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Introduction

THE CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE AND THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS

In 2021, at the request of the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine formed the Committee for the Assessment of Partnership Options for a Small Satellite System for Collecting Scientific Quality Oceanic and Coastal Data to address the following statement of task:

To accomplish the assessment, the National Academies assembled a committee of 13 volunteers with relevant expertise to answer the statement of task. The committee met four times over webcast—March 18–19, 2021; April 13–14, 2021; May 12–13, 2021; and May 27, 2021—during which it received an overview from the ONR sponsors and heard presentations by subject matter experts. The committee also met in a closed session to deliberate on its findings and to define the contents of this assessment report.

One important outcome of fact-finding at the first meeting was a clearer understanding from the sponsor on how to interpret the statement of task. In particular, the sponsor was less interested in a prescriptive solution and more interested in a broad framework for creating a sustainable “space ecosystem” capable of solving the near-term sponsor technology demonstration objectives in combination with longer-term development of capabilities to serve naval strategic and tactical objectives at both rapid temporal and large spatial scales. It became clear at the first meeting that the sponsor’s interests were broader than ocean science in that a space ecosystem, if appropriately conceived, was capable of serving a broad science user base that could be extended to other government agencies as well as interested external users. At the first and second meetings, it became evident that any solution would need to be adaptive as well as integrative in that both the business landscape is rapidly growing and changing while the government needs are also growing and changing through the development of what has come to be known as the “Hybrid Space Architecture,” or HSA.

The resulting approach taken by the committee to address the statement of task was to examine the opportunity space afforded by opening the door to public–private partnerships (PPPs) and other programmatic means of taking maximum advantage of the growing commercial sector. The ultimate goal of this approach is to provide an actionable template intended to benefit all stakeholders—a more constructive relationship with a broad range of potential business partners—while also stretching the range of potential government users. One discovery by the committee during this process was that the slow pace of space procurement and apparent impediments to change are largely self-inflicted. The current procurement regulations allow faster and broader participation, but a positive change of perspective by the relevant procurement authorities needs to be aligned with the associated evolution of process. Thus, a key focus of this report is how to do things better in order to not only create a self-sustaining space ecosystem but also provide the best value to all government stakeholders.

In taking this broad view, the study committee did not neglect the specific sponsor issues also represented in the statement of task. Those issues are discussed in appropriate sections of the report and summarized in Appendix A as a specific case study, which is intended as a direct conversation of the committee with the ONR sponsor.

Box 1.1 provides just a few examples of the rapid evolution of the space business sector over the time of this report’s preparation. Recognizing this rapid evolution, the report is designed to address the emerging and complex physical, administrative, budgetary, and cultural issues in order to recommend an achievable path forward toward promoting an expeditious, multi-faceted, and sustainable use of space. The committee concludes that there is no “one size fits all” solution to the current problems, because different approaches will be optimal for different categories of space actors, and there is no perfect “end state,” because roles and relationships in space will perpetually have to adapt evolving methodologies afforded by commercial technology combined with needs driven by scientific opportunity, economics, military requirements, and politics. Thus, a key objective of this report is finding ways of harnessing the opportunities of the New Space commercial enterprise that merge the government needs driven by HSA. This merger could be both adaptive and sustainable in ways that develop a large and inclusive

space ecosystem capable of supporting both the sponsor’s immediate needs as well as its broader and expansive long-term objectives.

The committee’s approach to the assessment relied on the experience, technical knowledge, and broad expertise of its members. The committee did not attempt to report an exhaustive assessment of every available partnership option or every alternative approach to implementation. The committee’s first goal was to provide enduring value by identifying and focusing on which government mission areas could most utilize and benefit from commercial New Space capabilities for space access. Its second goal was to determine current challenges and future opportunities for redefining space infrastructure with the goal of becoming more amenable to sustainable partnerships or other acquisition methods capable of serving multiple stakeholders.

Several of the report’s recommendations suggest the value of more rapid, comprehensive dissemination of already-available information. For example, some potential space users are not fully aware of the diverse opportunities for mutually profitable collaboration with other space actors—for them, an improved system of brokerage services could help to match suppliers and customers swiftly and efficiently. Another example: some government contracting offices may not be fully cognizant of the myriad alternative contracting routes already allowable under federal regulations to engage in novel ways with private industry. For such cases, improved training on legally available options together with broadening the perspective on both traditional and nontraditional ways of doing business could incentivize the execution of more creative contracting approaches.

