When you Are on the Moon you can Touch it!

In school this week, my son learned about his senses.  In an effort to describe the difference between "sight" and "touch" the teacher used the moon as an example.  "The moon is something we can see but not touch," my son's teacher explained.  Incredulous, my son announced,

"When you are ON the moon you can touch it."

It is our job to create this attitude in a whole new generation - of course you can touch the moon when you are on it because your generation will travel to the moon  - not just the astronauts of this new generation, but you personally.  This new generation will go to the moon and use the moon's resources and learn from the moon and have fun on the moon.  The moon is REAL - let's go touch it!

Asteroid Prospecting in the Triangular Equilibrium

A few months ago I analyzed a SpaceDev/NEAP-style commercial NEO prospecting mission.

An interesting asteroid report last week has made we consider a Hybrid NEO prospecting/research mission:

A few thoughts on the timing challenges of a prospecting mission of any kind:

• One potential market for the information gathered about the target asteroid(s) is to sell the data to those interested in mining such asteroids. 
• Most NEO’s are in orbits whose paths cross infrequently with earth’s orbit.
• Most “low cost” mining efforts would require a near earth asteroid to pass by earth at least two times – one pass for the prospector to prospect (sending back data) and a second pass to mount a mining expedition. Without two passes would require the venture to combine prospecting and mining into a single mission. I believe this approach to be too high risk for an investor-led venture.
• Finding NEOs that return frequently enough to earth to attract investment dollar for a mining mission (double orbit missions) may be difficult. 
• And the prospector company (the company that flew to multiple NEOs in search of data about asteroid composition, etc.) will have a hard time selling their data if they have to wait for the NEO to approach a second time.
• For example: Asteroid 2006 RH120 at its closest distance from earth could be reached with only 3.8km/sec of delta-v.  According to JPL, Asteroid 2006 RH120 last approached earth on 14 June 2007 and won’t return again until 29 Oct 2028.  If your prospecting mission had gathered data on 2006 RH120, the scientific community might purchase the data gathered (yay), but commercial groups would not if the commercial ventures had to wait 20+ years to turn that data into profits.
• Some NEOs return to earth more frequently than this example, but it illustrates a principle – prime targets for commercial NEO prospecting missions would combine a low delta-v to reach and frequent return trips to earth.

Enter 2010 SO16.

2010 SO16 is unlike most NEOs and at 7.6 km/sec of delta-v to reach, it may offer an attractive target for a NEO prospecting mission. Some quick facts:

• Located in a similar orbit to earth’s – just 60% ahead
• ~50x the distance to the moon
• Very stable orbit – been there a long time!
• May be a part of the theorized objects located at the triangular equilibrium points 60 degrees ahead of and behind the Earth in its orbit
• Scientists may find such an object interesting because as the article put it, “If they [triangular equilibrium objects] do exist, they may represent relic material from the formation of Earth, Moon and the other inner planets”
• 200-400 meters across - plenty of rock to prospect.

Why Prospect Asteroid 2010 SO16?

• Pretty close to earth – so you can prospect the asteroid
• Always pretty close to earth – so other could mine the asteroid if they determine it profitable to do so. This makes your prospecting data more valuable too.
• Valuable as an earth observation point? Perhaps?
• Valuable to watch for NEOs? (not sure on this point – need some engineers out there to help me). The alternative is to send a probe to Venus to watch earth – which would be easier or more valuable?
• If 2010 SO16 is actually ejecta from earth/moon formation as some scientists have theorized, this asteroid may hold significant scientific value.
• If 2010 SO16 is actually apart of other objects located close by, once there, additional objects may be close by to prospect as well.

Commercial value.  Scientific value.  Profitable?

Falcon Heavy Impact on NewSpace

With the announcement from SpaceX yesterday about the Falcon Heavy, I went back over the recent missions I had been analyzing here at Space Business Blog to determine if any of them would benefit directly from the Falcon Heavy’s superior performance and reduced per pound launch cost.

The Answer: No. Well, mostly no.

Let me explain. Most of the innovative missions I had been considering were near term missions that could be performed on a single launch without the added capability of the Falcon Heavy.

