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.

“We are the ones that say this is what needs to be done” to build a next-gen space architecture, says SDA Acting Director Derek Tournear. Except when they don’t.

“People at the NRO and others hiding in unmarked cubicles in other parts of northern Virginia started breathing into bags like never before,” said one DoD about the 2018 SSA transparency policy.

The new satellite export control rules being finalized by the Commerce and State Depts. will take into account the “need to maintain export controls with some countries, while streamlining them for others,” says Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

The Air Force is increasingly interested in Australia as a host for SSA capabilities because they can watch satellites over the Southern Hemisphere.

‘Enterprise Data Strategies’ — that mimic a company’s technology roadmap and business strategy and treat data as a separate entity of operations in its own right — are all the rage in the corporate sector.

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.

“I don’t trust the Air Force, on its own, given its existing structure to properly prioritize space,” Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Adam Smith says.

House appropriators rejected Trump’s plan to put satellite regulation under the Commerce Department and chide Secretary Wilbur Ross for his refusal to testify on the 2020 budget request.