Gordan Kordyak, executive agent for space domain awareness, U.S. Space Force, joins a Center for Strategic and International Studies online panel discussion on “Space Situational Awareness and Space Traffic Management Coordination Among US Agencies,” November 17, 2020.
Transcript
Also, it looks like most people have gotten known by now, So I will go ahead and kick things off. I wanna welcome everyone. My name is Todd Harrison. I’m director of the Aerospace Security Project here at C s. I s on. It’s my pleasure to be the moderator for the event today entitled Space Situational Awareness and Space Traffic Management Coordination among US government agencies. Uh, and, uh, Thio have this discussion. We’re so happy that we’ve gotten representatives from the three key government agencies that are really involved in this transition on the management and the use of space situational awareness data across the U. S. Government. So please join me. I will go through on welcome each of our Panelists on. Then we will begin our discussion. So first of all, I wanna welcome Laurie Newman. She manages NASA’s Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis Program, which provides safety of flight services for NASA’s on crewed missions. She’s also the agency’s point of contact for space sexual racial awareness for a crewed missions as part of the agency’s enterprise protection program. Next up, wanna welcome Gordon Cardiac, who’s a senior material lead in division chief running the space and missile system Centers Space Domain Awareness Division on California. He’s responsible for the development and sustainment of the U. S. Space forces Broader dedicated space domain awareness, global architecture. Er, Mr Cardiac is also dual hatted as thes Space forces Executive agent for space domain awareness charged with the lining internal and external space for stakeholders to establish an integrated and capable into end space domain awareness enterprise. And I also wanna welcome Mark Daly. Hey is the deputy for operations in the U. S. Department of Commerce Office of Space Commerce, where he is establishing the Department of Commerce presence out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, which will provide critical interface for the civilian to military operations for space situational awareness and space traffic management. Eso as you can see, just by reading through all of their bios we have exactly the right people here. Toe have this discussion today, So I wanna welcome all of you. Thank you for joining us. Um And Mark, let’s kick off the discussion with you. If you wouldn’t mind giving our audience an overview of space policy Directive three. What that means for how the U. S government is gonna handle space, situational awareness and space traffic management on the status of transitioning those functions from the Department of Defense to the Department of Commerce. So mark over to you. Thank you, Todd, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. It’s part of the CFCs Webinar on space Situational awareness, space traffic management coordination among US agencies. Um, and I’m pleased to be joined by my colleagues Gordon and Laurie, which I worked with quite extensively going back toe Space policy. Directive three was issued in June of 2018 to address the increasing congested space environment. Sure, in long term sustainability of space activities for all nations, SPD three specifically states to ensure the coordination of space traffic in the future operating environment and recognition of the need for D o D. To focus on maintaining access into freedom of action in space. A civil agency should be the focal point for collision avoidance. Support services and the Department of Commerce shall be that agency SPD three Specifically task D o. C and D o D on two areas. Cooperatively developing a plan for basic SS A and STM services directly or through partnerships with industry and academia and also the coordination and development of standards and protocols for creation of an open architecture data repository to improve S s a interoperability and enable greater s s a data sharing. Since that speedy three, our partnership with D. O. D. And NASA has grown even stronger. We recently hosted General Dickinson, the commander of U S Space Command of Commerce, and participated with General Raymond, chief of space operations in the U. S. Japan Comprehensive Space Dialogue in Tokyo to explain our collective plans. We’re currently working on a memorandum of understanding with D o D in order to detail our transition over the next few years. In addition, toe my interactions at the Combined Space Operations Center in 18 Space Control Squadron, Vandenberg Commerce is also participating in a number of experiments and exercises designed to help understand how to incorporate government as well as commercial capabilities. Gordon I talk on a regular basis and look to coordinate, consult and leverage activities from the D. O D. A. NASA NASA’s leadership in particularly the senators that Godard and names have been incredibly helpful in reviewing our approaches and initial o er architectural concepts. Lori and I talk also on a biweekly basis to explore lessons learned and how we can leverage lessons learned and improve the operations for the future. OSC s work is also continues with other federal partners like the State Department and FAA around international guidelines and supporting cooperation that will be essential to space flight safety. Our efforts on standards continues with the FAA and others way Look, we work with other organizations such as Antsy Space Safety Coalition, a STM International and recently the I S O has has had a stud middle for a space traffic coordination and management standard. We look to try toe pursue standards on a voluntary and consensus basis, but also trying to make sure that we get industry’s best practices as we move forward. Titled 51 U. S. Code has long provided authorities to the Office of Space Commerce the foster conditions for economic growth and technological advancement of US based commerce, industry streamline and anticipate licensing, regulatory and export reforms and also promote international norms, standards and sustainable practices. So as we’ve been developing things, one of the issues that came out in the FBI 20 appropriations language was for Napa, the National Academy of public administration to assess OSC s role in the S a S T m environment. Um, they started off activities in March, conducted hundreds hundreds over 100 interviews with various stakeholders from not only government but also industry academia. Andi came up with their findings at the end of August. The senior panel of senior government officials unanimously agreed that Docs Office Space Commerce was best suited to