• CubeSat “Observers” of LEO/GEO assets – too small, mission may benefit from cheaper secondary payload prices
• A NEO prospector mission – too small, mission may benefit from cheaper secondary payload prices
• Nanosat Launchers – if anything, as launchers get larger, the need for a very small/responsive alternative grows, not decreases
• LEO/GEO/L1 tug – a Falcon Heavy launch capability may actually harpoon this whole idea of a transfer tug (at least in the near term). Probably worth a new post on how the Falcon Heavy illuminates/reduces the value for such a capability
• Refueling of Iridium’s constellation - too small, mission may benefit from cheaper secondary payload prices

But here are a few humble thoughts on why a Falcon Heavy changes the game:

• Further NewSpace validation: Still a lot of doubt in congress that a commercial company can do rocket science – one more answer to these critics. New Space firms benefit from the validation that SpaceX creates.
• Cheaper Secondary Payloads: With 53 metric tons to LEO available for each mission, smaller payloads could be combined to take advantage of all of that capability. This would allow more users to benefit from the $1000/lb price point, not just the big payloads.
• Cheaper Falcon 1 and 9 missions: The Falcon family of launchers use the Merlin engine. Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and the Falcon Heavy (which could be called Falcon 27 since it uses 27 Merlins for each mission). In the announcement yesterday, Elon eluded to economies of scale coming from SpaceX making so many of these Merlin engines - 100’s per year. If the Falcon Heavy flies frequently, SpaceX will get even more experience about making many, many, many Merlin engines. The more Merlins you make, the more ways you find to make them cheaper. Yay economies of scale! The hope is that these savings result in lower prices for Falcon 1 and 9 over the long-term.
• New mission potential: And now the obvious benefits – you can do more with any mission (more mass lifted at a lower cost). Think of the missions you can do with the raw ingredients being developed. Humans to NEOs, L1, Moon flybys, Venus/Mars flybys, and science missions to Mars and back – limited new hardware needed. The reality that a rich private citizen will soon be able to leave LEO for some impressive destinations has not been grasped by the population at large and will surprise many when such a mission is actually launched:
• Falcon Heavy
• Bigelow Modules
• Dragon
• CST-100
• Even the Orion, and ISS
• Commercial beats contracting: ULA could have built the rocket that SpaceX is building – they have a lot of very smart engineers. But they won’t build it (IMHO). They will wait for a contract to build one – which won’t come. Yes, they will spend their own small R&D budgets to enhance their current offerings. But they won’t spend hundreds of millions to develop a vehicle independently. And because of this, the only reason ULA will be offering launch services at all in ten years will be:
• SpaceX can’t keep up with demand or
• SpaceX has an accident or
• The US govt insists on multiple launch providers to ensure access (funny they lacked that once ULA was formed) or
• ULA’s political clout keeps them in the game – even if overpriced
• ULA changes from a contractor to acting more like a commercial provider (the hardest switch to make)

**UPDATE:
Next Big Future offers this great cost comparison between the EELV launch costs of ULA and SpaceX:

Even if you DON'T have $80M+, the Falcon Heavy announcement changes how the whole world plans their space missions - even New Space.

Low Costs. Rapid Testing. Right-Sized Processes.

XCOR 5K18

Why work with a New Space firm? As a major Prime, why not just build it yourself?  New Space firms won’t have access to the equipment you do.  New Space firms won’t have as diverse of a workforce as you do.

ULA had reasons for working with New Space.

In their announcement this week, United Launch Alliance (LM and Boeing) described the reasons for working with XCOR on a new innovative Aluminum rocket engine technology:

• Lower Costs: “performance and reliability our customers need at a more affordable price.” The overhead/G&A cost burdens for large companies often makes one hour of effort for a smaller company cost less than at larger aerospace firms - even when you factor in the smaller firm's profit margins. 
• Faster to Test and Re-test: “rapid turnaround for build and test cycles that drive innovative learning.” A culture built on the idea of “when in doubt, build” rather than a culture built on “when in doubt, PowerPoint”.
• Right-sized Processes: “small company project management approach.” Larger companies often times have a one-size-fits-all set of processes that may work well for large development efforts but may need to be rethought for smaller, more risk-tolerant efforts. Kudos for ULA/XCOR recognizing the need to match the processes with the effort.

