Thursday, March 16, 2023

Preliminary report investigating plane crash in Hillsville, Va., released by NTSB

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report on Thursday investigating the Feb. 27 crash of a single-engine Cessna 150G in Hillsville, Va.

The aircraft (registration N2991J) was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Hillsville, Va. The pilot was fatally injured.

A friend of the pilot said the plane was flying from Twin County Airport, Hillsville, Va., to Burlington/Alamance Regional Airport, Burlington, N.C., to pick up parts for an engine the pilot was working on.

A witness reported speaking to the owner of the maintenance shop, where the pilot was going to pick up the engine parts, who confirmed that the pilot arrived to pick up the parts and departed.

According to preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar data, the plane departed Burlington/Alamance Regional at 4:12 p.m. EST. The pilot flew a nearly direct route toward Twin County Airport. About 15 miles from the destination, at 4:53 p.m., the pilot made a left 180-degree turn. The last radar return was at 4:54 p.m. and was about one mile from the accident site.

An alert notice was issued by the FAA at 7:46 p.m. after family and friends reported the airplane missing. The plane was located by a private citizen at about 10:30 a.m. EST on the following day. The plane came to rest in a wooded area at an elevation of 2,776 feet. The aircraft impacted a tree about 205 ft prior to the final resting place.

“There was no evidence of fire,” the NTSB said in their report, “and all major components of the airplane were located in the vicinity of the main wreckage.” The left-wing, outboard of the flap, was impact separated and located 60 ft prior to the main wreckage. The remainder of the left wing remained attached to the fuselage. The fuselage remained intact.

After examination, “there were no anomalies found with the engine that would have precluded normal operation,” the NTSB said.

An emergency locator transmitter aboard the plane remained secure in the fuselage and was in the off position.

A Garmin Aera 660 GPS was retained and sent to Washington, D.C., for data download at the NTSB Recorders Laboratory.

The NTSB will continue to investigate the accident and file a final report later.

This is the third fatal plane crash in Virginia under investigation by the NTSB in 2023. Two fatal plane crashes were reported near Suffork and Dayton in January.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Remarks by Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves at the Satellite 2023 Government and Military Forum

“Our job at the Commerce Department is to improve America’s competitiveness so that our companies can succeed in the global economy. We want to ensure the United States remains the flag of choice for businesses operating in space. That means engaging with industry to support innovation, expand business opportunities, and provide the clarity, consistency, and transparency that you need to invest and compete.

“A year ago, I addressed the Satellite Industry Association (SIA) Leadership Dinner and announced that the Commerce Department was prioritizing the commercial space industry in our new strategic plan. Today, I am happy to report we have made significant progress.

“In the past year, we established a new Commercial Space Coordination Committee, which I chair. It includes the heads of nearly every commerce bureau and offers a forum to engage the ‘whole of Commerce’ on key space-related issues. This reflects the reality that our work expanding space commerce isn’t confined to one office or bureau, but involves international trade, economic development, broadband-expansion efforts, National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity expertise, and even minority business outreach to expand our supplier base.

“We also appointed a director to run our Office of Space Commerce: Richard DalBello, whom many of you know from his decades of service to this industry, including several years as president of SIA. Richard serves as vice chair on the Coordination Committee, and we meet regularly to discuss issues impacting the commercial space industry and how each bureau can further the U.S. space industry. As I mentioned last year, I have a strong personal interest in space matters and seek to engage wherever I can.

“The department’s strategic plan on space commerce outlines five areas of focus:

  • Coordinating regulatory functions;
  • Growing the customer base for U.S. commercial space goods and services;
  • Improving space safety and sustainability;
  • Promoting commercial space innovation;
  • Advancing Earth observation capabilities to empower better decision-making.

“Let me update you on our progress across these strategic objectives.

Coordinating Regulatory Functions

“First, our work to coordinate regulatory functions cuts across domestic and international stakeholders and is designed to promote competitiveness and increase legal certainty, transparency, and consistency for commercial space businesses.

"Today, private capital is funding traditional space investments such as communications, remote sensing satellites, and new business concepts such as in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing; active debris removal; and asteroid mining. These ventures don’t necessarily fit under existing regulatory frameworks, which creates new opportunities and challenges when it comes to federal oversight.

