Policies and Standards to Enable Satellite Servicing at the Satellite 2018 Conference

Monday, March 12, 2018

SWF Washington Office Director Victoria Samson and Director of Program Planning Dr. Brian Weeden participated in two events related to satellite servicing during the 2018 Satellite Conference, held in Washington, DC, March 12-15, 2018. On Monday, Dr. Weeden gave a flash talk at SGx, organized by the Space Generation Advisory Council and the Future Space Leaders Foundation, on how industry-led standards could help enable commercial satellite servicing that addresses major space sustainability challenges. A copy of his slides can be found here. 

On Wednesday, Dr. Weeden moderated a panel on "Finding a Pathway to Satellite Servicing" that discussed policy and regulatory steps the U.S. government can take to enable commercial satellite servicing. He was joined on the panel by Mr. Al Tadros, Vice President of Space Infrastructure and Civil Space at SSL; Ms. Tahara Dawkins, Director, Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs Office, NOAA/U.S. Department of Commerce; Mr. Tim Deaver, CVP, Development, SES Government Solutions; and Ms. Lisa Kuo, Director of Commercial Programs, The Aerospace Corporation. The panelists discussed how the evolution of commercial space activities are forcing governments to re-evaluate how they do licensing and oversight, and recent steps the U.S. government have taken to provide more regulatory certainty for commercial satellite servicing operations. 

On Thursday, Ms. Samson spoke on a panel on "International Cooperation for Space Situational Awareness." She was joined by David Ball, Deputy CEO at Space Environment Research Centre; Frank Rose, Chief of Government Affairs at The Aerospace Corporation; Mark Dickinson at VP Satellite Operations, Inmarsat and Chairman at Space Data Association. The panel was moderated by Christopher Stott, Chairman & CEO at ManSat LLC.