Every industry is replete with examples of large firms working with/buying innovative smaller firms to gain the advantages mentioned above: lower costs, rapid testing, right-sized processes. But first you need to get invited to the dance.  New space firms need to demonstrate enough independent success to get noticed by these larger companies.  But how do you demonstrate that type of independent success? Lower costs. Rapid testing. Right-sized processes.  Congrats, XCOR.

60 NanoSat Mission Ideas

AxelSpace's WNIsat-1

The 2nd Nano Satellite Symposium is being held today at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Evidently the Tsunami has shortened the event from three days to one day. At the conference, AxelSpace and Symposium organizers announced sixty entries in a NanoSatellite Mission Idea contest.

Symposium organizers list the top 32 entries (and a mission abstract).  These top 32 entries come from 22 different countries signaling (or at least hinting at) strong international demand for a NanoSat launch capability.


The Top 32 Mission Concept Titles (listed with 10 Finalists on Top):

1. Integrated Meteorological / Precise Positioning Mission Utilizing Nano-Satellite Constellation
2. Distributed Multispectral Imaging System
3. The Service for Individual to Meet Space; Future Space Funeral
4. ExoplanetSat Constellation
5. Northern Communication and GPS-based science Nanosatellite constellation mission
6. Space Advertiser (S-VERTISE)
7. Global ship monitoring using space-based AIS receivers
8. Experiment of Tethered Nanosatellite Flying with Electrodynamic Tether
9. Demonstration of Optical Stellar Interferometry with Near Earth Objects (NEO) using Laser Range Finder by a Nano-Satellite Constellation: A Cost-effective approach
10. A Global Water Pollution Monitoring Satellite System (WAMS)
11. Fire Alarm Constellation
12. Medium/large vehicle tracking system
13. Global water pollution monitoring using a nanosatellite constellation (WAPOSAT)
14. Satellite Constellation for Monitoring of Chemical Composition of Earth Atmosphere
15. Constellation of Atmospheric Density Research Experiments (CADRE)
16. Building a long-distance power transmission system that uses magnetic resonance with nano-satellite
17. EBELESAT 1
18. Disaster Monitoring Constellation using Nanosatellites
19. ELYSSAT A Nano Satellite for the desert remote-sensing
20. Fire observing Nanosatellite Constellation
21. Global orbital monitoring of nuclear facilities decommissioning - NUCLFADESAT
22. MARINE LIFE MONITORING AND PRESENTATION
23. Monitoring of on Earth Vegetation by Means of Spectral Analysis
24. Nano SOS (Space Object Surveillance)
25. NANOSATELLITE CONSTALATION
26. ODEI –C24
27. SPILL-SATCON, Satellite Constellation Mission Idea to Detect Oil Spills in Oceans
28. Radio Telescope Nano-satellites
29. Constelacion de Radio - Satelites
30. Nanosatellite Constellation for Rural Telemedical Applications
31. Silk Road Intellectual Transport System
32. Stranded Traveler Tracking System

Time to Raise Money for a Space Startup?

Lately, I have been getting questions from space entrepreneurs about a thawing Angel/Venture market and what that means for New Space firms seeking investment capital. Mark Suster over at Both Sides of the Table wrote a great post on:

8 Questions to Help Decide if You Should be Raising Money Now.

 Below are Mark’s eight questions with my commentary intermixed. Note, Mark is a Silicon Valley investor so many of his examples are focused in that area – still a lot to glean for New Space.


1. Are you in the “lean” phase?

Are you trying to figure out if your idea is an incremental improvement or a game-changer – if so, keep your capital needs small. Once you have proven (even if just to yourself) the world-changing worthiness of your idea than gather some investment money and ramp up capital use. When seeking seed funding – usually look for $500K to $1M initially from outside investors.

2. How much capital do I need to run my business effectively right now?

A good rule of thumb: an entrepreneur needs capital for 18 months of operations. I appreciated this nugget. As an entrepreneur, eighteen months feels like an eternity, but I should be striving for this!

3. How much dilution am I going to have to take now?

Expect 25-33% dilution per round. What does this mean? Each round your percentage ownership will be “diluted” as investors take a share of the value of the company. Here is a quick example:

An investor offers The founder of Acme Rockets a pre-money valuation of $2M for a $1M investment in Acme Rockets. Should Acme Rockets agree? Before the investment Acme Rockets owned 100% of company. If they accept the investment terms, the Acme Rockets founder’s ownership percentage will be diluted to 67%, a 33 percentage point reduction. Worth it? Maybe.

