"This oversight regime will balance economic competitiveness together with safety, security, sustainability, and responsibility," states the new United States Novel Space Activities Authorization and Supervision Framework.
"Commercial data, commercial processing is not classified. It does not matter that the DoD wishes it were," said Barbara Golf, special advisor to Space Systems Command.
The changes included, among other things, the removal some restrictions on non-Earth imaging and rapid revsits of ground targets, NOAA explained, "and most notably," a removal of all of the restrictions imposed in 2020 on X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR).
"As the world gets more complicated, and there are more and more [space situational awareness] providers, the issue of who pays will be one which continually gets battered around," said Richard DalBello, the Office of Space Commerce.
DoD is working with Commerce to provide expertise on how to crunch space observational data, said Travis Langster, DoD principal director for space policy.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on March 5 sent a letter to Congress endorsing a plan for sharing the disputed 3.1-3.45 spectrum band — but also opening the possibility that DoD could vacate it entirely, according to the Congressional Research Service.
"And as weird as that sounds, you know, from an industry guy, I absolutely need regulation and enforcement," said Tory Bruno, CEO of rocket maker ULA. "Because one bad actor can ruin that entire common environment for all of us."
The new policy does not change the restrictions for exports of rockets or drones designated by the MTCR as Category 1 systems.
"China is a major space player and will be a major space player. They are not participating in the global dialogue, and in global information sharing on SSA. That's unsustainable," said Richard DalBello, head of the Commerce Department's Office of Space Commerce.
“In the best case scenario, this initiative will help shore up vulnerabilities to illicit technology transfer and violations of export controls on emerging technologies," analyst Lindsay Gorman said.
"More geographic coverage helps revisit rates, so we see satellites more frequently. Which is quite critical," LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley told Breaking Defense.
Industry representatives meeting with Commerce Deputy Secretary Don Graves on Tuesday "stressed the need for [Commerce] to work quickly to field the new capabilities — ideally by buying and redistributing existing commercial products — in order to maintain leadership in the face of competing SSA offerings from the EU and China," a Commerce official told Breaking Defense today.
GEOINT: Small satellites — thousands of them, spinning round the Earth, taking endless photos from low earth and sun-synchronous orbits. Drones flying round neighborhoods or sitting on your windowsill and taking photos or relaying imagery. And you thought the NSA program that scooped up your phone’s metadata was intrusive? When most Americans think of privacy and […]