perform the space traffic management task within the federal government. The Apple study highlighted oh SCS concept of operations using a collaborative approach involving the military, civilian commercial and industry, but also drawing upon the department’s resource isas well. Noah currently operates AH number of satellites, a civilian weather satellites but also is responsible for space weather capabilities as well. In its Space Weather Prediction Center, this has expertise in cybersecurity and standards evaluation, and M T A has policy efforts related to radio frequency interference. But there’s also a broader D O. C. Discipline of collecting complex data sets, analyzing them and providing them to the broader public for dissemination. Then, after study had urged Congress to immediately enact appropriations to oversee Thio, build the critical capability necessary for the personnel in infrastructure to carry out these responsibilities for the whole of government for S s a N S t m. We’ve moved quickly recently over the last several months. You know, building off of the Napa experience that’s allowed us to kind of formalize some of our initial concepts and plans as to how to actually build this, Um, s S a S t m leveraging what? What d o d has has already put in place in some of its capabilities as well. We put together a plan for the next several years. Azzawi started to try to move out. We’ve looked at legal authorities and try to verify that we do have sufficient authorities to execute the SPD three mission. We’ve also collected inputs across the U. S. Government to establish kind of the baseline assumptions that we would need for how the model would actually operate and function. We put together our initial plans, um, developed a initial concept on what the architectural layout would actually be inputs from dia de nasa as well as FFR RBC participants. We’ve also leveraged no, a big data project which is a cloud environment, and put out one data set related Noah. Space weather is kind of initial concept on you know how things could actually operate. We’ve also, you know, interjected with with craters for R and D and the academia as well as even some of the commercial companies that have like minded approach is that it would be useful as we start to try toe put together the O A. D. R. And next week in particular, were having an industry day toe further refine the development and concepts as we start to move out, um, branded. You know, we’re still awaiting funding for the F Y 21 appropriation, but still trying to get industries inputs, our initial concepts that we’ve developed internally inside the U. S. Government. So thank you, Tom. All right, Thank you for that, Mark. Um, let’s see. Next, Gordon. I’m gonna go to you, You know? Is our space force representative on the panel on? See if you could give us some sort of the historical context about the S s A and s t m. Mission on how that has evolved into what you know, we’re now calling space domain awareness. Uh um And you know what are some of the things that D O. D is going to continue to do, even though some of these functions are transitioning over to commerce. So over to you, Gordon. Thank you, Todd. And I just want to echo Marcus comments and how privileged I feel to be here with with Mark and Lori, but also representing Space Force and speaking at C. S, S C. S. I s, uh the history for space traffic management within the Department of Defense is one that that goes back decades to the eighties. And it’s closely linked with NASA as we stand up the first beginnings for on orbit conjunction assessment and keeping objects in space from running into each other. Over that time, this partnership has stayed strong with NASA and has continued to thio grow and evolve and mature. Um, if I step back from that general statement within, um, my broader portfolio, we manage a a global network of sensors, radars, telescopes, different phenomenology ease that air ground based and space based, and we orchestrate those sensors. We take the data that’s coming off of them, and we we aggregate it and provide it into operational squadrons like you have at the 18th based Control Squadron out of Vandenberg and ultimately generate the basis by which we have an understanding of the space domain. That understanding historically has materialized in two ways. One is tied to work being done in a public service model through websites like Space Track Yorg, where we put lower fidelity yet very important information out to the public community for managing risk to their roger architectures in the space domain. Separate from that, we manage a higher or we work with operations to facilitate data that allows a higher level of accuracy and information when we call special perturbations that generates, uh, all right CD EMS conjunction data messages that ultimately hand off to NASA and become the basis by which NASA and others within the community be a public or private government or not, helped to accept risk and ultimately make decisions about how to manage their consolation on orbit. This process of something that’s evolved over the last 30 years and its core and fundamental to the what was historically within space force called the Space Situational Awareness Mission today, or rather about a year ago leading up through today, this recognition was made that just simply managing objects and space isn’t satisfactory enough. We need to have a deeper, more proactive, resilient response to objects and events on orbit and understanding from a defense perspective, if something that maneuvers is doing so for a hostile purpose or not. And in parallel with that realization understanding it was decided from a doctrine perspective that space situational awareness would be rebranded to space domain awareness about a little over a year ago. In context of that rebranding space, domain awareness Now is is really taking space traffic management functions. But taking also intelligence data blue for status, status, data, environmental monitoring data and aggregating all together to get the most real time picture of what’s happening and to allow us to have, like to call Israel time to main control and understanding at any point in time of what is actually happening in the space domain and is it hostel or is it not? But as we’ve, we’ve pursued that activity and and sought to deliver that more responsible, proactive nature for the mission. The realization is, the architecture we have is getting stretched. It is the most capable in the world today, but it has to be able to handle not just a wartime load, but also it handles the public service. And the work has been done for decades that I described earlier So in the context of Space Policy Directive three and the stand up of Department of Commerce to take on space