As space activity accelerates and infrastructure expands, spaceports are becoming more than just launch sites. They are evolving into vital hubs that connect multiple domains of transportation and technology. It's a subject that the Global Spaceport Alliance will be exploring in a webinar on August 27th at 11.30am Eastern, and I'll be on that webinar panel along with our guest for today's episode. [Music] This is T-Minus Deep Space. I'm Maria Varmazis. Parsons Corporation is shaping the future of spaceport operations through digital twins AI and cybersecurity. Our guest is Guadalupe Casuso, who is the vice president of technology and innovation, digital labs, and strategic partnerships at Parsons. I'm Guadalucasuso, and I am the VP of technology and innovation for a group that is called Intelligent Infrastructure in Parsons. Prior to that, I've been also part of Microsoft in the office of the CTO, working on how we took research to apply research and allow new business opportunities. I always said, back to Parsons, I am currently living in digital labs. That is, we're basically bringing some software assets from the company, and we develop products that not only serve the mainstream business right now, but also spark new innovations so we can continue bringing value to the customer, incorporating new technologies, and the plan ecosystem around that. That's what I do, and I'm very, very excited to be here with you today to talk about the spaceports. That's right, yes, because coming up very soon, we're going to be on a webinar being held by the Global Spaceport Alliance called Spaceports as Smart Hubs, integrating air, ground, water, and orbit. This interview is a bit of, I guess, a teaser/taster for me also to get a sense of where you are thinking a bit of the ideas we'll be exploring in this webinar. Because given what you do at Parsons and your experience in the tech world in general, I imagine you have some very fascinating perspectives on the place that spaceports has in our global ecosystem and how they're going to be enhanced by all these incredible technological advances. So I would love to hear your thoughts on all that. Yeah, yeah, and you're very right. I think that today we have an opportunity to really embrace that the spaceports have a role within the full transportation network, not only as a gateway to orbit, but they are really, you know, nodes or smart hubs right now that helps spark new economic models. This will bring a lot of growth and we need, first of all, we need the industry very involved. And when I talk about industry, I think that we have multiple players from big corporations established, you know, like Parsons, for example, we have the technology providers today that will bring everything that we need to basically enable that growth, okay, from the tech perspective. So the experience, the technology, and we also have new startups that are coming up to the play, bringing innovative ideas and such. And of course, the space, sports and all the agencies around that bringing the needs and all the, I would say, companies that are operating within the space for today. So it's a very rich ecosystem that if we help develop by bringing the right expertise that we have from other transportation systems as well, and we bring new innovative technologies like digital twins and AI's and cybersecurity, we can really, really, really unlock the efficiencies that we need, you know, we need to fuel that economic growth. And what I am very passionate about our contribution to the environment and how do we keep communities and the planet sustainable over time. And I think that that's from the impact perspective, that's a big area of focus. So I would say, you know, just summarizing is an impressive role today in the transportation network. Economic growth, it's certainly needed in the world right now. And I think that space, it's one of the key drivers for that. We need launch facilities and we need, you know, ports for reentry as well. Because as we evolve, we will see that any access to orbit will bring us enablement on, you know, I don't know, new scenarios for manufacturing, logistics, research. It's not only about tourism, although that will be important as well. And we need to ensure that we can launch and support the reentry and the redistribution of things, you know, that we bring again that next phase to planet Earth. So I'm excited about this. It's really exciting actually hearing you describing all this because the way that space ports that you're discussing them is sort of a little outside of the paradigm that I've often had, which is really fascinating to think that they could also have all these different roles and ways that maybe I honestly would not have previously expected, which is really, it opens up the mind to a whole bunch of different scenarios. And I'm also wondering a bit about if you could give me some examples about using, you mentioned digital twins in the context of space ports. And I could imagine a few different ways that would be applied potentially, but maybe, I don't know, if you could walk me through what that would actually look like, I'd be really curious. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, let's consider an scenario like that. Lunch day, right? And we can take, you know, I don't know, Cape Canaveral as an example of that. And the reality is today, there is activity going on in the lunch facility, but it's also, you know, what's going on around that from the need to transport maybe a rocket or part of a rocket from an assembled facility. That is this and from the launch pad. How do you plan to make sure that while you transport that rocket, you are not disrupting the community in the middle of that. So, first of all, you may have or no infrastructure to support it. Maybe the bridges that you have are not quite enough or they don't have the physical characteristics to support that because, you know, we build infrastructure based on the needs. And this is something that is coming up, you know, as a huge demand, right? So you need to build that. And again, that happens in the middle of the operation of a community. So kids need to go to school, people need to go to work, you know, how do you make all that efficient so you can perform the lunch, you can make sure that the community can work properly. And you can handle all the load that comes like from tourism and anything else. And in the middle of that, you have to make sure that you can cover safety and security. And we can think again, safety from the safety of the community is how do we operate protecting the environment. But also, hey, you know, space for today are in this mix between commercial and still national security. So we need to make sure that the space, the water and the highways have to be protected in a way in which we can perform this. So that's the scenario, right? And digital twins first, help to generate that replica digital representation of what's going on in the physical world where you can feed a lot of data that helps you then process the data where you can use AI to generate, I don't know, multi physics modeling