to take away our advantage by interfering and countering all that we have and attempting to take our military back to the industrial age. The Chinese have really raised their game and developed sophisticated solutions. “So, what do we do?
“We have to be more resilient. Our systems were proliferated, and we have what we have! The first move is to work with our allies and working closely with them is a clear aim. On the commercial side, we have invested in a group of like-minded companies, but what we are doing is sharing some information on what we see as the threats. Then there’s the Joint Commercial Operation, with three locations (Australia, and at NATO and at Colorado Springs) and the data they receive comes from their commercial partners, and it is unclassified data and can be shared.”
The other way to work with allies is to share our warfighting thoughts but there are limitations unless it is all unclassified. He also addressed extremely up-to- date events from new threats from within the Middle East.
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
SatComs—working with government and vice-versa
Lori Gordon, Director, Space Enterprise Evolution Directorate, The Aerospace Corp. wrapped up the two previous day’s activity at the Silicon Valley Space Week and, in particular, the MilSat Symposium.
Jeremy Leader, Dep. Director/ Commercial Space Office (COMSO),
U.S. Space Force, and said his main ‘call to action’ for government was
the risk of changing — but there also a huge risk in not changing!
Alvaro Sanchez, President, Intergrasys stated his company was already a major supplier to government and those government abilities was also essential to
the commercial world. “It is not good if government is travelling at 60 mph but commercial is travelling at 150 mph and thus government will never keep up. At the end of the day, we think industry must work with government. Government can easily benefit from commercial, while companies can adapt for government and this includes cyber-security, as well as different layers of security.”
Ben Bowen, Principal Business Development Manager, Amazon Web Services (AWS) said his main ‘call to action’ was not to be intimated by early discussions with government for start-ups. AWS can help with some certifications and clarifications to help businesses navigate those first steps.
James Crean, President/CTO, Crean Inc. said the supply base had to consider scale and how to take a magnitude of costs and cycle time in what they do (with a government contract).In times of high military demand on commercial operators, he said, their spike in demand could be huge.
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
The U.S. Navy demanding more bandwidth
Kimberly Morris, Deputy, Space Operations, Naval Network Warfare Command, is currently leading an initiative to demonstrate resilient SATCOM through proactive management and control techniques by using pre-allocated MILSATCOM compatible commercial capabilities for maneuvering in space
She said, “Satcom is a huge part of what we do and thus space is a huge
part of what we do and dealing with those constraints.”
She noted that some people were talking about being at war in a couple of years. “No, we’re engaged right now.” She said these stories did not – yet – have a body count. “Now, today, in October2 024, our ships at sea are engaged in the biggest set of combat operations since World War II.”
She expected the navy to stay very much involved in narrow-band but the major aspect is the weapons systems themselves and what they need. But when it comes to high bandwidth or low bandwidth we have to know what is best and most relevant for each application and use and then have the means to immediately select the correct one for the task. We are refining this all the time.
Now, and in dialogue with the other services, we are dealing with how we can use some of the commercial techniques in warfighting applications with the resources that are available to us. We also realize and understand that we need deeper, more robust conversations with our other colleagues in this regard.
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.
Jamming of PNT is child’s play
Ahsun Murad Co-founder, President/ CEO, Optimal Satcom, said the company has grown to support a large segment of the satellite industry with enterprise-level software products and systems for resource management, service planning, optimization, and business intelligence. He moderated the Satellite Spectrum Security panel
and explained that security for satellites had totally come to the forefront since the war in the Ukraine.
Chris Badgett, VP/Technology, Kratos Space, Training and Cybersecurity, explained that even with GPS, which was now near-ubiquitous but had been suffering jamming for the best part of 20 years, is regrettably pretty easy service to jam. But GPS is one slice of a signal and beam-forming and in many cases, we have to wait for the fixes.
John White, Director/Space Projects, Aitech Defense System, said that from the hardware standpoint, there are things that can be done. These solutions will still have aspects where the satellite is vulnerable or less effective and there is no ‘one-size fits all’ solution. Worse, a fix can frequently open up other problems.
Matthew Erikson, VP/Solutions, SpiderOak, added that at SpiderOak, we are looking at how to extend the expected assurances from user to user.
Lee Kenyon, Senior Project Leader, The Aerospace Company, said that the challenge is that fielding terminals with this type of sophistication is at a cost, and the DoD has a somewhat chequered history in fielding terminals and, in particular, dynamic solutions to reflect new innovations and threats.
To read the complete MilSat Symposium posting, please access this link.