• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • NEWS:
  • SatNews
  • SatMagazine
  • MilSatMagazine
  • SmallSat News
  • |     EVENTS:
  • SmallSat Symposium
  • Satellite Innovation
  • MilSat Symposium

SatNews

  • HOME
  • Magazines
  • Events
  • Perspectives
  • Industry Calendar
    • IN PERSON
    • VIRTUAL
  • Subscribe

Air Force Leaders Fret As Another Satellite Maker Declares Bankruptcy

May 21, 2020


Intelsat

 

 

Service leaders are asking for Congressional help in shoring up the defense industrial base.

The self-congratulatory tone in Intelsat’s Wednesday press release — a restructuring “for long-term success” and “No change in our momentum, just enhanced resources to grow” — evaporated in paragraph four, which announced a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. It was the second major satellite company to declare bankruptcy amid the pandemic, a trend that worries the U.S. Air Force’s chief acquisitions executive.

Will Roper, the Air Force assistant secretary for acquisition, told reporters on Thursday that cash flow into aviation and space has “dried up significantly.” Space startups with strong commercial backing are essential to the Pentagon’s plans. But they’re also the sort of high-risk bets with long-term payoffs that look good when money is flush, less so when the world is teetering on the precipice of a global depression. 

Roper said he was particularly worried about startups that provide microelectronics for small satellites. The Air Force is speeding up contract awards to deliver cash to smaller companies, but he said that protecting the broader industrial base was more important than trying to save individual firms. “As we see the Chapter 11s, we are tracking them. But our concern as an acquisition enterprise has got to be industrial base help, not picking winners or losers with specific companies. It’s ensuring that we’re engaging to have a healthy industrial base on the other side.” 

Roper said the U.S. Air Force is pushing Congress to “engage us with additional resources” read that to mean, get more money to vulnerable companies, particularly ones that make parts for multiple programs. Exactly the form that engagement would take he did not say.

Roper also said the Air Force is worried that other nations might try to buy control of defense companies or sensitive sectors amid the pandemic. He described it as “an opportunity for predatorial tactics targeting IP that countries would not have access to otherwise. We are very mindful of that.”

By Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. 

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

Most Read Stories

  • Intelsat's Bankruptcy Court Postpones Hearing Regarding SES Unfair Practices Claim... Plus, Northrop Grumman's MEV-2 Closing On Target Satellite
  • From Baikonur, 38 SmallSats Preparing For Push To Orbit By GK Launch Services
  • UPDATE: They Go Up So Fast... Rocket Lab Enjoys A Six Smallsat Launch Success...
  • Aussie's Spiral Blue Computers Partner With Polish SatRevolution STORK Satellites
  • Morgan Stanley Research/ Tesla Inc: SpaceX, Telecom and Cars: Seven Key Thoughts

About Satnews

  • Contacts
  • History

Archives

  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020

Secondary Sidebar

x
Sign up Now (For Free)
Access daily or weekly satellite news updates covering all aspects of the commercial and military satellite industry.
Invalid email address
Notify Me Regarding ( At least one ):
We value your privacy and will not sell or share your email or other information with any other company. You may also unsubscribe at anytime.

Click Here to see our full privacy policy.
Thanks for subscribing!