Adversaries like Russia and China are increasing their assets in space. As the U.S. looks to counter these threats, it’s turning to the private sector for assistance.
"Right now, we have a lot of private investment, private equity going into the space industry," Astroscale's Ron Lopez said. "Small companies with a lot of innovative technologies that are growing quickly, innovating and delivering capability to the market very differently than the slow, methodical process led by government contracting regulations."
An increasing amount of federal funding is helping develop the projects but many start-ups are using private resources as well.
"In the end, the U.S. taxpayer wins because we have better capability being brought to the market by entrepreneurs," Lopez said.
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With every new rocket launch, space is becoming more crowded. Astroscale is working on a device that would clean up space junk. It is designed to latch onto defunct satellites and drag them toward earth’s atmosphere for disposal.
"Our focus is on the larger pieces of debris and taking care of them responsibly before they break up or collide with something else and become smaller pieces of debris that it's much harder to remediate," Lopez said.
According to a report on security in space by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the probability of a collision between objects in space, is on the rise.
"A lot of it are active spacecraft, a lot of it hard dead, long defunct spacecraft. A lot of it is debris, which is not maneuverable," said Defense Intelligence Agency Office of Space and Counterspace Chief John Huth. "A lot of it is what we call lethal, non-trackable pieces of junk, things between 2 to 4 inches in size that we simply cannot track yet. They're going 17,500 miles an hour. And there are many other dead objects, the size of automobiles or larger, also going 17,500 miles an hour."
Astroscale’s latest project is cleaning up the area around the Hubble Telescope. The developers are partnering with Momentus, a company that focuses on in-space infrastructure services including space transportation. They plan to relocate the Hubble and remove any debris within the telescope’s orbit.
"It's really aimed at boosting the orbit of Hubble, the underlying technology that allows us to go up and remediate the debris problem, bringing down those large satellites and rocket bodies, is the same core technology that allows us to dock with an object and take it to a different orbit," Lopez said.
Experts and private companies agree that leaving U.S. space assets unprotected, poses a national security issue. Space debris is also making it harder to send new satellites into orbit and is creating fewer launch windows.
"It's all about freedom of access and freedom of action. We have to understand what's going on in the space domain," Lopez said. "Debris also poses a threat to our ability to understand what's going on in the space domain. The more things you have to track, the harder it becomes. We want to make sure that decision makers have the best, most accurate picture possible so that they can make informed decisions and defuse any tensions."
Intelligence officials are also concerned about protecting crucial U.S. satellites. China and Russia have conducted anti-satellite tests. The Defense Intelligence Agency says those tests were practice targets to help them one day attack working satellites.
"Those were tests that show their intent as they're developing these anti-satellite missiles to disrupt or destroy U.S. capabilities, especially during a time of conflict," Defense Intelligence Officer for Space and Counterspace Kevin Ryder said.
True Anomaly is a private company working on technology to defend against anti-satellite attacks. Its Jackal Autonomous Orbital Vehicle can maneuver in space and track down aggressors.
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"The spacecraft is really designed to deal with the threats that are on orbit," True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers said. "One of the things that the Russian and Ukrainian conflict has made has made very clear is that state actors are incentivized to target commercial satellites on orbit. It begs the question, should commercial operators think about defending themselves if the United States Space Force and others and their allies can't come to their rescue."
Rogers hopes the Jackal will help defend peaceful space operations. True Anomaly is working with the Defense Department to launch the device into orbit later this year.
"The Jackal spacecraft fills some really important gaps in space domain awareness and surveillance," Rogers said. "As adversaries have become more and more cognizant of U.S. capabilities and intentions in the space domain, they've designed systems that are hard to track and hard to take pictures of. The Jackal Autonomous Vehicle is designed to shore up some of those surveillance capabilities."
The Jackal can also conduct surveillance and take images of bad actors. It is designed to better hold adversaries accountable for efforts to disrupt peaceful space.
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"Before we can make investments in really defending ourselves in the domain, we want to make we want to avoid mistakes of miscalculation and so to do that, we have to collect information on what adversaries are doing, what they intend to do and their future plans," Rogers said.
Intelligence officials welcome assistance from private companies in helping defend space assets. But as the U.S. expands its footprint in orbit, adversaries are doing the same.
"I think there has been a resurgence. Those things that we do to explore space, to understand space better, to leverage the environment in a positive way are all for the good. It's the part that we get to focus on day to day that's the not so good that that concern us," Huth said. "China has a policy called a civil military fusion, where they tried to leverage a lot of what they do on the civil side for military purposes. So we and the rest of our partners in the intelligence community just need to be conscious and keep our eyes on the fact that they may at some point decide to take some of those activities from a scientific realm to another realm where we'd be more concerned about."
Both Rogers and Lopez served in the military before launching their startups.
"It's a completely different dynamic than it was 30 years ago when I was in uniform," Lopez said. "It’s a very exciting time to be in the space industry, to be on the front end of what I think is going to be some pretty incredible growth."
Rogers agrees that it’s an exciting time for the space industry. He also says the U.S. still faces significant challenges and increasing resources is critical.
"The Space Force faces this unprecedented moment in the history of many military services, which is they have to be perfect on their first test. They have to ace their first test, but they've only just started studying," Rogers said. "They have to move quickly to address the threats to shore up vulnerabilities. The threat that they'll be called to defeat is a serious and significant threat that will require really advanced training, advanced capabilities and surveillance capabilities."
