“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.”
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