AUSA Show Daily | Pentagon procurement chief Ellen Lord: ‘Lots of needs, opportunity in space’

View this email in your browser SpaceNews show daily, Oct. 9-11 October 11, 2017 SPACENEWS' DAILY COVERAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY Pentagon procurement chief Ellen Lord: 'Lots of needs, opportunity in space' Sandra Erwin — The Pentagon is coming to grips with the possibility that Congress will pass a law to create a new military service dedicated to space. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Air Force leaders oppose the measure, but regardless of the final legislative outcome, there is a growing recognition that military space issues demand more attention in the building, said Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. "We had a meeting on space just this morning," Lord said Oct. 11 at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference. "There is a lot of debate on space going on right now," she said. "We have a lot of needs there, there's a lot of opportunity." With Kestrel Eye satellite on deck for deployment, Army gears up for direct-tasking exercises Caleb Henry — The U.S. Army's experimental Kestrel Eye is scheduled to deploy Oct. 24 from the International Space Station to begin a two-year mission testing how the small satellite can speed the delivery of time-sensitive overhead imagery to soldiers on the ground, according to a senior Army official.  The mission will influence whether the Army pushes ahead with its own smallsat Earth-observation constellation independent of what commercial operators are doing.  Thomas Webber, director of Army Space and Missile Defense Command's Technical Center, told SpaceNews the speed that soldiers can obtain satellite imagery today is substantially slower than desired. Army wants "adapt and buy" approach to speed telecom acquisition Sandra Erwin — Electronics in small packages can do big things in space. That sort of sums up the thinking behind defense industry giant Lockheed Martin's move to invest in commercial companies that build tiny satellites and sensors, and develop data-crunching software. The Orion deep-space exploration vehicle that Lockheed Martin is building for NASA will have miniature infrared focal plane arrays to, one day, map the surface of the moon. These are the some of the technologies that keep getting cheaper and better thanks to commercial innovations, said Keoki Jackson, Lockheed Martin's chief technology officer who previously ran many of the company's military space programs. "We are happy to have access to low-cost satellite technology," Jackson told reporters Oct. 11 Raytheon moves into commercial imaging market with DigitalGlobe camera order Debra Werner — DigitalGlobe's selection of Raytheon Space Systems to manufacture high-resolution imagers for the WorldView Legion constellation shows Raytheon is making headway in its effort to use expertise honed through decades of government work to attract commercial customers. 'We're leveraging 45 years of extensive global experience in space imaging to provide DigitalGlobe with an unmatched view of the world from space," Rick Yuse, Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems president, said in a statement. Prior to the WorldView Legion contract announced Oct. 10, Raytheon Space Systems worked exclusively under government contracts. In recent years, however, the firm has identified promising commercial activities to pursue as it seeks to diversify its business and gain a foothold in the burgeoning commercial Earth imagery business. SPONSORED | Stretched Air Mobility Command Needs Better Comms to Meet Global Mission The U.S. Air Force's Air Mobility Command (AMC) is stretched thin across the world. Constant operations and disaster relief flights have created a situation in which the AMC flew twice as many hours as optimal from 2012 – 2016. AMC airmen are deployed in 77 locations around the world. Aircraft take off every 2.8 minutes to support the mission, and every five minutes a jet requires re-fueling over the Middle East. Many of the tankers carrying this load are over 50 years old, and the service is forced to meet these heightened requirements with fewer airmen than it had in 1990. Command and control (C2) challenges add to the AMC's operational burden. According to a recent article in Over the Horizon, the AMC lacks secure C2 solutions for Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) communications on the vast majority of its supply flights. Follow SpaceNews Advertise with Us SN FIRST UP Satcom is sent out every Wednesday by SpaceNews Staff Writer Caleb Henry and SpaceNews Editor-in-Chief Brian Berger. Copyright © 2017 SPACENEWS, All rights reserved.