INTRODUCING THE REPORT

Study Motivation

The motivation for this study is the specific need by ONR to place specialized sensors in space to collect ocean and coastal data needed to initialize predictive models and to support operations. ONR together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are the joint managers of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP), which consists of 19 U.S. government agencies having ocean interests.¹ Thus, the

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¹ For more information, see National Oceanographic Partnership Act—National Oceanographic Partnership Program, https://www.nopp.org/about-nopp/subtitle-e.

research supported by these sensors extends across many civilian and military scientific interests at a broad range of spatial and temporal scales.

The NOPP has reached the point where further progress requires a rapid technology demonstration phase informed through the placement of nearly a dozen sensors on space platforms capable of supporting performance validation. After this phase, initial operational deployment will require even more space assets under conditions that are likely to require rapid and adaptive approaches. Traditional acquisition approaches are currently unaffordable and also slow and non-adaptive. Based on the recent developments in commercial space technology and services, it is reasonable to anticipate lower costs and more flexibility in launching the next generation of satellites. The question is how to marshal the nation’s growing commercial capabilities in ways that achieve a sustainable space ecosystem capable of delivering space systems meeting the sponsor needs that are faster and lower cost. The approach proposed in this report is to form PPPs together with other commercial means to produce “New Space”driven^2,3,4,5 (refer to Box S.1 for full definition used in this report) innovations mostly from the private sector to create an ecosystem leveraging HSA-driven U.S. Space Force needs in ways that can benefit not only NOPP but also a wide range of other civil and nongovernment science users.

Background Perspective

Space is hard. The operating environment is harsh and unforgiving, the logistics are complex, and the costs are daunting, even with the incipient New Space technological revolution. But if the United States can combine the emerging smart technologies with an improved organizational and bureaucratic structure, space does not have to be quite as hard as it has traditionally been.

Space is important—providing unique high ground for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), communications, reconnaissance, and other missions that are vital to both the national economy and the U.S. military. This importance will only grow, as new missions driven by HSA objectives and other user needs are adopted for this uniquely enabling environment. Creativity and flexibility will be required, to take maximum advantage of the rapidly unfolding opportunities.

Space is getting crowded. The coming decade will see perhaps tens of thousands of small satellites launched, mostly by commercial companies, to create and to serve diverse markets. The space ecosystem of the future will surely be hybrid, characterized by an ever-shifting combination of large and small satellites; owned, operated, and launched by both governments and corporations—performing in different capacities—from routine commercial functions as well as highly classified national security missions.

Last, the opportunities for exploiting space are not evenly distributed. Some traditional and emerging users enjoy ready access to space—constrained, to be sure, by scarce budgetary assets, but not by artificial impediments. Other potential users, however, have been handicapped in accessing space; they have legitimate and important space-related missions, but do not command sufficient market power or political clout to execute those missions on their own.

The Space Technology Ecosystem

The U.S. government has been the controlling historical player in the national space ecosystem, through the development, launch, and integrated operation of large, complex, and highly capable mission-specific satellites. Aside from certain types of commercial communication satellites, spacecraft of this type have generally been low volume one-of-a-kind systems built by a specialized highly skilled workforce, making them expensive and time consuming to craft compared to systems designed and built using commercial assembly-line processes. Traditional

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² NewSpace—A. Golkar and A. Salado, 2021, Definition of New Space—Expert survey results and key technology trends, IEEE Journal on Miniaturization for Air and Space Systems 2(1), March.

³ NewSpace—New business models at the interface of the space industry and digital economy, SpaceTec Partners, Munich/Brussels, Germany, 2016.

⁴ Space: Investing in the Final Frontier, Morgan Stanley Research, July 24, 2020.

⁵ G.L. Martin, NewSpace: The Emerging Commercial Space Industry, ISU Space Studies Program, NASA TRS, June 30, 2014.

users of these systems are primarily government departments and agencies with missions that support intelligence defense and civil space applications. Trusted developers of such systems are generally large corporations or equivalently capable government entities using proven routines and processes embracing all phases of a space mission.

Intelligence and defense users, and their associated satellite developers, have successfully and very capably enabled the full spectrum of contemporary U.S. national security and civil space activities. For example, remote sensing satellites are employed to provide timely warning about enemy missile launches, to monitor compliance with arms control treaties, to detect potentially hostile troop movements, and to assess the effect of combat damage on a particular facility or location. Secure communication satellite technology creates rapid, secure links between headquarters and fielded forces, and among combat units maneuvering rapidly on a remote battlefield. The global positioning system (GPS) satellite constellation serves both commercial and military users, allowing aircraft, ships, land vehicles, and individuals to know their location precisely, and they guide many types of weapons to their targets while their timing signal provides a “global digital heartbeat” that synchronizes worldwide telecommunications. Meteorological satellites enable commanders and planners to anticipate local weather conditions, including sea states, which can drastically affect operations. The intelligence community uses satellites to monitor foreign communications and emanations in order to anticipate military, diplomatic, and other developments of critical national interest.