traffic management functions for civil commercial aspect, we really see a partnership occurring across multiple departments and U. S government agencies here with D O. C. With NASA with D o. D and others to to say, How do we load balance? How do we share the responsibility of this mission that is becoming more challenging as objects in space get smaller as threats get smaller as timelines to respond, sketch to respond to the threats get shorter. How can we take the resource is within the department of Fence and focus those on the tactical, uh, nature and the national security interest that we have to be responsible for? Generally, we could all call this protect and defend operations. How do we manage the protection and defense of our on orbit assets if we focus on that responsibility now? Department of Commerce comes online and helps us cover down on the civil commercial aspects and together managing ah, common set of capabilities and data sets and working in partnership with each other. Thio drive the mission forward. We can cover down on this expanding mission that really takes on so much more than it did 40 years ago. I do talk. All right, Thank you. And then, Laurie, I want to go to you next s o. I want to get your perspective because NASA not only participates, you know, and the analysis of S s a data, but NASA is itself a user of s s a products s. I was hoping you could talk about this from a user perspective on then. Also, share you know, your perspective on what is the importance of S s a to the space environment and to commercial and civil applications in space. So, Laurie, over the sure thanks very much for inviting me toe be part of the discussion today. A zoo said NASA’s on the user side of this, but we also have some overlap with some analysis, and Gordon has alluded to some of that. But basically regularized conjunction assessment was originally developed in the 19 eighties, a za partnership between D, O. D. And NASA in order to protect humans and space. So this included development of the higher accuracy, or sometimes called special perturbations based object catalog, and a message called the Orbital Conjunction Message, which is the precursor to the conjunction data message that we all use today. Um, there’s also to line elements. There’s a catalog of those that air publicly available, but those lack of co variance and they’re not of sufficient accuracy to perform CIA computations. So Tilly’s weren’t developed for that reason and therefore should be used for see a risk assessed. But the CIA process really has three steps. Uh, the first one is called Screening. Um, it involves comparing the trajectory of the protected asset against the trajectories of all the other objects in the catalog to predict when close purchase will occur. So massive relies on D. O. D to maintain that catalog, and we have our own personnel who performed the actual screening activity. But they sit at Vandenberg right next to the 18th Space Control Squadron staff and use the same catalog in the same software. So then the second step of the process is risk assessment. So, um, NASA performs this step ourselves. We do this for NASA at Goddard as part of my Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis Program, the care program for all the national missions, except for those who are affiliated with human spaceflight and those air supported out of NASA Johnson by the flight dynamic staff there. So this risk assessment step is critical because C. D. M’s require further analysis to determine whether the predicted close approaches require mitigation either due to geometry or inherent uncertainties in orbit determination or other factors. Um, all of which together indicate the presence of a high likelihood of collision. So CTM should not be considered to be stand alone warnings of an impending collision. They really require this extra analysis. So in addition to doing that, operations work on a day to day basis assed part of this partnership. Ness also has research and development team who’s actively seeking to improve algorithms and processes for our CIA operations, and often we share data with D o d to try toe have ah, bigger set to analyze and, um, this the benefits all of our organizations. So the third step of the process is, um, mitigation, So that’s really the responsibility of the owner. Operator CARE is more of a middleman organization in between the screeners and the the owner operator. But we assist in the mitigation process by creating trade spaces that indicate the appropriate size and timing of maneuvers that will lower the collision risk to an acceptable level. So, um, we are an end user of the current dirty see a process and, we contend, intend to continue using that existing service. Um, that’s obviously possible for us because we have our own staff on site at Vandenberg who performed this function for us and will continue to partner with D o d to perform data analysis now algorithm development. Um, and a smart mentioned we’ve been sharing lessons learned with Department of Commerce as they work to establish an architecture that makes their vision of the future. And, um, we’ll keep track of that as it continues to develop and once it developed, if if it needs are needs, then we’ll use that process is well, so, um, but NASA has this 30 year history of performing conjunction assessment, and we’re anxious. Thio share that with the growing hundreds based operators that are better. It’s continuing to grow. We’ll be publishing a handbook in the coming week or two. That explains the process that NASA uses for our own conjunction investment in the hopes that that’s educational for other space operators. And we also have a public facing software repository that contains many of our algorithms packaged up with test data that could be used by other space operators in their systems. So thanks very much great. Andi, Thank you, Lori, for that perspective as well. So I want before I open it up for questions from the audience, and I see we’ve already got some great questions coming in. Esso, Those of you out there on Zoom if you hit that Q and a button at the bottom of your window, you can see the questions that have already been asked. You can up vote them or you can type in your own question as well. Um, but before we go to those, I’ve got, of course, a few questions of my own. The first question, and really this is Tau Tau, all three of you, but I’ll start with Mark. What is the anticipated role for commercial s s a systems. That’s one of the That’s been one of the interesting developments over the past several years is that commercial companies have been developing their own S S A capabilities. Ground based radars, optical telescopes. Uh, they’re producing their own data. Uh, you know, I just wanted to get your