“We are working toward better coordination among federal agencies to simplify the process for commercial space licensing for stakeholders, including incumbent corporations and startup space innovators.

“Commerce is uniquely positioned to help address the situation, as we lead or co-lead three of the four major regulatory processes affecting space. Through National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), we have the lead for licensing commercial remote sensing satellites. Through National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), we manage the nation’s use of radio frequency spectrum along with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). And through our Bureau of Industry and Security or BIS, we regulate space export controls along with the State Department. We recently reorganized NOAA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs office as part of our effort to raise the focus of space regulation in the department. We consolidated it into the Office of Space Commerce and elevated the combined organization to become part of the Office of the NOAA Under Secretary. This has raised the office’s visibility and allowed it to advance its commercial agenda. My office also works directly with the Office of Space Commerce to ensure that it’s getting the attention it deserves at the highest levels in our department.

“You may recall that, in 2020, NOAA rewrote its regulations on commercial remote sensing to take future innovation into account. As a result, the majority of Earth imaging satellites need only simple licenses.

“Over the past year, NOAA’s licensing has improved in speed and efficiency, even as we’ve seen an increase in the number of applications. In 2022, the average time to process a new license application was 22 days – a 20% improvement over the previous year.

“Export control is another area where we have made progress recently. Due to the United States’ obligations under the Missile Technology Control Regime, or MTCR, we have policies about providing support or encouragement to foreign space launch vehicles, as the technology is the same used in missile programs. Implementing those policies has often led to restrictions being applied to commercial satellites and satellite components planned for launch on space launch vehicles we did not support or encourage.

“In recognition of the growing space cooperation environment, the U.S. government undertook a careful review of how MTCR policy was being interpreted. Today, I am happy to announce a clarification to the policy. License applications for the export of satellites and satellite components to MTCR Partners will now be reviewed on a case-by-case basis – not with a presumption of denial – even if the launch vehicle is one that the United States does not encourage.

“That may seem like a subtle distinction. But for those of you who have been denied satellite exports to certain MTCR countries due to the choice of launch vehicle, this change of interpretation will have major business implications. It will open the door to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in new exports of U.S. satellites and satellite components. Please reach out to BIS for details on how this may affect your license applications.

Growing the Customer Base

“Moving on to our second area of focus, we are growing the customer base for U.S. commercial space goods and services.

“Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA) works with U.S. commercial space companies to help them win business overseas. If you are a U.S. company and you have not yet taken advantage of their services, I encourage you to reach out to the ITA Advocacy Center and learn what they have to offer.

“Over the past year, the Advocacy Center has contributed to seven international space contract wins with a total value of about $406 million. They are currently working on 29 cases involving the space industry, with a total estimated value of $8.9 billion.

“Our Office of Space Commerce is also leading efforts to facilitate international space business collaboration. Last November, as part of the inaugural U.S.-France Comprehensive Space Dialogue held in Paris, the office organized a special session involving government and industry representatives from both nations. This “Track 1.5” event focused on increasing U.S.-France business partnerships by identifying barriers that could be removed through governmental cooperation.

“The Track 1.5 event was very successful – so much so, that when President Macron came to Washington for his state visit later in the month, I personally briefed him on this activity. In our meeting and in the industry roundtable I co-hosted at NASA headquarters, he took a clear interest in increasing business between our two space industries.

“Based on that success, we are now planning a Track 1.5 engagement as part of the next U.S.-Japan Comprehensive Space Dialogue. We will be taking a delegation of American space companies with us to Tokyo next week to hold similar discussions with our Japanese counterparts from government and industry.

“At the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit in December, I moderated a Space Forum session to discuss the private sector’s role in supporting a U.S.-Africa partnership. I believe space technologies and space commerce, aided by the U.S. private sector, can play an important role in driving technological and private sector development in Africa. We are actively planning further commercial space engagements with African nations later this year.

“Another aspect of our efforts is promoting the availability, security, and resilience of our space industrial base and supply chains. As a first step, last week BIS launched an assessment of our industrial base in partnership with NASA and NOAA.

