Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson hopes that his LauncherOne airborne launch system’s capability to rapidly launch smallsats “will be a deterrent to an enemy state, that is to not attack satellites in the first place.”

Such smallsat payloads, hosted on commercial satellites, are an important piece of the Army’s evolving concept of Multi-Domain Operations, which seeks to combine efforts on land, the sea, air, space, and cyberspace to defeat sophisticated adversaries such as Russia and China.

“I see no reason why a satellite the size of a shoebox, with the life expectancy of a guinea pig, should be regulated the same way as a spacecraft the size of a school bus that will stay in orbit for centuries,” says FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

“The external and internal communication regarding [DoD] smallsat strategy is not consistent and not clear,” Carissa Christensen, CEO of Bryce Space and Technologies, said wryly.

“Much of the excitement surrounding the ‘new space age’ is centered on recent innovations and growth seen in the commercial satellite industry,” said Tom Stoup, president of the Satellite Industry Association. 

The R3D2 spacecraft’s cutting-edge antenna is “compressed into a small volume and then blooms on orbit,” explains Northrop Grumman’s Scott Stapp.

Large networks of small, cheap satellites derived from commercial technology would be harder for China or Russia to kill than a handful of expensive, exquisite military-unique birds. But who gets to build it?

Modern space strategy, with its focus on resilience, requires “understanding the capabilities of each satellite and managing them as a constellation:” Jane Chappell, vice president of Raytheon’s Global Intelligence Solutions (GIS) mission area.