How about a $2M investment at $2M pre-money? 50% dilution in a single round. Probably not.

4. How many more rounds of capital will I need & what is my expected total future dilution?

Here is the spreadsheet (containing the table above) where I provide an interactive example of Founder Dilution with each Round of additional Investment (overly simplistic to make the point).  Fun to play with.

5. What things could I do with capital today that might improve my market positioning?

I hear the argument which goes – wait to raise capital until you can get a more favorable valuation. For New Space companies like Acme Rockets, this means winning government contracts, building demos, increasing customers for an NLV upper stage which is not yet built – anything to mature their technology.

But there is an opportunity cost in waiting. What could Acme Rockets do now with $1M dollars to grow their company? This is “make-the-pie-bigger-and-don’t-care-so-much-about-your-slice-of-it” argument.

6. What things might competitors do if I don’t raise capital that might impact me in the interim period?

The biggest nugget in this section was the psychological effect investors feel if another firm in an industry announces a large funding round. Who wants to invest in NLV upper stages from Acme Rockets after its competitor just took the oxygen out of the room by announcing a $10M investment to build a similar NLV upper stage? Raise capital so your competitor can’t – I agree with this in the short term, but I would rather focus on wowing customers than fearing competitors.

7. What might future markets hold in terms of valuations?

Try raising money right after September 11, 2001. When is the next market dip?

8. What might future markets hold in terms of ability to raise capital?

Mark ends by reminding us that 8 Questions to ask are nice, but don’t over think this, sometimes you take the deal because the money is available…and might not be tomorrow.

Thanks Mark for a great 8-Question post. Worth reading it in Mark's words over at Both Sides of the Table.  Space Entrepreneurs, I hope it helps.

NLV Market Analysis

Garvey's Prospector 7C

In October of 2004, I attended the Space Frontier Foundation’s conference in Southern California on the Queen Mary. There, Masten Space Systems made a big splash announcing it was joining Armadillo Aerospace in developing Suborbital RLV’s.

I remember thinking at the time, how did Masten have enough market data to make that decision? Masten, Armadillo, XCOR, Virgin, Blue Origin – these guys & gals threw their hat in the ring long before there were significant studies confirming suborbital RLV’s made “market sense”. They had vision. They had guts. Or if the data did exist, at the time, I did not know how to find it.

And now, NASA is offering a prize for a Nano-satellite Launch Vehicle (NLV) – “launching very small things quite often”. And as candidate NLV teams consider throwing their hats in this ring, the market data is a little more available for an NLV service than there was for suborbital service almost a decade ago.

This post attempts to consolidate that NLV market analysis. Of course this will be incomplete, so I need your help. Add links to other NLV market data in the comments of this post to benefit the whole group. I will skip a discussion of NASA's NLV Challenge.  Here is NASA's NLV Challenge Page  for more details. 
I have broken the NLV market analysis down into the following categories:

• NLV Market Sources
• Market Overview
• NLV Market Differentiators 
• NLV Substitutes
• Interesting NLV Market Nuggets
• Potential Market Competitors
• Market Demand Graph
• NLV Pricing Discussion
• Market Impactors

NLV Market Sources.  The authors of these study deserve your business. Buy their papers. They are doing good work. Instead of at the end of this post, I wanted these links near the top!

• Foust, J. 2010. “Emerging Opportunities for Low-Cost Small Satellites in Civil and Commercial Space”
• Foust, J. 2008. “If you Build It, Who will Come? Identifying Markets for Low-Cost Small Satellites”
• Christensen, I, et al. 2010. “Market Characterization: Launch of Very-Small and Nano Sized Payloads Enabled By New Launch Vehicles.” This link will give you the first few pages, have to buy the full version.

Market Overview.  The NLV market can be dissected in at least two ways: (1) by payload size and (2) by payload type.

Payload Size. I have heard various naming conventions for small payload launch vehicles.  For this blog post, I will use “Nano”, “Micro”, “Small” as three payload sizes to consider.  However, I will group them all together and use the name NLV most of the time.