thoughts as well as the other Panelists on How does that factor into this transition of SS A and STM to the Department of Commerce? And what role did those companies play? Eso. So there we look at it is vital toe, not only our mission and also kind of direction, not of SPD three. Um, you know, we’ve we’ve got to split between what we call the basic Service and advanced services. The basic being what? What? The government would actually fund a Z. We move forward. You know, we’d like to try to leverage the networks of commercial data providers that are actually out there. Um, if we can vet the information and make sure that it still provides the same level of service that we actually have from the data sources that the government already has that Gordon was talking about on the SSN network, you know. So we’re looking at kind of a initial, you know, roll out of, you know, starting with kind of the taking over the C. D. M dissemination mission for civil and commercial actors. That’s mostly gonna be d o D. Based. And then look at a way to try to incorporate the commercial data. Eso not necessarily have a dependency on the d. O d network so that they can use it for other purposes as well. But we’re also looking at, you know, the opportunities that would allow the commercial marketplace toe actually grow. Um, you know, a zagoria pointed out, You know, the conjunction data messages, you know, is just one element of trying to get toe space traffic management. There’s there’s many different mission sets that are going to come forward many different products as well. Being able Thio establish an open architecture data repository that enables the development of these new tools and services, um, toe other things that we may not have actually envisioned initially. But we’re trying to do this balance between making sure that the basic service, um, does not impede the emergence of a larger space safety marketplace itself. eso allow those companies and all to come in and compete, Um, but also making sure that we have an R and D environment Thio allow those Those companies toe also flourish as well. Onda Take advantage of academia Providing data sets that academic and leverage to provide additional insights to improve not only the basic service but also allow for the development of the advanced service is very important to get to the point where we’re not only providing a reliable and trustworthy basic service for space flight safety, but also allowing for the incorporation of new technologies. Is things rapidly changed? A zoo? We move forward to improve safety and stability in the space operating environment. So, Gordon or Lori, do you have anything you want to add to that? Gordon. Yeah, I’d be happy. Thio Ah, first, before I jump in tow the role of commercial specifically, I think it’s it’s important to frames and context from a duty perspective. The use well historically have traditional data. What’s considered internal Space force Air Force data sets that are known understand it. We call them trusted. Then you have non traditional data sets that come from third parties could be coalition could be commercial. It could be a nontraditional sources that we don’t know understand every inch of the pipeline from when that piece of data was collected. Toe one is being exploited. How in the d o d we leverage trusted versus non trusted data really drives our paradigm, Uh, and how we consider using commercial data in the future for me, from a defense perspective, I orient around I think of a pyramid, and the foundation of that pyramid is tied to, ah, government architecture of sensors that sees out into outer space and tracks objects and gives us awareness of what’s happening. It’s important to have that architecture in place. And it’s why the duty will always have a role within space traffic management because our risk posture and from an office perspective and our data policies for sharing information using information, restrict the amount of of risk that we can accept in making decisions, much like in the air community. I’m not gonna put a bomb on target without having a d o d sensor that that validates that target. Same thing on the space side. I’m not gonna make a decision about a maneuver and space is being hostile or not. Unless I have a trusted sensor that we know we could make that decision with. I’m not saying that’s always going to be the case in the future, but today it is what guides our methodology and our approach, and so that paradigm is something that is being looked at and is evolving. The same type of paradigm changes are happening when it comes to different ways to exploit, uh, non d o d sense resources as well as data services. And that’s really where we jump into the commercial aspects of things for me today, as we there is not a probably more important conversation that I have with folks in the role of commercial data, whether it’s engaging with congressional congressional staffers or general officers at the senior Space Force level or stakeholders and peers across the SDA community, the question is not Will we learn how to use commercial there? Will we use it? The question is what is going to have to happen in order? Thio allows to most effectively augment our architectures with commercial sources. Today we’re looking at ways to aggregate data through commercial uh, commercial data sets and other sources. Through these things, Universal data access points we call the Unified Data Library. It is a paradigm changing capability that gets us out of stovepipes, for sharing data and into a common, authoritative source that allows us now to look at what the multiple types of information from multiple sources and embed it in a way that our new concepts are new paradigm, changing ways, doing, say, space domain awareness can can you played out to help us exploit the latent potential every data set, commercial, coalition or other? On top of that commercial is more than just the data it provides. And certainly it can provide support to us from Leo Orb regime all the way out to the moon. It’s also about the services that they provide and where they’re talking about characterization, patterns of life combat. I’d exploitation of data from like, say, an artificial intelligence perspective or from, uh, offloading or potentially augmenting the basic functions that we do within the D. O. D. Today. Using commercial services to take care of those activities allows us to have better understanding awareness and allows us to tap into innovation of industry so that we can focus. Our resource is what they are anyways on events that happened in space. And so we can also load, balance and share and cover down on the the demands the entire domain, which on a day by day basis is getting more complex. So I think commercial is going to have