Space domain awareness (SDA) – and all the data that must flow to support it – no longer hovers in a theoretical future.
Today, spacecraft operators must know swiftly and reliably what space trash, errant satellite, or hostile might threaten their operations – and the discipline is crying out for investment.
For the well-equipped U.S. military, better SDA tools are under development as a complex and powerful orbital-defense system at the United States Space Force’s SDA TAP Lab. That’s where we have been collaborating these past six months with dozens of other companies.
In the Lab’s Cohort 5, Planetary Systems AI finished building AI tools that help U.S. Space Force Guardians identify the launch history, onboard sensors, and jamming frequencies of space vehicles that are hidden, unknown, or potential threats.
As we accelerate into Cohort 6 next week, one thing has become very clear: This vital project – and indeed SDA overall – needs a huge boost in operating budget to keep pace with the space boom.
With more companies and international partners joining the SDA TAP (Tools, Applications & Processing) Lab, more payloads and satellites reaching orbit, and the increasing risk of collision with debris and each other impacting critical communications and cybersecurity infrastructure on the ground, it will be difficult to keep up with the pace of innovation such as the SDA TAP Lab’s rapidly-expanding work without more Congressional and the Pentagon’s monetary support or capital investment from the satellite and telecommunications industry to protect their in-orbit assets.
The SDA TAP Lab needs a significantly bigger budget to support its complex logistics, the cohort’s rising headcount, and a newly-available, multi-terabyte source of SDA data that must be imported, sorted, and made available to us and international partners to continue the work.
The need will be even greater for the commercial sector, where spacecraft operators work with SDA discipline in mind but without universally-available tools at hand.
While the Lab is building tools to sharpen the U.S. Space Force’s awareness and improve the timeliness and accuracy of the Guardians’ response, those military tools won’t be available to civilians.
For commercial launch and orbital companies, U.S. Guardians are tasked with issuing notifications to space operators. These email advisories advise U.S. allies and corporations who subscribes to them whenever a rocket launch is detected or an orbiting spacecraft makes a maneuver.
But the notifications don’t deliver operational context; While Guardians have access to multiple SDA data sources, sensors, satellites and other tools to support their defense-oriented mission (and will soon have the TAP Lab’s defense system as well), no such service exists to warn and protect the commercial sector against orbital mishaps.
It is up to launch and orbital companies to blend orbital data sources with whatever in-house SDA experience they might have to keep their spacecraft and space assets safe. Therefore, more capital investment in this critical infrastructure is needed in and adjacent to orbit before calamity happens.
Just as Planetary Systems AI is bringing deep experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning and data fusion to SDA for the U.S. Space Force, we plan to deliver SDA solutions for our partners in the commercial sector and their space strategies
Watch this space.
Contact: Mack Reed, Head of Product, mack@planetarysystems.ai