On the civil side, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) missions include science, technology, and human exploration encompassing both the Earth’s local neighborhood and the entire universe together with “planetary defense,” which includes scanning the skies for potentially hazardous asteroids and comets. NOAA, in concert with NASA, has the responsibility for monitoring “space weather,” while also having the specific responsibility for weather prediction and for monitoring the conditions in the oceans and the atmosphere, promoting optimal uses and stewardship of those resources. Similarly, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has the responsibility for the Landsat mission, including long-term data continuity to inform land managers and policy makers about natural resources and the environment. Satellites also play crucial roles of observation and responding to natural disasters by supporting rescue and recovery operations for stranded individuals and communities. Last, universities, government, and private laboratories and other nonprofit entities also routinely turn to space for support of their educational, research, and other missions.

As with aviation in the past and currently with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, space exploration is making a transition to greater utilization of commercialization with enough production capacity to enable a corresponding ecosystem to support new uses and capabilities. Thus, the traditional space business is now expanding and broadening owing to the recent rapid growth in space activity within the private sector, where large numbers of mostly small but advanced spacecraft systems are being developed to provide services tailored to specific user needs. In the private sector, emerging space architectures are being designed and fielded through commercial advancements that are launching and operating mass-produced SmallSats for low Earth orbit (LEO) to provide low-cost, low-latency global services in communications and Earth observation, including oceanographic and coastal applications.

The explosive commercial interest in SmallSat missions has also catalyzed a rapidly expanding base of suppliers for space hardware, software, and related services. This includes vendors of component level and adaptable spacecraft components (such as solar panels, transponders, data recorders, reaction wheels, star trackers, and propulsion units); standard system elements, fully integrated “standard buses” spanning the CubeSat to SmallSat range; greatly expanded launch services; remote ground station communication services; mission operations software; flight software; and many other key elements required in the overall development and successful execution of a space mission.

There will be inevitable bumps in the road, but these significant shifts are real and permanent, not just opening up new opportunities for traditional users but also creating opportunities for entirely new nontraditional users, including new or novel users in the space arena. Many of these emerging users have been impeded from accessing space owing to the extreme cost required to develop, build, launch, and operate complex systems designed for specific purposes. This nontraditional or novel segment of users consists of important potential contributors to the New Space culture, where the lower price of admission into space has created pathways allowing many more stakeholders access to what has historically been a mostly inaccessible domain.

In certain cases, these novel users are looking to increase their information pipeline and leverage the New Space environment to fly new sensors and acquire new data streams, for scientific, national security, and other purposes including HSA. One example is this study’s focus on applications related to coastal ocean science and general ocean science. One would expect that as the ecosystem grows and (assuming conditions allow) thrives, many other users can also benefit. Thus, society is on the threshold of an enormous surge in the opportunities to collect unprecedented quantities of global, timely, multispectral data in many scientific disciplines.

Looking to the future, government needs through HSA and traditional users can open the door as an “anchor tenant”⁶ to many broader applications that serve nontraditional users desiring opportunities for cost-effective access to space. In particular, Earth science and ocean science can greatly benefit from the rapidly evolving commercial, New Space marketplace and the lower cost opportunities afforded by SmallSat missions. Likewise, the ever-expanding demand for data globally and the proliferation of data-producing and data-consuming devices will power demand for the type of global connectivity and communications systems that can be implemented best (or only) in space. These systems will require a mix of capabilities consisting of smaller adaptable systems combined with mission unique systems.

Thus, the “new normal” for space missions is expected to be HSA as mentioned above and further discussed in Chapter 3. HSA is an information-based architecture that will serve a greatly expanded array of users—including big and small entities and public and private actors. There are many dimensions to hybridity. Primary among them are organizational hybridity (government and commercial cooperation); orbital hybridity; platform hybridity (large, small); number hybridity (distributed LEO versus monolithic geosynchronous Earth orbit [GEO]). This architecture will employ small, inexpensive single-purpose and mission-unique large spacecraft—which will coexist and operate synergistically. The traditional and New Space communities will co-exist with nontraditional users and, in many cases will benefit from the available data. This report will discuss the expanded ecosystem that will grow out of this hybrid strategy and provide useful guidance on how to leverage the burgeoning commercial space capabilities through a broad array of business models and acquisition strategies to produce high-quality scientific data products.

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⁶ The term “anchor tenancy” means an arrangement in which the U.S. government agrees to procure sufficient quantities of a commercial space product or service needed to meet government mission requirements so that a commercial venture is made viable. 48 CFR 1812.7000(a) (or NASA FAR Supplement [NFS] 1812.7000(a)).