a very rich and necessary role in the future. Today we’re learning how to change the paradigm so that we can accept commercial data and services and have it be in line with our systems to facilitate operations. And we’re working to have that conversation away. That’s really gonna looking and needing to be respectful of a commercial companies business model. And there we recognize there has to be a conversation there of how we can accept data from a commercial provider as well as how we can satisfy the equities of the D. O. D. And the national security space needs. So all that together is is a rich conversations playing out today, and it’s gonna be very important in the near future as we really scale toe meteo the impending threats that we look at the head of us. Laurie, I wanna go to you next to get your thoughts on commercial s s A data, especially from a NASA perspectives. A user of data. Um, and also, if you wouldn’t mind talking a little bit about how NASA views international s s a data sources, eso, sources there, they’re coming from foreign governments or foreign companies on how that data can or should be used. Sure. So, obviously, as I said, we’re ah, user of the D o D. Service. We consider that to be our baseline as it’s stated in the national space policy. So we will always continue to use that data. Um, that said, we see all these new sources of information coming available, and we’d like to be ableto see where we can make use of those. So we have been actively working, um, at the 18th space facility in Vanderburgh to merge. Um, other data sources in with E space surveillance network data source that the D o. D. Has s so that they could be, um, putting the same pot if you will and then make one or determination solution that comes off of the combined data set. We feel it’s really important to have one definitive data source instead of having multiple solutions from multiple sources because that becomes confusing for users. And hopefully there’s no truth data because that would mean there’s a collision. Then we don’t all want to go there. But, um, that does make it hard to decide what did it to you. So combining them, we think, is the best method. We could also get products from commercial users, such as FM charities that could be combined instead of the royal tracking observations. But, um, that makes it more complicated. It requires more extensive validation, and it’s not as easy to produce a product that we could then go and propagate forward and do things with. So um, that’s that’s been an important factor in how we decided to do this and also making sure that the data is calibrated when it comes in as a send sensors air all calibrated. And we want to make sure that if we’re mixing data that we have the same level of confidence in the data that we’re mixing in, so that’s really important for us from an international perspective. Um, we work very closely with um, several international partners on safety of flight, both Not really from a data acceptance perspective. Because, like I said, we’ve been, um, using the d o d model, um, and whatever data the d o d chooses to include, um, then we would get to take advantage of, but, uh, the Europeans, um can s in particular has ah, very robust process that they’ve been using the you folks. And so it’s always beneficial for us to share, um, lessons learned and experiences with our counterparts there and, um, be able to maximize safety flight by sharing and cooperating. We also have joint missions where we share data with our international counterparts, and, um, so that’s very helpful. A swells. That’s really how we get involved with the international community. I wanna go quickly a question I see from the audience. It’s got a lot of up votes, Gordon. I think you’re the one to answer this, um, is the space fence online? And when should we expect the public catalog to start listing the thousands of new objects it should be able to track? So before I jump to that question, I just want a key on something that that lower said that’s important. Uh, when we talk about using the data coming off of international sensors or are the rather than the sensors from our allies or from commercial sources? Historically, we’ve we’ve put in place this this process that is time consuming and requires us to have trusted, um, Christine understanding of the sensors, data integrity. And we call this numeric validation. Today we’re working to change the paradigm so that instead of having a small team of people that are, experts in the field of data validation were now using commercial tools to manage the tolerances and the biases of a data set. Thio baseline it over time and to manage it within tolerance of that baseline. And rather than having to pristinely validate every sensor step before I can add it into the mix, the about authoritative set of data now I can look at is the sensors data set consistent over time. If it is great, let’s use it. If it’s not, let’s excise it out. Let’s fix it and let’s put it back in. And in doing that, we can now accelerate the timelines like we can reduce our barrier to entry. Are risk threshold to exploit data more readily in supportive any number of needs Whether a d o d national security fence need whether a NASA, uh, safety flight need or a DSC civil commercial STM function Ah, when we talk about the d. O d architectural specific space fins to your question is by far our newest and shiniest new sensor in the architecture er it just went operational in the last year. And we have, uh, continue to get data off of it and, uh, understand that data and engage that data for use in space traffic management. The challenge and the unique of any, uh, consideration of any sensor is that when it goes online, it always has to be dialed in. There’s a difference between what is, um, projected our model performance in a data set. And what is the real performance? And this is a very natural part of managing sensor architectures. Spaceman is seeing objects that more objects and we’ve ever found in low earth orbit, and it’s seeing objects out to has ability to the objects out into geo. And so, as we baseline that sensor and we roll it into the architecture er today, we’re continuing to understand the data that comes off of it. We’re learning how to operate it in the terms of a of its new capabilities, inherent capabilities for a search based operations and ultimately, as that data feeds into the 18 Space Control Squadron, and they use it for space traffic management today. The data then augments the catalog and gets pushed down the spacecraft dot org’s. I think we’re still, uh, in terms of F Y 21 fiscal 21 of Of Seeing That Data Start toe pop out in space track dot or GTA today, it’s still going to that that validation or excuse me, the the refinement