By Chris Forrester
Preston Dunlap, CEO at Arkenstone Ventures moderated the Enabling Multi-Domain Space Operations session at the Silicon Valley Space Week’s MilSat Symposium, and told delegates that “multi” had featured in almost every session at the Symposium, but that his session would drill down into what was important, and the risks and opportunities in the next decade.
Tim Sills, Lead Security Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS) that AI was the key topic and the Cloud, and making the technology available for its satellite customers and how to drive insights into usage as fast as possible, reducing latency and getting the information to where it was needed.
Dr Jun Asakawa, Co-founder/CEO at Pale Blue said it was already clear that satellite was a key infrastructure for everyone’s daily lives. But the next decade could see us wanting GPS on the Moon or Mars, and certainly beyond GEO was the next iteration.
Dr GP Sandhoo, VP and Chief Architect, Quantum Space looked at the 10-year period from the view of space and how space itself would become the biggest strategic shift and would require the support of the other crucial domains (air, maritime and Earth).
Karan Kunjar, Co-founder/CEO at K2 Space Corp. said that, for him, the biggest shift would be in LEO and how today’s presence in LEO would develop from today’s craft which handled just 1 or 2 kilowatts of power to raising that power level because almost every application needed more power. The other change over the next decade would be additional proliferation in every orbit, including GEO and beyond. “I expect some sort of race in the ‘New Frontier’ and the fastest players in this race are going to win.”
John Rood, CEO at Momentus admitted that it was difficult to highlight just one thing that would specifically change over the next 10 years, and if you spoke to the Communications guys they would name one thing, and if you spoke to the Cloud Computing folk they would choose their sector and the same with AI and so on. His bet was that today’s multi-domain activity would grow on a scale that has not yet been achieved and in a degree of sophistication and synchronicity and in all domains. “I really believe this will be the next big thing. Just look at how stove-pipe applications in space became the foundation of ever-more sophisticated applications. I think we will see AI making material differences in simultaneous domains, and this will apply in military as well as commercial. And imagine the difference that SpaceX’s Starship will make at every level. Its massive cargo capability will open up new opportunities, including debris removal and on-orbit servicing. I think these elements will blossom in a multi-domain world.”