LeoLabs CEO and co-founder Dan Ceperley says the firm has a mission “to drive a new era of transparency in LEO.”

“Of all people, it’s the ‘space warmongers’ doing the most to try to sustain the (space) environment,” one DoD official said.

“DoD is a customer like any other, with a future need for servicing its own satellites to extend mission life,” says Astroscale US President Ron Lopez.

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and debris mitigation can be seen as just “another high-end data analytics problem,” says Kevin O’Connell, of the Commerce Department.

“Let’s not practice ASAT technology in Low Earth Orbit,” says Rick Ambrose, Lockheed Martin’s executive vice president for Space.

“It is rocket science, after all,” says Trump-appointed FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who questions the commission’s mandate on orbital debris mitigation oversight for commercial space companies.

Industry officials say there remain strong pockets of resistance to any new regulations, especially among aggressive space startups.

Navy Research Lab’s LARADO (Laser-sheet Anomaly Resolution and Debris Observation) project conjures images of a Wild West cattle drive, and in a way that is apropos as space scientists have long been attempting to wrangle better estimates of the population of on-orbit debris.

SPACE SYMPOSIUM: For the first time, the United States is sharing its space war plans, known as Olympic Defender, with a small number of allies, says the head of Strategic Command. Gen. John Hyten told us in a Monday evening interview that a new version of the plan was published “last December,” he said. “Everything that… Keep reading →

Indian claims of no threat from ASAT test debris is “nonsense.”