simulations. You can do some predictive models. You can do analysis of data and you can go beyond even like agent based modeling to know how each of the pieces we interact as autonomous agents in order to be efficient itself. So you do all that in a processing way. You can even simulate the scenarios because, you know, let's let's get the magic one here where, you know, it's launch day, but you can start planning months before that. With all the variables that we discuss is like what is the optimal configuration that we can really deploy in the physical world. Okay. In order to make that efficient. So if we can do that, then, you know, you can just enable that by visualization integration and then, you know, provide a right user interface. So it's kind of like an architecture what I described to you. Yeah. So we're really ingesting data, processing data, visualizing data and really empower the users to make the right actions. So data driven decisions, right? It's so important. So technologies can play a huge role supporting that. And, you know, and also help align different stakeholders as we know, you know, it's, we can talk about the perfect technologies here. So, you know, we, like, look at the world today, space for landing already a pre-existing infrastructure. So we need to harmonize the way in which the space was we were here. So that's, I think it's that's the challenge, but it's also the big opportunity and no company today has all the just all those areas. So we have to work as a real community to bring industry, to bring the agencies and to do that locally, but also by international collaborations. We'll be right back. So much of the discussion about space ports is often in my conversations, the US focused, but the global need for space ports is huge. And that is a lot of where the discussion is, is building out the space ports internationally. And I'd love to get your sense of your vision of, you know, I imagine space was going to be very different depending on where they're located. But this international interconnected smart hubs, what would that look like? Can you paint a picture of that world for me? Yeah, absolutely. You know, something that I love to do is like, let's keep on anchor ourselves on the press. And but at the same time, you said, let's look at the past and how did we integrate many of the transportation systems already internationally? Because today we take airplanes that connects multiple nations, right? So can we leverage the practices from other transportation systems for space boards? And then can we look at the future and bring innovation so that way we can optimize the way in which we did things in the past, but also think about like new potential scenarios. And I like, for example, and I think that we are very close to point to point where, you know, we will get, I don't know, a spacecraft and we will be in Sydney in two hours when today it might be 20, right? So it's like, we are we are seeing the possibility and it's going to be so important to like the collaboration is going to be so important because we will have to standardize the way in which we communicate the different spaces. We will have to make the different space world facilities and make sure that that communication works well. Now, if we go back to the technology, it's we can help these multiple parties to make the right decisions by helping them with something. And then we can also make the right decisions by helping them with digital infrastructure that based on data helps them assess all the potentials, maybe make some predictions and, you know, make decisions based on what is optimal for every nation. Right. Between what is local and what can be global itself and how we optimize for that. So I think it's going to be an extremely important topic is what's the level of standardization? Can we help regulations basically to be like informed by the use of technology where we can again add more, I would say the faster pace towards, you know, the possibility of just doing point to point. Or just again, of course, we want to go to the moon and maybe have more like an exoplanet activity, right? But we we are going to go by faces. That's going to be for me extremely important. And then I want to address, although it's not related to technology, but it's very important for technology is the portion of funding. I think today that's, you know, that's critical for all the nations. And if we are to collaborate, I think that maximizing sources of funding for this internationally, that's, you know, that's going to be extremely key for again, the acceleration of the of the industry. That makes a lot of sense. This is awesome stuff. And I'm already really, really pumped for what happens to me. I can't wait to hear more about this. I know this is just like a teaser. So yeah, yeah, I want to make sure I give you a chance if there's anything that we wanted to mention before we conclude this is your opportunity. I'm giving you the floor. So anything you want to mention. Yeah, yeah. Well, I do know I do see you feel that this is a fascinating topic, Maria. And we talk offline about this, like I came from the technology, you know, space. That's my niche. But I also work a lot on transportation. And now at Parsons, I see how important it is to connect both the commercial side, but in the case of Parsons, we have a critical infrastructure side. So this is buildings, bridges, highways, roadways, anything that is, you know, under that category. But it's also important to have the other part that is the federal side that is like defense, national security. How do we ensure that we put the guards to just blend both worlds and do well? So I'm very excited about being at Parsons and what we can unlock with this. I think that the technology background that I bring, but also the partnerships that we have with a lot of technology companies that goes, you know, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, Ansys, you know, Bentley, we have so many partnerships that will help to really bring the right offerings to the market. But, you know, we are one company and we want to rely a lot of the partnerships that we have with the industry as well. This is a collective play. And I'm so excited about what we can accomplish together if we can bring the right architectures, technology-wise, but also the architectures that will give the functions that we need to unlock the next generation of space sports at. You know, it's not too far. We are seeing that right, you know, in the corner. So I'm, again, excited to be part of this and really eager to collaborate with others, framing how the future of this looks. [Music] That's T-Minus Deep Space brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of our podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, please share our rating and review on your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. We're proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn, and stay informed. As the next is for Discovery and Connection, we bring you the people, the technology, and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [Music] [Music]