• Nano - Under 10kg
• Micro - 10-100 kg
• Small - 100-200 kg

NASA is focused on a 1kg payload for its NLV Challenge. The Army is interested in at least 20kg payloads. Even if first generation vehicles are only able to launch a few kg of payload, commercial NLV ventures would be wise to endeavor to grow to larger payload sizes over time. Current 200-400kg payloads launched currently on larger vehicles would surely be interested in "going on a diet" if an NLV launcher could carry 100-200Kg yet offer more frequent launches.

Payload Type. The second NLV market subdivision will be the option of (1) launching a functioning satellite or (2) delivering cargo to stations or depots. Of the two, cargo delivery may very well be the larger of the two sub-markets. It will take far less preparation to send the ISS an NLV-load of fresh apples than it would be to fund, develop, integrate, and launch a nanosat. Both satellite launches and cargo delivery will be sub-markets. Expect the satellite market to retain a diversified customer base. Expect the cargo delivery customer base to be dominated by station owners in the early days (ISS partners and Bigelow), but to expand to Space Station customers in the not so distant future (see: NanoRacks).

NLV Market Differentiators.  What makes an NLV unique? An NLV won’t be able to carry as much payload to orbit as its bigger cousins, why would any customers want to use an NLV?  Answer: Frequent launches, low integration time.

• Cost: Higher Cost per LB than larger launchers but lower Cost per launch
• Launch Frequency: Launch *much* more frequently than larger launchers (weekly? Daily?)
• Launch Lead Time: Integrate payloads in less time to take advantage of more frequent launches
• Payload Mass: a few kg (at first)
• Orbit Choice: Customers can choose since not a secondary payload
• Suborbit/LEO/GEO: Limited to LEO (at first) – Suborbital applications? Maybe.

NLV Substitutes.  Prices for NLV’s cannot be set independent of substitutes. Here’s a list of some big ones:

• Launch as secondary payload. Spaceflight Services (Andrews Space) offers a turnkey solution for your payload to fly on the BIG rockets as a secondary payload.
• Hosted payloads. Boeing just launched a new service to combine your payload with others on a single satellite bus thus reducing customer costs since they do not need to procure an entire satellite. Note: this would be a substitute only for satellite payloads, not for cargo payloads
• Commercial RLV suborbital spaceflight. Masten, Armadillo, and Blue Origin are stuck at 100km for now, but not for long. Watch as future generations of their vehicles climb higher and higher giving customers a greater flight-time, frequent launches, and very low costs.
• With COTS deliveries to ISS approaching, deliveries to station will be made by NASA several times per year with ISS partners also delivering cargo to station several times per year.

Interesting NLV Market Nuggets.

• Microcosm Inc, identified potential market-wide launch savings of more than $15B over a 12-year period, resulting from the development of a low-cost responsive launch vehicle focused on the SmallSat market (above 100Kg)
• In a 2008 presentation, Pete Worden said there were ~80 universities with active cubesat (nanosat) programs 
• A 2006 Futron Study identified over 30 markets in 6 principle areas for services provided by low-cost satellites in the 100-200 kilogram class
• The US Army is interested in Nano Launch and had put a price point of $1M per launch.
• My interview with the CEO of CubeSat component manufacturer Clyde Space revealed he thought $250K for a 3u is definitely too much for most customers.
• My interview with Professor Jordi Puig-Suari from Cal Poly and professors from MIT, and St. Louis University who are currently active in either university satellite development or active in space research of some kind show they are targeting a price point under $50K per CubeSat with $20K being preferred. Relooking at my notes from those interviews, at a $20K price point, these professors thought the US demand for CubeSat launches would grow to 50-100 each year. Interesting they thought the low flight opps of the current “secondary payload” system a bigger problem than the high cost. Prof Michael Swartwout said in my interview with him, he waits 5-7 years to secure a spot on a rocket to launch his CubeSats. This is longer than an undergrads college career – not too inspiring for young engineers!

Potential Market Competitors.  Non-exhaustive – From the Paper: "Market Characterization: Launch of Very-Small and Nano Sized Payloads" by Christsensen, et all. 2010.

Market Demand Graph:

This graph is incomplete but should convey the significant number of different areas where an NLV could gain market share. For an explanation of these categories I would encourage you to get a copy of the wonderful papers I list under the “sources” section of this post.

NLV Pricing Discussion.  A major portion of any market analysis is not just what the needs are but what are potential customers willing to pay to meet those needs. For the NLV market you have customers at different ends of a spectrum. Government customers like the Army have stated a willingness to pay $1M to place 20kg in LEO. Universities want to keep Cubesat costs (usually 1-3 kg) to under $20K per U.

