How one startup is revolutionizing satellite communications on Earth — NASA to unveil its new budget request today — What’s in store for Asteroid Day 2021

Delivered every Friday, POLITICO Space examines the policies and personalities shaping the second space age.

May 28, 2021 View in browser   By Bryan Bender Quick Fix — How a Michigan startup is using cloud computing to bring satellite ground links into the 21st century. — NASA will outline its budget request for fiscal 2022 today, along with the Air Force and Space Force. — Asteroid TV debuts next week as part of a month-long initiative to raise awareness about planetary defense. WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our must-read briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond. Email us at bbender@politico.com with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @bryandbender. And don't forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page for articles, Q&As and more. Space Spotlight 'YEARS AHEAD': If you've been around as long as we have, you'll remember when mobile phone service was dependent on cell towers. And how if you weren't in range, or connected to the right hardware, you were off the grid or at best paying a premium for service. Even in 2021, satellite transmissions still widely rely on a similar model. But Atlas Space Operations in Traverse City, Michigan, has been trying to change that since it was founded in 2015. "The communications segment of the space industry, which is to say the ground communications piece of it, has just been stuck in the 60s," CEO Sean McDaniel, told us. " We came into this segment of the industry really with an eye towards modernizing the way satellites communicate to and from the Earth and how the data is distributed. You need a local, globally distributed network to pull this off. And it has to be fully automated. Historically that hasn't been the case. You are talking many humans in the loop to coordinate access to many antennas around the world. We've made the relationship between the satellite in orbit and the antennas on the ground agnostic to what hardware is at a given ground station." "We came in to leverage modern cloud computing technologies and started building our own network of ground stations with a clean slate approach," he added. For most of the industry "they're still back in nineteen dippity do," analogous to "trying to figure out how to get a phone call made overseas without an echo," says Mike Carey, Atlas' chief strategy officer. "We've modernized that and people are catching on to it: the Air Force, the government, commercial entities." The company is also capturing business in the UK and Japan and is also currently supporting the government of Rwanda in disaster response, the two Air Force veterans said. A major pitch is cost: "We really hit a chord with people who are tired of paying through the nose to get the data," explained Carey. "We've driven the price down and driven the quality and scalability up by starting with this clean slate architecture, software-driven not hardware-driven." They also think they have a head start over competitors. "We're the only ones who tackled the software first and we're years ahead of those who are entering the business or are already conducting the business," said Carey. "Our goal is to make connecting to your satellite as easy as connecting to the internet." Read more about the veteran-owned business that has grown from six employees to more than 30. In Orbit BUDGET COMING TODAY: Today is budget day. NASA will roll out President Joe Biden's funding proposal for the space agency at a briefing by Administrator Bill Nelson and chief financial officer Steve Shinn that will air on NASA TV at 3 p.m. At the Pentagon, officials will also hold a series of budget briefings, beginning at 1:45 p.m. with Acting Pentagon Comptroller Anne McAndrew and Vice Adm. Ron Boxall, the Joint Staff's director for force structure, resources and assessment. They'll be followed by briefings from individual branches, including the Air Force at 4:25 p.m., as well as the Missile Defense Agency at 5:15 p.m. FOR YOUR RADAR: Nelson also plans his first address to the NASA workforce next Wednesday, June 2, when he will discuss the agency's plans to address climate change and provide an update on the Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon. Related: Bernie Sanders wants to stop NASA funding for Blue Origin, via ArsTechnica. 'A CONSIDERABLE OPPORTUNITY': The Pentagon has an opportunity to learn from past mistakes as it sets out to develop a suite of new space systems, according to an assessment published this week by the Government Accountability Office. But even with all the changes afoot in space acquisition, there are a number of new management challenges and uncertainties that make it far from certain that we won't just see more of the same. The report unpacks a series of major changes in recent years that are intended to achieve better results, including the establishment of the Space Force, a separate Space Development Agency, and the White House National Space Council. But those also bring new challenges. "Working in an environment where so many large changes are happening within a short amount of time is both a management challenge and a considerable opportunity to make lasting improvements to some of the areas," it says. "As with all large scale changes, however, effective and comprehensive planning will be key to making them as to making them as successful as they can be, and implementation of the plans will have to be closely monitored and adjusted as necessary to achieve improvements to the status quo." GAO outlined a host of major programs that are already following the well-worn path of major cost increases and schedule delays, including the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite communications program, the Space Based Infrared System missile tracking constellation, and elements of the Global Positioning System. It attributes some of the problems to "the inherent risks associated with developing complex space technologies." But also responsible are "management and oversight problems that worsened the situation," GAO attests, including "overly optimistic cost and schedule estimates, pushing programs forward without sufficient knowledge about technology and design, and problems in overseeing and managing contractors, among others." Another factor is simply that it calls "exceedingly ambitious" objectives. There are also new and growing threats to space assets like space debris, cyber and electronic jamming attacks, and other anti-satellite weapons. "These new programs are facing a number of changes that could affect their development processes, including increased threats to the space domain, changes in acquisition methods, and changes to governance over DOD's space enterprise," GAO warned. "One major change that DOD faced over the past few years is increasing threats to its on-orbit space systems." ASTEROID TV! The Asteroid Foundation is launching Asteroid TV next week ahead of Asteroid Day on June 30, the annual United Nations-sanctioned day to encourage public awareness of the risks of asteroids to humankind. What's in store: a month-long schedule of programming featuring NASA scientists, industry experts and astronauts who are dedicated to advancing our knowledge of what big space rocks could be headed our way some day and how to prevent the unthinkable. Asteroid Day was founded by astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May; Apollo 9 Astronaut Rusty Schweickart; filmmaker Grig Richters; and B612 Foundation President Danica Remy. Since it began thousands of events have been held around the world to mark the day. "This next decade is going to have a tremendous number of asteroid missions and science," Remy, whose foundation is trying to build the first comprehensive map of asteroids, tells us. What are your Asteroid Day plans? At minimum we will rock out to this, one of May's other cosmic endeavors. Related: Are we doing enough to protect Earth from asteroids? via Scientific American. Milestone 'LUCKY NUMBERS?' This week marked the launch of the 400th commercial space mission licensed by the FAA with Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo flight from New Mexico's Spaceport America. "You may ask, why is the number 400 significant to commercial space transportation?" said Wayne Monteith , FAA's associate administrator for commercial space transportation. "Consider this — it is estimated there could be as many as 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The International Space Station (ISS) flies approximately 400 kilometers above Earth. The global space industry is currently valued at about $400 billion. If you believe in lucky numbers, you probably see where this is heading." The first commercial space launch license was approved in 1989 but a full 25 percent of the total has come just in the past two years. Another comparison: only one such license was approved in 2011 but a record 39 were approved in 2020. "The FAA is also forecasting more than 50 licensed launches and reentries in 2021 — on average that's nearly one every week," Monteith reported. "And, some even estimate 100 or more per year in the very near future once space tourism takes off." Related: Falcon 9 completes its 100th successful flight in a row, via ArsTechnica. Revolving Airlock SHEER VELOCITY: It didn't take long for one space company to leverage the revolving door connections of NASA's new boss. Ad Astra, the Texas-based company that makes rocket components, has hired Erin Neal of Velocity Government Relations, a former aide to then-Sen. Bill Nelson, to lobby for space appropriations, according to a new disclosure we spotted this week. Making Moves Audrey Schaffer, former acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, is now director for space policy at the National Security Council. Trivia Congratulations to Byron Hood, senior VP at Morgan Stanley, for being the first to correctly answer that Jimmy Carter was the only president to report a UFO sighting. And that it was Sen. Barry Goldwater who said he got chewed out by Gen. Curtis LeMay when he asked to see UFO artifacts at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: What was the first asteroid to have its spin period determined by its changing colors as it spins? The first person to email bbender@politico.com gets bragging rights and a shoutout in the next newsletter! Reading Room — Viasat asks FCC to halt Starlink launches while it seeks court ruling: Space News — GM, Lockheed aim for the moon with lunar rover venture: Reuters — Air Force Research Laboratory opens new space R&D Facility: Aviation Week — Racing the sun to protect America: Defense One — An ambitious dark energy experiment just went live in Arizona: Popular Science — Space Inc: 10,000 companies, $4T value ... and 52% American: Forbes — Russia wants to send a nuclear powered space tug to Mars: Futurism — Astronauts on set: space station may host wave of TV shows and films: The New York Times — Why the U.S. should ban kinetic anti-satellite weapons: The Space Review — If aliens are out there, they are way out there: The Atlantic Event Horizon TUESDAY: The three-day Milsat Symposium kicks off. THURSDAY: The Aerospace Corp.'s Space Policy Show features a discussion with Rep. Don Beyer on space priorities at 1 p.m.   Follow us on Twitter Bryan Bender @bryandbender Dave Brown @dave_brown24   Follow us

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