|  Jeff Foust, COLORADO SPRINGS — A new space traffic management policy announced by Vice President Mike Pence April 16 would give the Commerce Department, and not the FAA, responsibility for providing space situational awareness data to satellite operators.
During a keynote address at the 34th Space Symposium here, Pence said the draft policy, developed by the National Space Council, is intended to address the growing number of satellites and space debris, and the increased burden placed on the Defense Department to provide warnings to satellite operators of potential collisions.
"The National Space Council has developed the first comprehensive space traffic management policy, which we will soon be sending to the president's desk for his approval," Pence said.
| | |  Jeff Foust, COLORADO SPRINGS — Stratolaunch expects to conduct the first flight of its giant aircraft this summer as it develops a broad spectrum of launch services that will make use of it, the company said April 16.
Stratolaunch has performed two taxi tests of the aircraft at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California so far, most recently in late February. Three more taxi tests of the vehicle are planned according to company officials, speaking on background during the 34th Space Symposium here.
Those taxi tests will take place at progressively higher speeds. During the most recent test, the plane reached speeds of up to 74 kilometers per hour. The next test will reach speeds of nearly 130 kilometers per hour, with later tests going up to 220 kilometers per hour.
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Lockheed Martin Space develops best-in-class space architecture, from satellites and ground-based systems to interplanetary and human-rated spacecraft, unlocking the power of space for humanity. | | | |  Debra Werner, COLORADO SPRINGS — British startup Earth-i unveiled the first color video captured by its VividX2 satellite, a prototype for its future Earth imagery constellation, April 16 at the 34th Space Symposium here.
The videos show cars in Nashville, Tennessee, airports in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and city life in New Orleans, Louisiana, San Diego, California, and Sydney, Australia. In January, Earth-i launched VividX2, a 100-kilogram satellite built by Surrey Satellite Technologies Ltd. (SSTL) and previously called Carbonite-2, aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle into sun synchronous orbit. | | |  Debra Werner, SAN FRANCISCO — Sierra Nevada Corp. plays a unique role in the aerospace industry. Like traditional contractors, it's a major systems integrator with billions of dollars in annual revenue stemming from civil, commercial and military work. But it's also a private company, like SpaceX and Blue Origin, making enormous investments in future space capabilities.
SNC's largest investment to date is in Dream Chaser, the spaceplane NASA selected in the initial rounds of its campaign to encourage companies to build private space taxis to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. After awarding SNC more than $312 million for Dream Chaser development, NASA passed over SNC to award commercial crew contracts in 2014 to competitors Boeing and SpaceX.
That loss was incredibly painful, Eren and Fatih Ozmen said in their first joint interview, but they quickly decided to continue investing in Dream Chaser.
| | |  Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — It was one the big headlines at the 2017 National Space Symposium: The Air Force was standing up a new three-star vice chief of staff for space operations known as A-11. This was hailed as a major muscle move by the service to show critics in Congress it was taking the space mission seriously.
That was only a year ago, but it might as well have been a lifetime.
Over the course of the past 12 months, not only did Congress pass a law that disbanded the A-11 position but it also stripped the secretary of the Air Force of her role as principal space adviser to the secretary of defense.
And it has set in motion a possible massive reorganization of the Air Force. An independent review is now under way to look at how the military's space missions might be spun off into a separate service.
| | |  Debra Werner, COLORADO SPRINGS — As the U.S. Air Force surveys the market to identify contractors who could develop electro-optical infrared sensors to meet Defense Department's weather requirements, Raytheon is highlighting the capabilities of its existing sensor, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), currently flying on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite and NOAA-20, known prior to launch as Joint Polar Satellite System-1.
"The VIIRS sensor today was built to meet all of the DoD's weather needs for electro-optical infrared," said Wallis Laughrey, Raytheon Space Systems vice president. "It's currently satisfying those needs just not in the early morning orbit, which is particularly important to the Department of Defense because of timeliness."
The Air Force has two initiatives underway to enhance its ability to monitor weather using electro-optical infrared imagers. It is working with the Pentagon's Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office to launch a small satellite around 2022 to bridge the gap created by the end of Defense Meteorological Satellite-19 operations.
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