process, if you will, to make sure that when we understand how are using that data, it is consistent. We understand information coming off, and we can use it to quickly facilitate the broader mission needs of 18. Alright, great. And Mark, I wanna go to you next with the question SPD three said that you know these functions should transfer to Department of Commerce You mentioned before the NAPA study that also analyzed this s o. You know, if you will just help us understand why is this going to commerce? Why that particular agency. Why change? And why this agency in particular? Yeah. So there are a couple couple reasons right off the bat, you know, was initially stated. You know, one was toe transition. Some of these functions, you know, from D o d toe focus more on the national security aspects of the mission is Gordon points out, space traffic management is is across the board. There’s there’s many folks that they’re they’re, you know, still, uh, key Thio, making sure that actually takes place. Um, a couple of the issues that have been raised is one you know, trying to find a civil agency to actually do the mission. The focus on D. O. C. Was not only our commercial responsibilities of trying to promote the commercial space US space industry, but also trying to provide some innovative approaches with data management. We look at this predominantly is a data management problem. I’m trying to make sure that we’re able toe collect information provided out and enable uh, you know, the industry thio move off from from that norm toe. Other areas of focus, um, it was also looked at two is to not kind of trying to define a large bureaucratic structure, but it’s still trying to foster a collaborative environment where we’re a trusted conveyor coordinator and provider of leadership for not only domestic but also internationally as well. So U s still has that that leadership role across the international community. As Gordon and Loria pointed out, You know, that this mission said has been done for a number of years is established, You know, the current state of play. But the environment is changing. There’s Mawr and Mawr satellites being launched, its becoming mawr congested. There’s large constellations that air going up. But it’s also an international problem, too. You know, we do not control space. There’s a bunch of countries that share access to and operate in the It’s not like airspace. Um, and a Zai stressed, you know, you know, we were looked at from not only the capabilities within department from the various bureaus, but also a primary, uh, expertise in the Department of Commerce Is the ability to manage these large, diverse datasets and provide that on out. So not only the NSA and STM, um, abilities within the department within Noah, but also trying to deal with large data sets set for All right. Um, yeah. And so next question. I’ve got a couple of questions here from the audience, and Loria is hoping you could take a stab at this. Questions about active debris removal. Uh, and you know, when is that going to make it into this conversation? Eso You know, right now we talk about space situational awareness. It’s really just, you know, we’re just tracking what objects air up there where they’re going on. You’re trying to highlight potential collisions. Um, you know, when do you think active debris removal is gonna, you know, advanced enough that that can actually start to play a role and removing some of these objects before we have conjunctions. So I know that’s ah, big area of research. Right now, there’s a lots of good ideas being tossed around and certainly the desire to avoid the Kessler syndrome and take some of these objects out of space before they do harm. Um, NASA, though, does not have an active area there, and, uh, using active twice. But active debris removal was not really part of the NASA portfolio, so I can’t really comment on that. We tend to break things up into two areas. One is and or the orbital debris program office down at NASA, Johnson looks at the orbit environment and how it’s predicted out into the future. And then my group and the group down at JSC looks at well in orbit discrete objects and how to mitigate conjunctions with those. But unfortunately I can’t speak thio active debris removal was perfect. Gordon, can you shed any light on that? Or is there any work going on at SMC thinking about active debris removal? So, in general, my exposure thio 80 our activities has really been in the context of small business innovation activities and contracts. We have a great relationship with the EU and AF works and have launched so many new contract actions related to everything from unique data exploitation capabilities two new transport and calm to pass SDA data to, you know, looking now, even at the potential for R f i D tags to put on satellite so that we can understand the exact position of an object in space for it gets there today within operations. We, uh, look at it all the all catalog, if you will active and debris and potentials for collisions across all those residents based objects. And that environment is getting mawr and mawr congested and more challenging. And so I to me, a logically make sense. This is just me personally talking, not not a official line of the Space Force, but to me, it makes sense that we’re going to look at that direction. I think one of the logical ways to get after those technologies would be through those cyber, uh, initiatives that I just mentioned before. And I have seen some of those pop up, so I’d be interested. I do think it has alignment with this broader mission. Be that on the d o d o d o c side of the house. I think that could all play out in the future, but still the thought of of not just tryingto manage it a demand that gets evermore congested. But helping to thin out that domain to give us a better understanding and insight may be a viable approach to take from a national security defense defense spaces, But perspective. Okay, Um, yeah. So my next question really is about some of the nomenclature that’s being used here. So we’ve thrown around several different related terms here. Space situational awareness, space domain awareness, space traffic management. Um, I want to get each each of your Panelists perspectives on. Why do you use certain terminology when you talk about it from your organization on, You know, how do you think about you know how these different terms are used across the government? So, Mark, let me start with you. Um, what does Department of Commerce call it? Eso. So we have the two terminologies ss A and s t m way. Look back at, you know, the SPD three. That actually kind of defined some of these terminologies, but you’ll see that there’s a wide variation across different organizations that actually have different, different