“BIS is now deploying a survey instrument to hundreds of U.S. space companies and suppliers. The data collected will help identify the structure and interdependencies of organizations that support NASA and NOAA systems and subsystems. Please look for these surveys in the mail.

Improving Space Safety/Sustainability

“Our third area of focus is improving space safety and sustainability.

“This is a top priority for us. With thousands of satellites being launched each year, we must act quickly to prevent catastrophic collisions that could render Earth’s orbits useless.

“Congress recognizes this as a priority as well. Our Office of Space Commerce received a $70 million appropriation for fiscal year 2023 – a huge increase over prior years. The majority of that funding is going into the space situational awareness, or SSA, system that the Commerce Department was tasked to develop under Space Policy Directive 3, the National Space Traffic Management Policy.

“Commerce is taking over responsibility to provide SSA data and services to commercial and civil space operators from the Department of Defense (DoD), so DoD can focus its resources on national security matters.

“The congressional funding came with a deadline of September 2024 to field the initial operating capability of our SSA system, and we are working hard to meet that deadline. Our initial capability will only provide a subset of the services we envision, but it will provide meaningful traffic safety coordination to the public.

“We recently rebranded our system to be called ‘TraCSS’ – the Traffic Coordination System for Space. I hope you agree that ‘TraCSS’ is an improvement on the original name, ‘Open Architecture Data Repository.’ To build TraCSS, the Office of Space Commerce is leveraging NOAA’s experience in acquiring and managing large data systems for weather observations and forecasting. We are going to partner with industry to the maximum extent possible to minimize disruption to the existing commercial market for advanced SSA services.

“Input from leaders in SSA is crucial, which is why I have had continued conversations with industry on this topic. We are seeking to strike the right balance between providing too many services, which might overlap with industry, and providing too few services, which might drive users toward competing, foreign SSA systems.

“Last month, the Office of Space Commerce and DoD wrapped up a two-month pilot project to demonstrate the capability of U.S. commercial data and commercial analytics services to provide SSA to about 100 spacecraft. The pilot involved GEO space object tracking data obtained through five commercial contracts, plus SSA data analysis performed under seven additional contracts.

“The Commercial GEO Pilot appears to have been a success, providing satellite operators with spaceflight safety services comparable to what they normally get from DoD. The pilot also provided valuable insights that have been incorporated into the planning for TraCSS. The Office of Space Commerce is now considering options for additional pilots while the operational TraCSS system is in development.

Promoting Innovation

“Our fourth area of focus is about promoting innovation, which is foundational to everything we do at the Commerce Department.

“In practice, this can take many forms, from research and development at NIST and NOAA to intellectual property protections by the Patent and Trademark Office.

“One program that has made notable progress in the past year is NOAA’s Commercial Data Program.

“For the past couple of years, NOAA has been buying commercial radio occultation satellite data and using it to improve operational weather forecasts. But until recently, that data could only be shared with other federal agencies and international weather bureaus or shared after a 24-hour delay. Beginning in January, NOAA has been obtaining this data with the most liberal distribution rights, so that anyone in the world can freely access it in near real-time, and use it for scientific or commercial purposes. NOAA is only buying a subset of the vendor’s full daily output, so the unlimited sharing does not prevent the company from selling its services to other customers.

“NOAA also awarded contracts last summer for a pilot study in support of space weather, and they are currently reviewing other commercially available satellite data that could benefit NOAA in the future.

“We’re also promoting commercial space innovation by expanding spectrum availability. We know that next-generation satellite systems – and new space enterprises built to service and work with those systems – are going to need spectrum to develop to their full potential. We will do all that we can to ensure that spectrum is available both for federal and private sector missions.

“The department is committed to allocating this valuable resource thoughtfully and judiciously, considering commercial sector needs while reaffirming our commitment to protect critical federal missions.

“To that end, NTIA just kicked off the development of a National Spectrum Strategy that will, we hope, create a process that can satisfy the nation’s spectrum needs for the next decade. We are seeking feedback from industry, our federal agency partners and all spectrum stakeholders.