Variable Pricing seems like the right answer, where Primary customers pay a premium to fly on their schedule to their orbit and others willing to fly “standby” get a much reduced price but operate on someone else’s schedule and flies to someone else’s orbit. Rather than rewrite the variable pricing details now, here is the post I wrote on variable NLV pricing a few months ago.

If you made me guess right now, I would assume the following prices per U would be acceptable by the market:

• Government: $50-200K per U (with discounts per U for larger payloads)
• Academia: $20K per U
• Commercial: ???, perhaps somewhere between

Market Impactors.  Any market has externalities to the market that can help or hurt the industry. Here are just a few:

• Of all of the substitutes available to the NLV market, the one that has most potential to steal market share is the second or third generation of suborbital RLV’s. As mentioned earlier in this post, a subset of the NLV market could be served with the extended micro-gravity offered by suborbital RLV’s flying to 500 or 1000 km. But the opposite is also true, a delay or accident affecting the un-manned portion of the suborbital RLV industry (primarily Masten, Armadillo, and Blue Origin) could make some customers consider launching on an NLV rather than waiting for the suborbital ride. 
• One of the two key sub-markets for NLV’s will be package delivery. More successful space stations, more package delivery. The proliferation of commercial space stations will be a major driver of this sub-market
• How the last mile problem gets solved will directly affect the viability of micro package delivery (one of my two submarkets). We need solutions for the last mile problem – the solution will be part technology, part policy, part management. If NLV packages can’t be routinely delivered to space stations, the NLV industry will be severely hampered and space stations will miss out on an enabling method to gain just-in-time deliveries.
• NLV’s only work as a market if they can launch frequently with low integration turnarounds. Even if low costs had to come later, the ability to launch frequently with streamlined payload integration will be the driving force behind early NLV success stories. The question operators will need to ask is, “How do I design and manage NLV operations in such a way to achieve the goals of frequent flight opps and low integration turnarounds?”
• Although depot development is still years down the road, the potential “match made in heaven” between depots need for frequent propellant deliveries and NLV’s ability to fly frequently should not be overlooked…but I would not build a business plan around depot assumptions just yet.

That is a good dataset to start.  I will add some commentary in future posts.  Here is the spreadsheet containing the tables used in this post. 

Now I welcome your additions.  Use the comments section to your links to even more NLV market data.

Funding your "Game Changing" Space Innovation

NASA’s Game Changing Technology Division (GCT) within NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) announced this week it is looking for “Unique and Innovative Space Technologies” that helps achieve one of the fourteen Technology Areas (TA’s) on NASA’s Space Technology Roadmap:

• TA01 Launch Propulsion Systems
• TA02 In-Space Propulsion Technologies
• TA03 Space Power and Energy Storage
• TA04 Robotics, Tele-Robotics and Autonomous Systems
• TA05 Communication and Navigation
• TA06 Human Health, Life Support and Habitation Systems
• TA07 Human Exploration Destination Systems
• TA08 Science Instruments, Observatories and Sensor Systems
• TA09 Entry, Descent and Landing Systems
• TA10 Nanotechnology
• TA11 Modeling, Simulation, Information Technology and Processing
• TA12 Materials, Structures, Mechanical Systems and Manufacturing
• TA13 Ground and Launch Systems Processing
• TA14 Thermal Management Systems

The GCT is offering five to ten awards up to $5M per year with no individual award valued at more than $3M over three years ($1M per year max?). GCT is looking for technologies at a TRL of 3-4 and wants to mature them to a TRL of 5-6.

One of the challenges facing a new company with an idea is how to fund development of that idea. Seeking external capital too early usually results in interested investors taking a sizeable chunk of ownership for a relatively small investment since the company valuation is so low. And in many cases, these companies don’t even find interested investors. NASA’s GCT is offering an alternative method to jump start development to bring these innovations to market faster.

