{"id":34785,"date":"2019-08-05T14:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/08\/05\/lockheed-space-exec-talks-future-space-endeavors\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:20:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:20:01","slug":"lockheed-space-exec-talks-future-space-endeavors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/digital-show-dailies\/smd\/2019\/08\/05\/lockheed-space-exec-talks-future-space-endeavors\/","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed space exec talks future space endeavors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Lockheed Martin is intricately tied to the Pentagon\u2019s future space endeavors. The giant defense contractor has deals for the Air Force\u2019s next-generation missile warning satellites, it\u2019s new batch of GPS satellites and the current generation of protected communication space vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the national security space community is changing fast. Space is now viewed as a war-fighting domain, a far cry from decades ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rick Ambrose heads the company\u2019s space division. He spoke with Mike Gruss, editor of Defense News sister publications C4ISRNET and Fifth Domain, about where the Pentagon is headed and how to make sense of the new realities in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advantages do you see with the Air Force\u2019s new missile warning satellite program over the current Space Based Infrared Program?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Program is, in essence, a whole new design, which is why we\u2019re competing for payload. So it\u2019s going to have a tremendous new mission capability, built-in resiliency capabilities, much more flexibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does that mean, flexibility?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re going to put in some of our smart sat processing that will help with the payload. We\u2019ll make sure we can incrementally upgrade, or the Air Force can, over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you think about this, SBIRS [the Space Based Infrared Surveillance system] was originally designed back in the \u201990s. Basically it\u2019s a whole modernization of the mission \u2014 better performance across the board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need more continuous coverage; you need better resolutions. You need a better differentiation of the threat. You need to build in the resiliency, plus the modern ability and some of the processing. So how do we upgrade algorithms on the fly? All that\u2019s going to be enabled in this design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about the smart sat part of that, is that something that today you would get an image and then have to process it on the ground? So the savings is you can do it there so you get it faster. Or is there a different advantage?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is always the trade-off. To process everything on the ground, you have to now communicate every piece of data down right away. We still may ultimately want to do that. But what if we can run some processing on the satellite versus the ground? That design\u2019s still not perfectly baked in yet, but that\u2019s the direction we\u2019re going, is to build in some of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think of it like adding filters on Instagram.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another way to look at it would be: There are certain things that you\u2019ll locally process on your phone not to clog the communications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can upload patches and software like we do on most satellites. We\u2019ve been doing this for decades. But now it just gives you more flexibility to do even more things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know, a lot of times we\u2019re flying satellites for 20 years and we keep finding new ways to use them. Let\u2019s build that in up front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would imagine the Air Force is more open to that kind of thinking.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, absolutely. Well, because the threat environment has changed, there are go-fast initiatives, [such as Space and Missile Systems Center] SMC 2.0. We love it because things in the past, it would take longer to prosecute changes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now with their new push \u2014 you know, [the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics], Dr. [Will] Roper\u2019s push for speed and agility \u2014 now once we get the program going and get all the designs finalized, then you\u2019ll go to a more traditional \u2014you have to prove out the concept and prove out that the system works and then deploy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do agile develop for them, but they go: \u201cWe\u2019re going to constantly change.\u201d Well, commercial could get away with that because if suddenly Google goes down, you don\u2019t lose lives. These systems protect lives. The men and women that serve, weather systems, even the private citizens. It\u2019s serious business. So that\u2019s where we\u2019ll always be different than some on the commercial side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you think about timing of the program up front, at the stage we\u2019re at [a low-production rate]. Now is where we can do experimentation and try out new designs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the <\/b>Space Development Agency<\/b><\/a>, how do you see that integration improving?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens is the exact opposite of what should happen. Let\u2019s say it takes five or six or seven, eight years to get a satellite up. That\u2019s an expensive item. We have to move out and let\u2019s get the satellite going. Well, nothing ever works that simple. What we\u2019re saying is you need to put the end-to-end architecture together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why we brought our ground system together with us to help us help the government with this challenge. And then you get faster. And the other side of this, because it\u2019s on the ground, you go: \u201cOh, it\u2019s on the ground. We can always fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hope is with the Space Force, [SMC 2.0] and all this, we can synchronize better. But more importantly, how do we make a lot of technology more common to the space and ground infrastructure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re having to develop every element of that from scratch, it\u2019s just massive, it\u2019s costly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what can you do?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a study decades ago because everyone concentrates on the satellite. I said: \u201cWell, what\u2019s the ground cost?\u201d I ran our satellites and we\u2019ve designed them to run 20 years. You go: \u201cOK, what\u2019s the infrastructure cost around that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you took a 20-year cycle of the ground and operations and processing, and think about it, every three years or so they\u2019re upgrading. Because you have people touch your computers so now they got to upgrade the machines every three or four years. The IT infrastructure and all that. Refurbish all that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost of that dwarfed any costs over that time period of the space asset because you paid once. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It actually was more expensive than all the satellites and launches combined. We can knock the ground back a little bit by putting artificial intelligence in, ultimately machine learning, more automation, simplifying operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You mentioned resilience at the satellite level. There\u2019s been talk: \u201cCould a satellite evade a missile? Or evade another satellite?\u201d People have a difficult time understanding what resilience at the space level means.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re thinking of resilience, it\u2019s going to come in a couple of flavors. You touched on the first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, if you set your architecture up right, it\u2019ll inherently give you some resilience and allow you to make some different trades on the satellite level. Then the satellite itself can just be much more robust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So just inherently for mission assurance, the satellites are more robust and we\u2019ve put redundant systems at higher quality, higher-reliability parts. You can think of it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For resiliencies, you well know there\u2019s some level of hardening on SBIRS and the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite anyway for both environmental as well as man-made events. The best it can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think safety systems you\u2019ve put on your cars. In the past, when there were a few cars on the road, no one really worried about it. I think the first cars didn\u2019t even have seat belts. Or you just keep adding features as you learn more things. It\u2019s like with cyber, everyone says: \u201cWhen are we done with cyber?\u201d You\u2019re not because it\u2019s a journey. Every time you do something, someone else tries to defeat it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boeing is under contract for the <\/b>Air Force<\/b><\/a>\u2019s next wideband communications satellite. The company is trying to quickly build it. Are you watching that process?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can come up with our ideas, some other people have ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that is just fantastic about space right now [is] it\u2019s no longer just competition of its traditional players. There are over a thousand new entrants now if you count the numbers. You got large players coming in like Jeff Bezos. You\u2019ve got traditional competitors, you\u2019ve got the supply chain forward integrating. Think of a Harris and L3 combination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are all competitive surfaces, which makes this industry just damn exciting right now. And it may sound crazy, but that stimulates motivation. It stimulates innovation. It simulates the thinking and those competitive spirits, where it\u2019s kind of what this country was founded on, right? So we\u2019re always watching that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve really modernized our production. In the old days everyone would hand-lay down the solar cells. We now have robotics and automation equipment just literally laying those cells down. It\u2019s more predictable. It\u2019s more ergonomically friendly for my technicians. One cell was like art almost. Now we\u2019re trying to say: \u201cOK, we don\u2019t want to lose performance, but let\u2019s build in the design for producibility, operability, operations [on] Day One so that we can automate it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s say an electronic card, which would take a technician three months to put together, solder, fill and now we run it down the line; in under eight hours, it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\t