It is Time to Secure Our Future in Space
In our business if you are doing things right — if you are building advanced space technology — it is only a matter of time until the US Department of Defense comes knocking on your door asking for your help. You can either say yes, or you can say no.
At Astranis we have decided to say yes.
By its nature, advanced space technology almost always has national security implications. Astranis’s small GEO satellite platform and our software defined radio technology are no exception. We have been working with the US Space Force for nearly two years, advancing our technology so we can support military communications in an increasingly contested RF environment. And we are now announcing that we have been awarded a multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to compete for orders under a $950,000,000 ceiling for the Department of the Air Force’s Advanced Air Battle Management System (ABMS) program.¹ Astranis is proud of our support for these critical activities.
The growing threat
On February 24, 2022, the sovereign nation of Ukraine was invaded by Russia, in a full-scale ground invasion. Since then we have seen all manner of horrors and atrocities, and Russia’s aggression is showing no signs of ending any time soon. For most of us, this war is very different from anything we have seen in our lifetimes. An authoritarian dictatorship has just invaded a capitalist democracy. And the world has changed forever as a result. On a more personal front, a few days after the invasion started, a member of the Astranis team who serves in the US Army reserves was called up. He was notified that he is being deployed to the eastern borders of NATO in Europe. This news hit home for me and for many members of the Astranis team, including our military veterans.
Often when you read about major events, there always seems to be two sides to every story.
Well, I am of the firm belief that there is still right and wrong in this world. And this invasion is wrong.
This is an evil act by an evil man. It has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. It has created a massive humanitarian crisis. It will destabilize the peace in Europe and around the world that so many have worked so hard to achieve. And millions of people who previously were living in a democracy could be living under a brutal dictatorship for some time to come. That is why we must stand with the people of Ukraine and do whatever we can to help them.
Importantly, Russia has shown that they have no qualms about making space a battlefield. One of Russia’s first actions before starting the Ukraine invasion was to launch a devastating cyberattack against a large geostationary (GEO) commercial telecommunications satellite. Last November, they conducted an anti-satellite missile test using a ground-launched ballistic missile interceptor in open violation of international norms. The test generated over 1500 pieces of orbital debris and forced the Astronauts on board the International Space Station to take shelter and seal off entire sections of the ISS.
China also has made their intentions very clear. They have quietly accelerated the pace of Chinese rocket launches at an exponentially increasing rate. Last year China launched more rockets into space than any other nation with 55 launches total — more than a launch per week. That includes multiple launches of the massive Long March 7 rocket, each able to launch the largest of GEO satellites. With each rocket capable of launching multiple payloads, the Chinese have now placed a staggering number of vehicles into space, so many that it is hard to keep track. In particular, China’s continued efforts to conduct sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) with other objects in GEO have set off alarm bells in national security space circles.
The plans of these two countries are not hidden and the threat they pose to a peaceful and prosperous future in space is not theoretical. It is time to secure our future in space.
What we can do to help
Astranis first engaged with the US Department of Defense in 2020, when Astranis investors Harpoon began introducing space experts in the US Space Force (then the US Air Force) to our MicroGEO technology. Harpoon was founded by two former members of the US military, a Marine and a Navy SEAL. They use their personal experience of what US military personnel face on the front lines to look for Silicon Valley companies that have technology that could make an impact, and save lives.
The US Space Force quickly took an interest in our efforts to build small, nimble and low-cost telecommunications satellites for GEO.
They awarded Astranis two initial contracts, and ever since we’ve been working with Space Systems Command in Los Angeles to advance our software-defined radio technology in a way that would allow us to support the waveforms used in military communications. Since then we have found that a lot of what we’re doing in the commercial market directly translates to the US military’s needs for more communications options and more bandwidth.
The power of US innovation
Since the beginning, Astranis has been focused on building compact, very powerful satellites that can be built and launched very quickly to GEO — the most valuable real estate in the solar system. From GEO, each Astranis satellite focuses beams of satellite internet on a geography the size of a small or medium-sized country. In the national security arena, that same satellite design means we can rapidly provide extra capacity in the case of a conflict or humanitarian crisis. Because our satellites can be repositioned around the world many times — thanks to a high-performance electric propulsion system — it’s possible to relocate a spacecraft on demand and provide additional help to a part of the world that needs it.
This capability is increasingly important in a world where space is a contested domain. That’s because today the United States is totally dependent on a few dozen massive spacecraft in GEO, costing billions of dollars to build and launch. We must make our future architectures resilient to enemy attack, and our side able to rapidly replenish our capabilities if an asset is lost. Indeed, many of our leaders have come to the realization this must be our top priority, and are pushing for the US to move faster to build and launch a new generation of spacecraft.
Thankfully, the United States has an advantage that no other country in the world has — commercial space. Only in the United States can a small company in Silicon Valley raise private capital, pull together a team of top engineers, and advance the state of the art in space in a very short time. No other country has anything like it anywhere else in the world. And now we’ve shown that with companies like Astranis we can ramp up those efforts, and start bringing a new product to market not just as a one-off, but at scale. With such an incredibly powerful tool available, the United States can and will secure space as open and peaceful. The US Government only has to harness it. If they do, they will find a willing partner in Astranis and many of our peers. We are proud of what we have accomplished so far and look forward to doing what we can to be helpful to US interests abroad.
[1] Astranis has been awarded a multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to compete for orders under a $950,000,000 ceiling for the maturation, demonstration and proliferation of capability across platforms and domains, leveraging open systems design, modern software and algorithm development in order to enable Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2).
This contract is part of a multiple award multi-level security effort to provide development and operation of systems as a unified force across all domains (air, land, sea, space, cyber, and electromagnetic spectrum) in an open architecture family of systems that enables capabilities via multiple integrated platforms.