“NTIA also oversees the administration’s broadband deployment efforts. Innovative space-based operations are key to enabling connectivity for all, not just in our country, but around the world, where billions of people still lack basic connectivity.

“And we have been working through the ITU to improve global connectivity.

“I invite all of you to continue to work with us in the pursuit of innovative strategies for connecting those in America and around the world.

Advancing Earth Observation

“Our fifth area of focus is advancing our Earth observation capabilities to empower more informed decision-making by the public and private sectors.

“To collect observations for weather forecasting and climate monitoring, NOAA flies the nation’s fleet of operational, civilian satellites.

“At the beginning of this year, NOAA declared it's new GOES-18 satellite operational and designated it as GOES-West. GOES-West observes weather and climate conditions over the western United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Pacific Ocean. Even before becoming GOES-West, GOES-18 proved its value, providing operational data from its Advanced Baseline Imager, or ‘ABI,’ to augment GOES-17 during the 2022 hurricane season. With design improvements to the ABI loop heat pipe, GOES-18 will be a persistent ‘eye in the sky’ for years to come.

“And just two days ago, NOAA and NASA announced the award of a $765 million contract [to L3 Harris] to develop the next-generation ‘GXI’ imager for the GOES-R follow-on satellites, known as ‘GeoXO.’ GeoXO’s advanced capabilities will help address our changing planet and the evolving needs of NOAA’s data users. NOAA and NASA are working to ensure these critical observations are in place by the early 2030s.

“Over the last few years, NOAA has been reimagining what its future satellite architecture could look like. NOAA has been engaging with the community and issued study contracts to develop a more advanced and agile architecture in Low Earth Orbit and for space weather. We are building in on-ramps for new technology and opening the door to more data purchases, rideshares, and hosted payloads.

“As a pathfinder demonstration toward a potentially disaggregated LEO constellation, NOAA is developing the QuickSounder mission. QuickSounder will be a small satellite carrying an existing, proven microwave sounder to measure vertical temperature and moisture profiles. But the instrument is not what’s important here – it’s the architecture, and the test of NOAA’s ability to quickly react to an on-orbit need. What they are pathfinding is NOAA’s ability to purchase and develop small form factor satellite buses and small launch services – with a timeline of a few years, rather than a decade or more.

“The QuickSounder mission passed its Milestone 2 – the authority to proceed – in December and is moving forward to launch in three years.

“To be clear, QuickSounder is one small satellite in LEO. If it is successful, then the next step is to develop a group of LEO smallsats and test how that goes. Ultimately, if all goes well, NOAA could potentially replace large multi-instrument satellites for some of NOAA’s core observations.

“So that may have seemed like a firehose of information, and I didn’t even get to talk about semiconductors and CHIPS for America.

“What I hope you’ll take away from my remarks today is that the Department of Commerce is fully engaged with our commercial space industry. We are pursuing new avenues for business, promoting innovation, and providing regulatory clarity, consistency and transparency that will allow the U.S. to remain the flag of choice in commercial space business.

“America’s commercial space industry is vital to our country’s continued global competitiveness. The satellite industry is advancing new technologies, creating good-paying jobs, combating climate change, and keeping Americans and the world connected.

“All of us at the Department of Commerce are eager to deepen our partnership with you and ensure that the U.S. remains the global leader in space. I hope you’ll continue to partner with us in the months and weeks ahead.”

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Amazon unveils more details about broadband Internet satellite service

Amazon shared a few announcements and updates on its planned Project Kuiper satellite Internet service at an annual space conference in Washington, D.C., this week.

Amazon’s Dave Limp, Senior Vice President, Devices and Services, shared details about Project Kuiper on Tuesday during a general session at the Satellite 2023 Conference.

“We’ve made a lot of progress with just a piece of paper with an idea on it four years ago,” Limp said. “Amazon has never put anything into space. We didn’t know how to do it. We had to build a team.”

After years of development and testing, Limp was happy to report on Tuesday that the first two prototype satellites for Project Kuiper were put on a truck a couple days ago and are on their way to Cape Canaveral, Fla., for launch.