Here were some of the solicitation quotes I found interesting:

• "This solicitation is focused upon these types of sudden and unexpected innovations that hold a potential for providing a “game changing” impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of space capability"
• Speaking of the DARPA-like proposal process, “NASA expects this process to prevent unproductive proposal preparation for technology concepts that are unsuitable for unsuitable under this particular BAA"
• "While other technology development activities seek the steady and deliberate evolution of well-understood systems, GCT focuses on developing radically new approaches to the Agency’s future space missions and the nation’s significant aerospace needs. Successful products of GCT will provide or lead to revolutionary advances in capability."
• "Appropriateness for GCT: Does the proposed technology or concept have the potential to make radical improvement s in the way NASA accomplishes its missions?"

The GCT proposal process is also innovative (more DARPA-like). Instead of requiring these innovators to submit a full proposal up front (consuming precious time that could otherwise be devoted to innovating), the GCT contracting process starts small:

1. A one-page exec summary. If NASA GCT likes it then…
2. A White-paper describing the technology in more detail. If NASA GCT likes it then…
3. A full proposal.

And all along the way GCT is offering feedback and improvements.  All you need right now is a “game changing” innovation and an executive summary. Let’s get to work.

New Space Solutions to the Military's Wargame Problems

A ClydeSpace CubeSat

The Feb-11 issue of the Air Force Magazine discusses a recent wargame conducted at Schriever AFB. The US Military has problems defending space. This wargame highlighted that. I see two specific opportunities for New Space to help solve the US military’s problem .

First a summary of the 2010 Schriever Cyber and Space wargame.

• The Year is 2022.
• A small US ally takes a “local action”, to which a US “peer” rival take offense (they went out of their way not to say “China”, instead “peer rival”, but I am going to say China so this post has a more conversational tone. To my friends in China, please do not take offense).
• China retaliates by knocking out the US ally’s cyber and space capabilities
• The US assists its ally in attempting to restore these cyber and space capabilities
• China views these US actions as hostile and preemptively hits US cyber and satellite “enabler” capabilities. By denying these “enablers” the other US military branches are severely hampered (you try to fight a war without a web-enabled computer, GPS, or other satellite communications.)

Schriever Wargame Observations:

• Cold-War Deterrence theories are ill-suited these new domains (cyber and space)
• Cyber war and Space war is instantly global – there is no easy way to keep these conflicts regional.
• US has many peer rivals when it comes to offensive/defensive cyber and space capabilities. The US lacks the domain advantages it enjoys with ground, air, and sea capabilities 
• The US had a difficulty reconstituting space capabilities once those systems had been targeted (lack of ORS)
• Attacks on Cyber and Space systems created a very thick “fog of war” with no clear alternative methods of gaining information
• If our enemies removed our cyber and space capabilities our first action would be to seriously consider removing theirs (the advantage of these systems is so large)
• Because they are enablers, attacking Cyber and Space were the first targets chosen by the enemy
• Space Situational Awareness was significantly lacking.

Military Takeaways?

• Military Takeaway #1: Create Joint-Sats. Group the capabilities of many nations/companies on a single satellite – this way an attacker would have to “ponder the fallout of collateral damage” prior to attacking a space asset. This idea may have some merit, but feels more like the military is hiding behind other nations and corporations. If the military was already worried about such cyber/space conflicts turning “global”, such joint ownership of future satellites will only exacerbate the problem of turning such conflicts into “global” ones.
• Military Takeaway #2: Enhance space situational awareness: develop a CSpOC – a Combined Space Operations Center to integrate the space data coming in from Government, Commercial, and foreign ally sources. I like this idea. This shows the military’s willingness to admit they will need the help of civilian and foreign sources to defend the cyber and space realms. However, can’t the JSpOC do this? I don’t know enough about the JSpOC, but since they already do so much space asset tracking, expanding the JSpOC’s capabilities may make more sense than adding a new group. But again, I fully admit I don’t know enough about this to recommend one way or another.

So how can New Space Help?

I will focus my comments now to the space domain. I see two major product/services that New Space could offer in the near term to help the military avoid the hypothetical results of the 2022 Schriever wargame.

(1) NanoSat Launch Vehicles would offer the US the ability to quickly launch new satellites (100kg) to replace assets that are damaged or temporarily offline. The military’s wargame conclusions that by bundling satellite capabilities from several countries would deter an enemy, puts significant trust in your enemy not to come over the high wall you setup. But what if the enemy does escalate, what if they do attack those “joint-sats”? Such a policy does not solve the problem of a determined enemy. Being able to launch new satellites at will is perhaps the best defense to any anti-satellite weapon. I’m not the first to advocate this. I was just surprised by how little this solution was mentioned as a remedy for the US military’s poor performance in the wargame. I believe such an NLV is within the capabilities of new space (NASA’s NLV Challenge starts soon). If the NLV could launch on very short notice, there is no doubt in my mind that the military would be an eager customer.

