"I think the US national security community is going to shape commercial space for the foreseeable future," Carissa Bryce Christensen, CEO of BryceTech, told Breaking Defense.
The ongoing White House-level review of what is often called "mission authorization and supervision" responsibilities has not been simple, according to several government officials involved, with the key agencies with current legal say over space regulations jockeying for a piece of the regulatory pie.
“Tactical operating system” for warfighters has evolved to provide more situational awareness of the battlefield.
"China is replacing Russia as the No. 2 space power," Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., told Breaking Defense.
The National Space Council recently heard suggestions ranging from establishing a licensing "clearinghouse" to temporarily doing away with licensing altogether.
Kayhan Space is providing its baseline collision avoidance service, Pathfinder Essentials, for free "to keep space safe," said company co-founder Araz Feyzi.
"Orbital debris remediation is one of the main areas where the US is falling behind other countries, and this bill would help put America back in a leadership position on making space more sustainable for all to use," enthused Secure World Foundation's Brian Weeden.
Balancing security and access to data are critical to providing users with trustworthy, reliable data for real-time decisions.
The White House announcement comes after the FCC indicated it was wading into the murky regulatory waters of space-space services like satellite repair and refueling.
The "National Orbital Debris Implementation Plan" issued by the Office of Science and Technology Policy assigns DoD the lead for some 17 tasks.
"Magdrive's future is American, 100%," said Mark Stokes, CEO of the Oxford, England-based startup.
DIU is seeking companies with the "capability for bulk storage of liquid (>5,000 kg) and gaseous propellants on orbit," including hydrazine, liquid oxygen and others.
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Active debris removal is "definitely a need, and I think there is a use case for industry to get after that as a service-based opportunity," said Maj. Gen. DeAnna Burt.
"I don't think we're at the position to know both what the demand is, but also where industry is going, what's the viable way to consider other orbits if we were asked to do," says Col. Robert Bongiovi, director of SMC's Space Vehicles Directorate.
"Failure to conduct sustainable and transparent operations in an environment with a growing number of players may lead to conflict if careless behavior or unannounced proximity operations are interpreted as hostile acts," says Aerospace Corp.'s James Vedda.