definitions. I think Gordon kind of talked to the SDA. They’ve they’ve come out with a formal definition of what SDA is, and I think it’s broader. A zordon kind of defined it, you know, beyond just, you know, s s a being kind of the knowledge, characterization, characterization of space objects and their operational environment to support safe, stable and sustainable space activities. We look at S s a has kind of identifying location and safety um, s D A and R nomenclature actually kind of goes beyond the capabilities and intent, you know, kind of the military aspects of, you know, what is that object actually doing so furthers the domain knowledge associated with STM. You know, the definition out of SPD three is the planning, coordination and on orbit synchronization of activities to enhance safety, stability and sustainability for operations in the space environment. You know, there’s a there’s a lot of things that are in there, but, you know, trying to make sure that we’re doing that coordination between the various folks providing a common operating picture. You know, this is where getting Thio, having owner operator of memories shared broadly, you know, could also help and get to the space traffic management. So it’s not just kind of, well, bi directional just between the two parties, but understanding where everybody is. Soto have sustainable operations in the long term that you’re operating in a in a orbital shell that you know, other folks, they’re not necessarily there, or you understand what the conjunction possibilities would actually be, or, you know, is that kind of correspondent with the way the space force to find these different terms. E think so. I’ll give a slightly different lens, but it’s gonna be consistent. What Mark said, um, if I think about space situational awareness that’s ability to search and discover objects in the sky to characterize those objects to have some kind of threat warning and assessment that change is about to happen, you know, indication warning that an event is happening. Then you have data integration and exploitation. Uh, the exploitation of data coming off of our sensors that inform information and form knowledge for decision making. Those are the definitions of ESA and SDA is is encompasses all of that. But it’s really over laid now with timeliness and a wartime load. S s a historically, for me has been a peacetime operations of orchestrating management of activity within the space domain, a non contested environment. SDA now needs to think about how doe I handle a wartime load, contested environment, potential threats coming from multiple directions. And how do I defend against that? And how do I give awareness to provide the opportunity to defend against that? The orchestration between those two really become, um, hand in glove with one another space traffic management is therefore whether you’re in a peacetime or ah, wartime scenario and and maybe that’s even an artificial distinction, because we’re always, no matter what your your context gonna have to manage the background population about her space. STM space traffic management now is, is the norms by which we orchestrate activities within that space. And for me, as we think about going forward, whether you’re doing it in support of a civil or commercial interests or national security defense interest, you’re still gonna have to do space traffic management. We’re still gonna have to be aligned at our understanding of what’s happening in the domain writ large. The duty may take classified or higher classifications level data and add it to that basic understanding so that we have, ah, more exquisite and insightful understanding what’s happening in space. This allows us to make decisions, uh, do bank left or bank right? Is something hostile? Is it not in a timely manner to be tacular responsive? And this facilitates things like I talked about before with protected defend operations, But ultimately they’re all interrelated and aligned with each other, and and that’s why I’m excited about this conversation with D O. C. With D. O. D. With NASA. The transfer of civil and commercial STM functions to Department of Commerce is one that’s smooth is one that’s that’s rolling forward and lock step together. But that’s just the key point. It is going to be together, and we’re going to be concerned about the equities of SS A and SDI, a space traffic management, because success long term necessitates us to be on the same page in that regard. Laurie, what are your thoughts? Terminology? Yes. So I totally agree with Gordon and Mark and the definitions they put forward for those terms. I will say that in the community, I hear a lot of people using the term space traffic management when what they really mean is conduction assessment. So, um, conjunction assessment is an enabling part of space situational awareness. It’s a piece of it. And then, um, that, in turn, is part of S d A. And all of those air. Part of your contribute with space traffic management, But really space traffic manager is very management is very broad. Um, at least from a user perspective, um, I see lots of gaps there that are just waiting to be filled. There’s this lack of a central coordinating entity that would ensure that spacecraft aren’t placed in the same orbit location. You know, we deconflict radio frequencies, but no one’s deconflicting the actual physical placement of spacecraft. It’s much easier to do for air traffic management because I’m in all airplanes essentially have the same ways of moving around on DSO. You can establish rules of the road because if you ask one plane to go up on one plane to go down or one plane to go left on one plane to go right, that’s an easy thing for them to accomplish. Where space ball sets have a wide range of capability, some don’t have propulsion. Some have low thrust caution. Um, have that can only, you know a long time for them toe maneuver somewhere. Um, chemical propulsion, um, works very quickly, but you could have different sized thrusters or varying amounts of fuel. So these variations make it really hard to establish, um, standard rules of the road for space traffic in the same way, Um, and then we’ve got the advent of cube sad and Anisette technology that makes space flight available to a much wider range of operators than had been in the past. I mean, you’ve got your local elementary school playing up the kids that so those people have different experiences and levels of expertise, so they don’t always know what is important for space safety and how to use it. So all these air challenges that I think have to be tackled as part of a space traffic management vision as we go forward. Yeah. Reminds me of talking annoy old friend of mine who’s company had launched a small satellite. And he said that