The satellites will be launched aboard the inaugural flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, currently scheduled for May 4. The constellation will grow to 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit once complete. Amazon has reserved 77 launch vehicles for placing the constellation in orbit piece by piece.

The company said they will begin mass-producing the satellites by the end of the year. Production launches will begin next year, and customers will have access to the service by late 2024.

Project Kuiper will provide fast, affordable broadband Internet service to communities unserved or underserved by traditional communications technologies.

“Go 100 miles away from where we are right now and there are still people living on copper [wire] that was laid into the ground in the 50s and 60s and running at DSL [Internet] speeds,” Limp said. Project Kuiper sets out to provide much faster broadband Internet service to customers.

To use the service, customers will install an outdoor antenna—called a customer terminal—to communicate with satellites passing overhead. Traditionally, this equipment has been too large, too complex, and too expensive for many customers, making it difficult for low Earth orbit constellations to bridge the digital divide in a meaningful way.

At the conference, Limp provided a first look at three different-engineering models that would be provided to different customers of the service. One terminal is seven-inch square and slightly bigger than an Amazon Kindle. The largest terminal comes in at 11 inches square costing less than $400.

Amazon plans to invest over $10 billion in the project.

Monday, March 13, 2023

Satellite 2023 Conference: Cyber warfare on US space systems

The growth rate of new cyber threats and vulnerabilities in space will remain a weakness for the United States if the country continues down the same traditional path used today. That was the message kicking off an annual satellite conference in Washington, D.C., this week.

Monday’s keynote speaker Charles Beames, co-founder and chairman of the SmallSat Alliance and executive chairman of SpiderOak Mission Systems, said the U.S. must do better, “and we can.”

Beames said the U.S. must pivot toward a comprehensive cybersecurity plan immediately. The first step would be to implement a Zero Trust architecture (ZTA) across networks and at the data level where possible.

What is Zero Trust

Zero Trust was created based on the realization that traditional security models operate on the outdated assumption that everything inside an organization’s network should be implicitly trusted. This implicit trust means that once on the network, users – including threat actors and malicious insiders – are free to move laterally and access or exfiltrate sensitive data due to a lack of granular security controls.

Zero Trust is a design philosophy that begins with a “trust no one” mindset and heavily secures individual data records, With Zero Trust, it wouldn’t matter if your router was corrupted, or satellite was corrupted, each “data packet” would be heavily secure in a ZTA network.

Attacking satellites

There has always been a concern about a space war breaking out where countries would attack and destroy satellites in orbit.

China, India, Russia, and the U.S. have all demonstrated the ability to shoot down satellites in Earth's orbit. But that’s not the biggest threat to space assets, Beames said.

“The big threat is actually cyber security,” he said. “It’s our most vulnerable thing.”

Beames continued, “A week does not go by without another [data] breach being mentioned in the press. Even though a lot of things are becoming declassified, there is still a mountain of things that they're not talking about publicity that scares the crap out of people. It’s a dire situation.”

He explained that computer networks are becoming integrated into networks of networks, and every time that happens the very thing that needs to be protected, what he calls “the data record,” is exposed to increasingly more attack surfaces. “And it’s only gonna get worse,” he added.

“If I sound like I’m being ridiculously over the top about this, I cannot exaggerate this enough. It’s a scary, scary situation,” Beames said.

The good news is that the government is addressing the issue. “We have to move to a Zero Trust network,” Beames said.

The government is writing rather broad guidelines for the Zero Trust network because they really want to encourage commercial solutions to the problem. They don’t want to pinpoint a specific solution yet.

Beamer made it clear this is not just a Department of Defense problem, an Air Force problem, or a Space Force problem. “It’s a problem for the nation,” he added.

Beames classified satellites as being just computers in orbit, that are handling data, collecting data, and transmitting data.

“The space war is really a cyber [war],” Beames said, “and space is the backbone of our warfighting capability. It is the fight of the 21st Century for the United States. It will decide whether we win or lose the space race.

“Every single thing that we do today relies on space systems.

“What we’re seeing over the weekend with Silicon Valley Bank is nothing compared to the devastation that could happen if GPS satellites were to be taken over through a cyber-attack. And it would not be difficult. Our economy could collapse.”