By Chris Forrester
Silicon Valley Space Week’s Milsat Symposium 2024 opened October 23 with a compelling session (‘Optimized Creation of DoD Compliant Satellite Systems’) and a packed auditorium for its outstanding panel of industry experts.
Moderator Janna Lewis, SVP/Policy & General Counsel, Astroscale US, told delegates that the topic was highly relevant and crucial in knowing how to satisfy the Dept. of Defense in its aim to achieve compliant systems.
Col. Nathan Iven, CTO/Innovation Officer, US Space Force, was asked what is driving the DoD’s needs. “The real driver for us is providing capability for the joint force in the face of a threat. The challenge from China, for example, has grown 500%, and they increasingly test us as does Russia with electronic warfare.” He added that compliance was establishing the very minimum requirements and understanding how the end result would be used.
Debra Facktor, Head of Airbus US Space Systems, Airbus US Space Systems, and asked whether industry understood the needs, said it came down to the ‘Why’ of what was required to be done. She explained that there are plenty of example of satellites that also needed protection, not least Weather satellites as well as communication craft. Cyber compliance is crucial so that we, and our international partners, can meet the DoD goals. She said the government’s ‘industry days’ were perhaps too few, and the more that dialogue took place, including at events like this, then the better the outcome. “The more dialogue helps eliminate confusion and mostly it is having access.”
Jonny Dyer, CEO, Muon Space, addressed the threat landscape and said that better education for commercial suppliers as to the threats is important, but there’s a huge part to play for commercial suppliers because we can move rapidly and we’ve seen this demonstrated in the Ukraine and adaptability and agility when addressing the underlying landscape is very important. “There’s a perception that small companies like ourselves don’t like firm and fixed price contracts, but in reality cost-plus contracting is extremely difficult and probably impossible, frankly, for us. But we can rapidly deliver solutions to government customers and we’d like government to look at and move away from cost-plus and put in place firm, fixed price, contracts.”
Maj.Gen. Steve Butow, Space Portfolio Director, Defence Innovation Unit (DIU) was asked whether there was a tension between the DoD and its commercial suppliers when the supplier might not be aware of the larger picture. He admitted this could be the case because in many ways “We are building the airplane when it is already in flight”. The Space Force does an extraordinary job and are very forward in adopting commercial solutions, but remember that our requirement for compliance is so that we can procure. The DoD is not, however, a regulator. The satellite builders are already required to be ‘compliant’ in order to get into orbit. It is our job to build bridges between the commercial sector and the Defense sector.
David Langan, Co-founder and CEO, Umbria told delegates that the first task was to study what was required, and to fully understand whether it was Cyber security and to know what had been achieved in the past and, of course, to come back to first principles and perhaps to look at new ways to move forward and achieve what the customer needed in terms of compliance and that’s faster, more effective and keeps costs down. “I don’t think anyone on the procurement side is looking just to tick boxes. In my experience everyone is looking to make progress.”
Langan highlighted the additional challenges that cost-plus placed on a supplier, not least the regulatory burden. It drives a completely different mindset that is often the antithesis of efficiency and in some ways incentivises bad habits.”
Johann Bradley, Technical Consultant, Brainstorm Technologies, said communications were key and while initial requests were valuable, he also liked government reference architecture for what were often complex tasks. “For the future, he welcomed the systems now in place where knowledge and progress could be shared and which allowed communication from both sides. I remain optimistic.”