The DownLink Podcast

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.