they would get all these conjunction messages all the time, and they just would shrug every time because their satellite had no propulsion system. It wasn’t capable maneuverings. So, you know, it was just kind of Watch out. We’re coming through. I hope we don’t hit anything. Um, all right. I see we’re almost at a time. I wanna have one last question go around here thinking farther into the future and farther out from Earth. Um, you know, we we could be entering an era over the next 10 years, were received more and more activity, civil space as well as commercial space activity going on beyond just, you know, geo stationary or Thor, but all the way out to the moon and sister lunar space s I just wanted to get each of your thoughts about, you know, what are some of the initiatives that are under way right now or what air Some of the gaps that we have in technology for doing this s s a or SD a mission all the way out in Cecil inner space. So I Gordon, I don’t know if you if you want to take this first, maybe talk about some of the Air Force research labs initiatives that are ongoing. Uh, well, first I tell you back to our doctrine within space Force, it clearly calls out that we have a responsibility not just to operate within the geo centric orbit regime, which is historically, you know, Leo through Geo, he Oh, and where we’ve been focused, but also the CIS lunar orbit regime out through the moon and beyond the moon. If you think about LaGrange points and the different, uh, gravitational orbits in the moon environment, if you think about solar radiation environment that exists in CIS lunar space, There are a lot of challenges that we will have to figure out how to operate with on our figure out how to deal with toe operate within that environment. But I will say the need to figure that and or to answer that question and figure that out. Israel. Um as we expand beyond the geo centric orbit regime mhm understanding movement in that broader space environment, there’s been a focus on sending capability back to the moon. Um, all that is going to I beg of us toe understand the consequences and the considerations that come along with operating in the system or environment. So today, through broad partnership that we have with Air Force Research Lab as you highlighted Todd, we have actually released techniques. We’ve initiated architectural analyses that are looking at existing sensors today and, uh, working with operational units to plan. You know what your TTP s or your tactics, techniques and procedures for for operating system or space? And how is that different than geo centric space? What are since we’re seeing today, and what do they need to see tomorrow? How do I take all that together and inform classes of solutions that can help us cover down in the system under environment writ large. In addition, we have prototypes efforts underway one called Defense D Space Sentinel, which will be a CIS lunar orbit mobility demonstrator that will go up in the next year or two. Well, rather in 2022 23 timeframe that is underway right now to put that prototype in orbit and that will work its way up to the moon. And we’re gonna learn about what it means to put an asset in that environment and how to operate it long term in that environment. Ultimately, all these efforts together facilitate investment decisions and recommendations that ultimately get after your broader architecture er as it covers the challenges associated with the system inner space. So it’s definitely something really that we’re concerned about, and it’s definitely ah, focus area for the future. Today, the focus is really to cover down the Leo through geo orbit regimes and puppy postured. How to move into the Sicilian regime in future. Laurie, do you have any thoughts? I’m sure So, um, today NASA does have assets in this’ll inner space on by the process for protecting them is different than what we do for authority missions. I mean, so for earth orbiting missions, we rely on the D. O. D space catalog. They’re tracking objects down cooperatively there producing this catalog. And then we compare the positions of our assets against the positions in the catalog and decide where there’s close approaches. Since that catalog of objects doesn’t exist for system inner space we don’t have, that is an option. So what we’ve put together is a process where we collect F emeritus from all the missions that air flying around a particular planetary body, and we screen those against each other and make sure that they’re not any close approaches and then cooperatively work to mitigate any close approaches. Um, but if we were going to move Thio a method where we do it more similar to what we do for Earth orbit today, we would need a catalog of objects in CIS lunar space, and that’s very challenging to try to track small objects in that region. So there’s there’s that challenge, and there’s also data sharing challenge because if where at the moon. But other countries also have missions at the moon, then we need to be able to share data with each other in order to at least do the minimal, um, flight safety process that we’ve put in place today. So, um, those air the challenges there, we almost need a space fence on the moon. Uh, mark any final thoughts before we dio I see your time’s almost up here. Um, with regard to the CIS lunar question, sure. Or any final thoughts overall get, you know, just like for the CIS lunar, you know, there’s there’s commercial ventures that air coming along for a d r for even, you know, cis lunar operations. You know nasa’s activities on, you know, offloading some capability of the commercial sector as well. You know, I think I think eventually it’ll it’ll grow will continue to be advocates as the economic growth of the U. S. Space industry, as those opportunities also come forward. And as Laurie points out, you know, there’s gonna have to be Cem further development out there. You know, we’re just not at that point as faras priorities on. You know what we’re going to do over the next several years? You know? Eventually, you know, I think we do need to start worrying about those conditions. From a policy standpoint, I think there’s some some aspects across the government that have been and dealt with, but as far as you know, traffic management, you know, that’s that’s not necessarily on the front burner right now. All right, well, our time is up. I want to thank our Panelists for joining us for really engaging on and, you know, insightful discussion going deep on this issue of, ah, Intergovernmental Co. Uh, intra governmental cooperation when it comes to S S a and S T m eso Laurie Gordon. Mark, thank you all for joining us. We hope to have you back in the not too distant future. Here. It’s CFCs. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.