(2) OBSERVER CubeSat: Perhaps the best deterrence from a space attack is Space Situational Awareness. The US military is worried about how to “attribute actions” in space – basically answering the question, “who is shooting at me?”  Here is one example, the military is worried about the idea of “grappler spacecraft” (among other ASATs) launched by peer adversaries months/years before a given conflict. When called into action the grapplers adjust their orbits (which have been benign up until now) and attach themselves to US military satellites disrupting their functionality. If the grapplers had been launched at the start of the conflict, figuring out who owns them would be fairly straight forward (thank you JSpOC). But if the grapplers had been launched months or years earlier, a small orbit adjustment just prior to attack may not be noticed by ground tracking stations making a surprise anonymous attack on US space assets a real possibility.

**What the US needs is a way to view their own satellites in space.** Can a cubesat (6U, 12U, or ESPA ring) fulfill such a mission? Can a New Space company build me an OBSERVER?

• A Cubesat with HD Video camera launched to LEO well before a conflict started (immediate market)
• One or two OBSERVERs per satellite the US military wants SSA on (perhaps two OBSERVERS per military sat for redundancy)
• Stay back far enough to avoid collision risk with very expensive Govt satellites
• Too small to be targeted by ground lasers or grappler spacecraft
• Carry a suite of observation technologies focused not on earth, but only a few hundred meters away on their target satellite
• Yes, rendezvous
• No, Docking
• Not even precision flying, but almost. OBSERVERS would need to be able to modify their orbits as needed to provide alternate views of its assigned target
• Once the OBSERVER can service LEO customers, how about version 2.0 to service MEO, and GEO?

The year is 2022, with OBSERVERs in place near all high value LEO military sats (now being launched on NanoSat Launchers), US adversaries know that any sneak attack in space using space assets would be caught on video. If an attack does occur, NLV’s can be launched quickly to temporarily replace lost US capabilities. The military can attribute actions and the effectiveness of ASAT weapons is severely hampered. Thanks New Space.

New Venture Capital for New Space?

Last week the White House began a push aimed at assisting entrepreneurs in high-growth industries. The Startup America Partnership seeks to connect entrepreneurs with the capital and expertise of large corporate/non-profit organizations - taking what works and doing more of it.

“Our nation once again looks to these creative risk-takers to unleash the next wave of American innovation.”

Bureaucracy tends to favor the large (I hate the phrase, “too big to fail”).  So it is nice to see this focus on the entrepreneur.  Over 24 firms have joined the President in committing dollars or expertise to the Startup America Partnership:

• Intel contributed $200M (over which period of time?)
• IBM contributed $150M for 2011
• HP contributed $4M for 2011 (come on HP, you can do better!)
• Facebook is sponsoring gatherings for startups (part VC pitch/part mentorship)
• The Kauffman Foundation and AOL’s founder, Steve Case, have joined forces to help lead the Startup America Partnership (in college I worked closely with the Kauffman Foundation through an organization called SIFE – they are good people doing good things)

I know Fred Wilson and other Tech Venture Capitalists are excited about this initiative from the President, but New Space should push to access these funds and expertise as well.  Maybe I missed it, but I have not seen much New Space blog traffic about the President's announcment.  Yesterday, Chuck Black spoke about the growth of the Venture Capital within NewSpace. Capital does not fix all problems within New Space, but access to more capital will surely help the industry grow faster.

Through the Startup America Partnership, the President is targeting high growth businesses/industries. The Futron Corporation reported last week, commercial space is growing at 10% per year – 10% is high growth for an industry!

The Startup Partnership is focusing on:

• Acceleration of Scale: turning small companies and products into big
• Education: C Suite experience for free or at a discount
• Commercialization: working with universities to turn their innovations into products

I hope to see New Space firms in need of capital/expertise taking advantage of the opportunity. New Space is definitely a part of the Nation’s “solution for the future”.

Here is a one minute video from Steve Case introducing the Startup America Partnership: