The DownLink Podcast

SpaceX, Raytheon, And How Not To Land In Space Force CSO’s “Frozen Middle” This week’s episode is coming out of Space Symposium, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. With much of the civil, commercial, and military space leadership in attendance, U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman put commercial space leaders on notice: embrace speed, risk, and technological difficulty or be relegated to the “frozen middle.” Laura Winter speaks with Dave Broadbent, President of Raytheon’s Space & C2 division, and Casey DeRaad, NewSpace New Mexico’s CEO, who was in Boca Chica, Texas for the test launch of Elon Musk’s Starship-Super Heavy launch system.

A Moon Landing And a Test Launch - Two Events That Could Change Almost Everything The White House says it wants, “to achieve the goal of enabling human transportation and settlement within the solar system.” There are two, possibly seismic, events about to happen in the space ecosystem that could help: The ispace moon landing and SpaceX’s first orbital flight test of its Starship super-heavy rocket. To understand what this could mean for the civil, commercial, and defense space sectors, Laura Winter speaks with Chris Quilty, Founder of Quilty Analytics; George Pullen, MilkyWay Economy’s Chief Economist; Chris Stott, a serial space entrepreneur, and the Chairman & CEO, Lonestar Data Holdings; and Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and co-author of the coming book “The Next Space Race: A Blueprint for American Primacy”.

Why Virgin Orbit's Chapter 11 Filing and The Silicon Valley Bank Failure Matter The commercial space ecosystem is weathering multiple storm systems. First, there was the Silicon Valley Bank failure. This week the publicly listed launch company Virgin Orbit, and its subsidiaries - including its defense division Virgin Orbit National Systems - filed for Chapter 11 protection. To understand how these events affect the commercial space sector, which the Department of Defense is relying on more and more, Laura Winter speaks with Chris Quilty, Founder of Quilty Analytics; George Pullen, MilkyWay Economy’s Chief Economist; and Chris Stott, a serial space entrepreneur, and the Chairman & CEO, Lonestar Data Holdings.

Japan’s Commercial Moon Mission, Defense Policy, and its Transformer Lunar Rover SORA-Q This month the Tokyo-based company ispace plans on delivering three rovers to the lunar surface, including a small but real Transformer. This could be a first for Japan, but perhaps more importantly, if successful, it will also be a first for the commercial space sector, worldwide. Laura Winter speaks with Namrata Goswami about how Japan’s government is shaping policy to specifically develop its space industry and grow its national defense space capabilities, even to perhaps intercept China’s hypersonic glide vehicles. Goswami is an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics, a Faculty Associate at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”.

AI Hype is Warranted But What About the Vulnerabilities and Security For Space Operations? In this week’s episode, Laura Winter unpacks the security requirements and the policy the advent of AI necessitates with Samuel Visner, the Aerospace Corporation’s newest Technical Fellow who is a longtime cyberwarfare and intelligence veteran in and outside of government, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Science and Technology in International Affairs at Georgetown University; and Gregory Falco, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Assured Autonomy and the Civil and Systems Engineering Department, inventor, and a "Forbes 30 Under 30" alumnus.

Space Force Budget, Plus Science Chief Mozer: “We are in a hinge of history moment” This week the DownLink serves up a deep dive into what’s in the Department of Defense’s FY ‘24 United States Space Force budget request and an interview with the service branch’s Director of Science, Technology, and Research, Joel Mozer. In addition to the chief scientist, Laur Winter Speaks with Chris Stone, Senior Fellow for Space Deterrence-National Institute for Deterrence Studies and author of the book “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”; Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and co-author of the coming book “The Next Space Race: A Blueprint for American Primacy”; and Sam Wilson, senior policy analyst for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corporation.

A Space & Defense Startup Takes Aim at Train and Equip Status Quo In the same week the Biden Administration’s FY ‘24 budget dropped, the Chief of Space Operations told Guardians, “Preserving U.S. freedom of action in an increasingly contested space domain requires a military force specifically trained and equipped for the purpose.” To get those requirements, a group of former military space pros has founded a company that aims to provide training to Guardians, and manufacture orbital pursuit vehicles that can get up close and personal with objects of interest in any orbit. Laura Winter speaks with True Anomaly’s Co-Founder and CEO Even Rogers about the start-up’s genesis and business case.

This is Your Primer on AI, Space, and Defense, not ChatGPT Did you know that in the past five years, the U.S. Government has inked more than a billion dollars in contracts to develop and utilize artificial intelligence, or AI, according to a Brookings Institution report? While it’s unsurprising that the Department of Defense inked about 87 percent of these contracts, it is a space company that has won the greatest number. This week’s episode unpacks just what AI is before exploring AI’s role in the future of space, the space business, and defense. Laura Winter speaks with Dan Brunski, True Anomaly’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer; George Pullen, Milky Way Economy’s Chief Economist; Gabriel DeVille, a consultant and market analyst with Euroconsult; and Dick Wilkinson, Proof Labs co-founder and Chief Technology Officer.

China Learns Lessons From Ukraine’s Use of Space This week is the fourth and final episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. It is highly recommended to listen to the prior episodes first, to understand how Ukraine is using American and European commercial space-based assets to close the kill-chain and achieve strategic decision-making advantage against Russia. This episode’s focus is on what China, a major space-faring nation and space power, has learned from watching how Ukraine, a smaller outgunned and outmanned democratic nation, maintains access to and uses commercial space capabilities to control the strategic narrative and retake its sovereign territory from Russian forces. Laura Winter explores what these lessons are and how it has affected China’s war planning with Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”; Malcolm Davis, who is a senior defense and space policy analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute; and Christopher Stone, a Senior Advisor and Consultant with Core-CSI, LLC, who is a former Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, and author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”

Should the U.S. Military Defend U.S. Commercial Space Operators Involved In Ukraine? This week is the third episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. It is highly recommended to listen to the prior episode first, to understand how Ukraine is using commercial space-based assets to close the kill-chain and achieve strategic decision-making advantage against Russia. As U.S. commercial space operators are involved in the conflict, a first in any war, this episode explores just what responsibility does the U.S. government have in defending these U.S. flagged assets. Laura Winter speaks with Steve Wood, the Senior Director of Maxar Technologies’ News Bureau; Christopher Stone, a Senior Advisor and Consultant with Core-CSI, LLC, who is a former Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, and author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”; and with David Burbach, an Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College, who is an expert on space and warfare.

David, Goliath, & Space - Is This How Future Wars Will Be Fought? This week is the second episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. This episode explores the David and Goliath story of how Ukraine has used space-based assets, the majority of which are owned and operated by third-parties that are mostly from the commercial sector. Is this a preview of how future wars will be fought? Laura Winter speaks with Bryan Clark, a Senior Fellow and Director of the Hudson Institute Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, who has led studies for the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency on new technologies and the future of warfare; and with David Burbach, an Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College, who is an expert on space and warfare.

How Russia's War in Ukraine Is a Boon for Space Business The week’s episode kicks off a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the business, and defense. In this first episode, Laura Winter tackles the war’s effects on various space verticals, the capital markets, and the investment challenges and opportunities that have come out of Russia’s exit from the Western space ecosystem with Chris Quilty, Founder of Quilty Analytics; George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy; and Rich Smith, a space investor and a writer at The Motley Fool.

What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 2 This week is the second and final episode looking at what rarely comes to mind when we talk about space - the ground. This week is about the great ground game being played out in what has traditionally been in the U.S. sphere of influence - South America. The southern continent is where Chinese entities have access to or wholly manage a rough dozen ground stations, which has caused some concern in defense circles. To understand just what is going on below the equator, Laura Winter speaks with Matthew Funaiole, Vice President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ iDeas Lab, and a senior fellow of China Power Project; and Brian Hart, a CSIS fellow with the China Power Project. Their report “Eyes on the Skies - China's Growing Space Footprint in South America” can be found here: https://features.csis.org/hiddenreach/china-ground-stations-space/.

What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 1 This week’s episode and the next are all about what rarely comes to mind when we talk about space - the ground. This week is about the great game being played out in the High North on the strategic ground where the U.S., its allies, and adversaries, have located critical ground station infrastructure and the capabilities to disrupt and destroy satellite communications. To explain just what’s going on, Laura Winter speaks with Greg Falco and Nicolò Boschetti both from the Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA), a joint Whiting School of Engineering and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory research institute. Falco and Boschetti recently published the paper “Commercial Space Risk Framework Assessing the Satellite Ground Station Security Landscape for NATO in the Arctic and High North”, which can be found here: https://bit.ly/CommercialSpaceRiskFramework

There’s No Need To Be So Toxic! This week’s episode is about a potentially disruptive group of thruster technologies that are already being used by space agencies and on U.S. Space Force, DARPA, and other Department of Defense space missions. These thruster technologies are green - better for the environment and humans - and give more real bang for the buck. Could they displace highly toxic gas fuel Hydrazine, which may soon be banned in Europe, but upon which an entrenched thruster industry relies? Laura Winter speaks with Benchmark Space Systems’ Executive Vice President For Business Development And Strategy Chris Carella; Dawn Aerospace Co-Founder Jeroen Wink; and Benchmark’s Propulsion Chemist and Propulsion Engineer Sammy Graham.

Four Space & Finance Experts: What You Need to Know for a “Weird” 2023 Welcome to a “weird” New Year! Most publicly traded space companies are listed on the NASDAQ, which shed a third of its value in 2022. Add to that the highest interest rates in 15 years and dire predictions that at least some of the world’s economies are headed into recession. Yet, the space economy keeps on growing, with new predictions saying it will be worth $10 trillion by 2040. What’s going on here? Laura Winter speaks with Chris Quilty, founder of Quilty Analytics; Pacôme Révillon, CEO of Euroconsult; George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy; and Ryan Brukardt, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company.

Happy Birthday, Space Force… And Happy New Year This week is the U.S. Space Force’s third birthday. While a lot has been accomplished over the past 12 months, there is a lot more yet to do to make the service branch truly independent and first for purpose. This episode’s guests also reveal what they think were the biggest developments for space, in space, or from space for earth in the past year. Laura Winter speaks with Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, coauthor of “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”; Chris Stone, a senior fellow for space studies at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”; and Stephen Melvin, who has been involved military space operations in a variety of roles inside and outside of the government for years.

Rocket Lab & SpaceX: Upping Their Defense Business Game Defense primes with offerings in the space sector buckle up. The upstarts coming, prepared. Rocket Lab and SpaceX have just established defense business lines organized to offer U.S.-based end-to-end white-glove space services to the Department of Defense with a proven competitive rate card. Laura Winter speaks with Rocket Lab Founder and CEO Peter Beck; the Mitchell Institute’s Senior Space Fellow Chris Stone; and Quilty Analytics Analyst Caleb Henry.

What is “resiliency” technologically? You regularly hear the word in talking points about defense and space strategy, but space supremacy is driven by technology. This week’s episode, coming out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is about the development of two very different resiliency technologies, the companies, and a space business incubator, backed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. Laura Winter speaks with: - NewSpace New Mexico’s Founder and CEO, Casey DeRaad, and Scott Maethner, the organization's head of Strategy & Integration. - Goodman Technologies’ Founder and President, Bill Goodman - RS21’s CTO Kameron Baumgardner, and Carrie Powell, the company’s Project Manager for space.

What can we learn from the start of President Xi Jin-Ping’s third term at the helm of the Chinese Communist Party? What we know is that he has frozen out the old guard and elevated leaders from China’s space and aerospace sectors to the highest party and government positions. To unpack just what the era of Xi has in store for the space domain and international security, Laura Winter speaks with Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute focusing on space policy, security, strategy, and capability development; and Namrata Goswami, independent scholar on space policy and great power politics, Faculty Associate at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”.

Russian Sanctions Target U.S. Space & Milley’s “Various Technical Means” This week’s podcast is all about the Bear and space. Laura Winter speaks with former U.S. Defense Attaché to Russia, Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock USAF (Ret.) about Russia’s move to place personal sanctions on a number of commercial space sector leaders. But first, just how did the Biden Administration and NATO determine that a Russian-made missile that hit eastern Poland was actually an errant Ukrainian air-defense munition? Winter speaks with Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO who is now with the Center for a New American Security; and spacepower expert Col. M.V. “Coyote” Smith, USAF (Ret.), who is an Associate Professor and Director at the Air Command and Staff College.

Ursa Major is betting that its one and only product line - 3D-printed rocket engines - will not only disrupt how rockets are manufactured but lower costs for budding launch companies and the Air Force Research Laboratory. What also makes Ursa Major special is where it prints its engines - Youngtown, Ohio. The city has seen some very hard times since the closure of many of its steel mills in the late 70s and early 80s. Nevertheless, it making name for itself in the space economy for its advanced manufacturing of the 3D printed kind. Laura Winter speaks with Jesse Blacker, Ursa Major’s Director of Government Business Development, and with Barb Ewing, the Youngstown Business Incubator’s CEO.

NASA wants the commercial sector to provide pretty much everything, from housing to mining operations on the moon. But first, the space agency needs to establish itself as the anchor tenant to bring the commercial sector along. Meanwhile, China plans to establish a base within the decade. Laura Winter is at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium’s Fall Meeting at the University of Texas, El Paso. She speaks with U.S. Representative Veronic Escobar, representing El Paso; and Jim Reuter, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate.

No Satellites, No Economy: What You Need to Know About High Altitude Nuclear Detonation There's been a lot of talk about “tactical” nuclear weapons and rational choices. That discussion has been firmly anchored to ground effects. But what if the state actor simply wants to destroy the economy, without actually destroying much at all, at least immediately, on the ground? They would aim for space, specifically the Van Allen belts. To understand this threat - High Altitude Nuclear Detonation - and get an idea of what can be done to deter such an attack or mitigate its effects, Laura Winter Speaks with Lt. Col. “Tony” Vincent, the Director of Advanced Physics Courses at the Air Force Academy; and Chris Stone, author of “Reversing the Tao – A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”, and Senior Fellow for Space Studies at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“It Is Weird Out There”: Space Economists & Space Capital Market Experts To demystify just what is happening in the space capital markets and the space economy writ large, Laura Winter speaks with Justin Cadman Partner at Quilty Analytics; George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in New York, and Author of the book, “Blockchain and the Space Economy”; and Brendan Rosseau, Researcher and Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School, and Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.

This week the Biden Administration released its long-awaited National Security Strategy. To unpack just what the strategy means and doesn’t for space as a region and a warfighting domain, and for our space-based critical infrastructure, Laura Winter speaks with Chris Stone, author of “Reversing the Tao - A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence” and a Senior Fellow for Space Studies at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Voyager Space and its subsidiary Nanoracks are aiming to launch Starlab, a commercial space station in 2028. They just announced an agreement with The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio to build the terrestrial home for the science and technology the space station produces. Why Ohio? The state’s got a growing ecosystem of small businesses that are at the cutting-edge space manufacturing on and possibly off-world. Laura Winter speaks with Jeff Manber, Voyager’s President of International and Space Stations at Space and Nanoracks Chairman of the Board; John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy at The Ohio State University, and a professor in the College of Engineering’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs; and Mark Norfolk, President and CEO of Fabrisonic, an innovative manufacturing technology company that uses sound waves in its 3D metal printing process.

This week the U.S. Air Force celebrated its birthday, marking 75 years since it gained its hard-won independence from the U.S. Army. This independence remains not only about who is in command of who, but perhaps more importantly it is also about identity and culture. What lessons can the newest branch of the military, the U.S. Space Force, take from the Air Force experience to launch itself into an independent trajectory? To get the answers, Laura Winter is joined by Michael Hankins, Curator for U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; Brian Laslie, Command Historian and Associate Professor Department of History, United States Air Force Academy; and M.V. “Coyote” Smith, Associate Professor, Strategic Space Studies, Department of Space Power, United States Air Force Air Command and Staff College.

What should be the vision of the next and second U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations be for the future of the U.S. military’s newest service branch? U.S. senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee this week asked just that of the nominee for the job, Lt. Gen. Chance “Salty” Saltzman. The only recent and comparable American experience is that of General Hoyt Vandenberg, the second Air Force Chief of Staff since that service branch was formed out of the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1947. Vandenberg’s vision for the U.S. Air Force endures to this day. To discuss the opportunities and the challenges, Laura Winter is joined by M.V. “Coyote” Smith and Brent Ziarnick, both of whom are associate professors of space power at the Air Command and Staff College, at Maxwell Air Force Base; Mir Sadat who is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security; and Stephen Melvin, who has been involved military space operations in a variety of roles inside and outside of the government for years.

The Pentagon on Friday released a readout of a close-hold classified meeting of the Defense Policy Board that illustrates a growing concern that China and Russia are likely developing weapons systems for the space domain that “could impact U.S. deterrence and strategic stability” and a need to develop options to counter those systems. And that’s in addition to the release of multiple defense policies on space and the Biden Administration’s second convening of the National Space Policy Board. To unpack all of these developments, Laura Winter is joined by Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, coauthor of “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”, and the host of AFPC’s Space Strategy Podcast; and Christopher Stone who is a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”.

While NASA tests its Space Launch System to usher in a new age of human space exploration, testing whether Space-Based Solar Power can deliver an era of net-zero electricity, affordably, to the U.S. consumer energy market is being left up to the commercial sector. Laura Winter speaks with Ed Tate, Co-Founder and CTO of Virtus Solis, whose journey to SBSP started at General Motors, where he worked on the EV-1, the first mass-produced electric vehicle.

Now pushed back to Friday, NASA is billing the $4.1b Artemis I mission launch, a test of the Space Launch System and the crew-rated Orion capsule, as the beginning of a new chapter of U.S.-led human space exploration and sustained presence on the moon. Putting the warm and fuzzy excitement aside, Laura Winter explores the geostrategic and economic implications with Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”; Chris Quilty, a pioneer of Wall Street analysis of the commercial space sector and founder of Quilty Analytics: and Chris Stott, “a Manx-Born American", who is a serial space entrepreneur, and the Chairman & CEO, Lonestar Data Holdings.

The European Space Agency’s Director General Josef Aschbacher this week announced on LinkedIn that the agency will “propose a Space-Based Solar Power preparatory programme to Member States called #SOLARIS.” That means Europe is getting primed to move forward with its own proprietary SBSP program, independently. Put another way, this is not going to be another exercise in admiring the problem. Laura Winter speaks with Sanjay Vijendran, ESA’s Mars Exploration Strategy Team Leader and Future Mars Studies (MarsX Team) Coordinator, and the lead for the agency’s Space-Based Solar Power efforts; John Mankins, a former NASA physicist, now President of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions, who designed the Solar Power Satellite concept, Alpha - Mark 3; and Peter Garretson, an American Foreign Policy Council Senior Fellow, coauthor of “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”. To get a grounding in just what Space-Based Solar Power is, please go here first: https://defaeroreport.com/2022/08/15/the-downlink-aug-14-22-space-based-solar-power-and-the-u-k-s-bet-that-science-fiction-may-become-science-fact/

Is this sci-fi? Or could there be a space-based solution to securing reliable, renewable, and affordable energy and stop making awkward trips and payments to the petro-dollar-funded authoritarians, like that guy in the Kremlin? This week Laura Winter explores Space-Based Solar Power, or SBSP, with Martin Soltau, Co-Chair of Britain’s Space Energy Initiative and Frazer-Nash Business Manager; and Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, coauthor of “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”, and the host of AFPC’s Space Strategy Podcast.

Will norms of space behavior be enough to protect the $469 billion-dollar and growing space economy, the government-funded exploration and science programs, and the critical defense assets in orbit? Perhaps what’s needed is a bit stronger and binding. Like rules. Laura Winter speaks with Kevin O’Connell, the former Director of the Office of Space Commerce at the U.S. Department of Commerce, under the Trump Administration; Mir Sadat, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and an Adjunct Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute; and Julia Siegel, the assistant director of the Forward Defense practice in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Together they discuss Sadat and Seigel’s policy paper, “Space traffic management: Time for action”, which you can read here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/space-traffic-management-time-for-action/.

Sure. It’s easy to simply pin Russia’s announcement that it is quitting the International Space Station as a natural result of President Vladamir Putin’s unprovoked war in Ukraine. Yet, Russia’s reduced space industrial base, Putin’s ambitions, and a series of sackings and demotions illustrate a more complicated political and security picture in the space domain. To read the tea leaves, Laura Winter speaks with the head of the Rand Corporation’s Space Enterprise Initiative, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock, a former U.S. Defense Attaché to Russia, who was also a special assistant to the commander of Air Force Space Command; Jan Osburg, a RAND Corporation senior aerospace engineer, with experience in designing inhabited space systems; and Christopher Stone who is a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”.

Space companies bring high-paying high-tech jobs and create revenue for local businesses, and municipal and state governments. They can lessen the brain drain from rural localities. Thing is, it’s got to be the right fit - the right business plan for the right community - or the business may not even break ground, let alone launch. Laura Winter speaks with U.S. Representative Don Beyer of Virginia’s 8th congressional district; Christie Mastric a staff reporter with the Mining Journal, the newspaper of record in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; and Ryan McDevitt, CEO of Vermont’s Benchmark Space Systems.

Macroeconomic forces are just as inescapable as gravity. The commercial space sector is not immune from the effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, historic inflation, and the cost of borrowing. Laura Winter speaks with Chris Quilty, a pioneer of Wall Street analysis of the commercial space sector and founder of Quilty Analytics. He says what's different from past economic downturns is that the space sector's fundamentals have changed.

The U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond said Sunday that China “enjoys the same space capabilities and the same advantages that we currently enjoy.” That sounds a lot like parity. Congress is including inflation in its calculus, but what about what’s needed for deterrence in the space domain? To take a closer look at the numbers and what they mean, Laura Winter is joined by Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, coauthor of “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”, and the host of AFPC’s Space Strategy Podcast; and Christopher Stone who is a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”.

This week’s episode is a part two of two on PNT - positioning, navigation, and timing. This is about the business opportunity of providing time as a service to critical infrastructure sectors. PNT comes from the space-based Global Positioning System, or GPS. Anything from precision farming and guided missiles, and the operational synchronization of critical infrastructures like dams and refineries depend on it. Thing is, if something goes wrong, there’s no publically funded “plan B”. Laura Winter speaks with Richard Hoptroff a serial entrepreneur and inventor, who is Co-Founder and Chief Time Officer at Hoptroff, a company that provides Traceable Time as a Service (TTaaS®).

This week’s episode is a part one of two on PNT - positioning, navigation, and timing. All three parts come from the space-based Global Positioning System, or GPS. Anything from precision farming and guided missiles, and the operational synchronization of critical infrastructures like dams and refineries depends on GPS. Thing is, if something goes wrong, there’s no “plan B”. Laura Winter speaks with Dana Goward, a retired Coast Guard captain, who’s now serving on the National Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board, and president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.

Hypersonic weapons are a tricky class of missile systems. They’re hard to find and even harder to persistently track, even when using satellite capabilities together with ground-based radar. That affects America’s ability to deter attacks on the homeland. Laura Winter speaks with Christopher Stone, who has an idea, which he laid out in his most recent policy paper, “Orbital Vigilance: The Need for Enhanced Space-Based Missile Warning and Tracking”. Stone is a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”. If you wish to read the policy paper in its entirety, go here: https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/orbital-vigilance-the-need-for-enhanced-space-based-missile-warning-and-tracking/.

In this part two episode of The Downlink’s coverage of the State Of The Space Industrial Base Conference And Workshop, organized by New Space New Mexico, Laura Winter speaks with Jim Keravala, CEO, Chief Architect and Chairman of the Board of Off World. Keravala, like other commercial space leaders involved in anything from cargo delivery to support NASA’s Artemis program, to space domain awareness, and even mining the moon and asteroids, is preparing his organization to go to the lunar neighborhood and set up shop. He and others wonder whether the Department of Defense is going to join them in the cis-lunar region to sustain friendly commercial activity, and are concerned about the future if it doesn’t. You can listen to part one here: https://defaeroreport.com/2022/06/06/the-downlink-jun-06-22-should-americas-military-go-to-the-moon/

Commercial space companies involved in anything from cargo delivery to support NASA’s Artemis program, to space domain awareness, and even mining the moon and asteroids are preparing to go to the lunar neighborhood and set up shop. They’re wondering whether the Department of Defense is going to join them in the cis-lunar region to sustain friendly commercial activity, and are concerned about the future if it doesn’t. Laura Winter speaks with Namarata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”, and Brien Flewelling, Exoanalitic Solutions chief architect for space situational awareness and “innovation boffin”. This is part one of a two-part series.

China is looking for "a combination of soft and hard kill methods” to destroy Elon Musk’s broadband satellite communication constellation Starlink. So it’s not surprising that U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to China’s democratic neighbors produced agreements bolstering the space economy and space defense. Does this Indo-Pacific cooperation change China’s calculus? Laura Winter speaks with Brendan Mulvaney, Director of the Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute, and Malcolm Davis, who is a senior policy analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

The U.S. Department of State quietly launched a new organization that’s fusing commercial satellite imagery with social media posts to provide evidence of Russian war crimes to prosecutors, such as those in the International Criminal Court. It’s called the Conflict Observatory. Laura Winter Speaks with Nathaniel Raymond, a war crimes investigator and the Executive Director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, who worked with the State Department in standing up the Conflict Observatory; and Steve Wood, a former geospatial intelligence analyst, who is the Senior Director of Maxar Technologies’ News Bureau, which supplies the media and the U.S. government with unclassified satellite imagery documenting Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Two meaty and divisive subjects are in the queue. First the U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General released its report on whether the 2021 decision to locate Space Command in Huntsville, Alabama ticked all the legal and policy boxes. And Second, California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a senior Democrat, and Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio introduced the Space National Guard Establishment Act with 10 co-sponsors, but the Biden Administration is not among the proposed bill’s supporters. Laura Winter hosts a discussion with Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, coauthor of Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space, and the host of AFPC's Space Strategy Podcast; Christopher Stone who is a senior fellow for space studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence; and spacepower expert Col. M.V. “Coyote” Smith, USAF (Ret.), who is an Associate Professor and Director at the Air Command and Staff College, at Maxwell Air Force Base.

This week in Paris Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron announced a further deepening of their defence cooperation. This time it includes the space domain. To understand why this agreement is significant, Laura Winter speaks with Narayan Prasad, a long-time space entrepreneur based in Berlin, and Pranav Satyanath, a research analyst with the Takshashila Intitution’s Strategic Studies Programme in Bangalore.

China celebrates Space Day of China with announcements, putting the U.S. on notice that it means to get to and stay on the moon sooner rather than later, according to Malcolm Davis, a senior policy analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Laura Winter also speaks with Hawkeye 360’s CEO John Serafini and National Security Space Association Executive Director and Founder Steve Jacques about their announcement of a new commercial space initiative that aims to provide immediate humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine. You can find more information about SIFU here: https://www.he360.com/space-industry-launches-humanitarian-initiative-to-support-ukraine/

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the United States is unilaterally giving up direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) testing. This type of ASAT test is known to create orbital debris, which almost everyone agrees is a danger to space-based infrastructure. But was this ban the right thing to do? That depends on the perspective. Laura Winter speaks with U.K. Amb. Aidan Liddle, Britain’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland, and spacepower expert Col. M.V. “Coyote” Smith, USAF (Ret.), who is an Associate Professor and Director at the Air Command and Staff College, at Maxwell Air Force Base, in Montgomery, Ala.