Space Governance: Policy and Regulatory Frameworks.

The Aerospace Corporation presented Space Governance, Policy and Regulatory Frameworks at the Caribbean Space Summit, exploring how Puerto Rico can become a leader in the commercial space industry through smart policy. Here's part of their conversation with the UK Space Agency and UK Space Regulator at the Civil Aviation Authority. [Music] I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-Minus Deep Space. [Music] Lori Gordon, Systems Director at the Aerospace Corporation is joined by Matthew Archer, Director of Launch at the UK Space Agency and Colin McLeod, Head of UK Space Regulator at the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Thank you Matt Archer and Colin McLeod for being here. This is going to be a fantastic conversation and we are so excited to have you here. Colin is Head UK Space Regulator at the UK Civil Aviation Authority and Matt is Head for Launch and Sustainability at the UK Space Agency. So Matt, thinking about global needs or allied needs for space port development, where do you see the collective we right now? What does it mean for shaping global engagement? What does bilateral launch as a service or geographical use of launch sites look like? Can we shape this through August? What are your thoughts? Yeah, really interesting time to be answering that question. Geopolitics is definitely kind of interesting at the moment. I think for us we are leaning in heavily through the NATO Starlift conversation. So for those not familiar, this is a flagship program within NATO starting to look at how do you take Allied demand and start to say, well, how do we build kind of capability to support those needs? Obviously the US has an extensive wealth of its own capability. But what we're doing is kind of taking a view across Europe and beyond to say, okay, what demand do we know is out there? I think we know there's a wave of demand likely to grow through defence investment, particularly across Europe, but also beyond, with a view that space is an important capability and building out the number of satellites that we can use to bring to peacekeeping or adversarial kind of threats is really important. So for us, we're focusing on that. How do we bring that together? How do we place space ports into that debate? And that's about not just geography, which I'm sure Colin will talk more about some of the benefits of kind of being in sort of remote parts of Scotland and a free access to kind of northerly and sort of polar orbits. It's really interesting to think about responsive launch and what that means. I don't think we're there yet, but it is definitely a conversation of that collective we is setting out where do we have standards? Where can we align? Where can we improve our working as a regulatory community, which I know Colin does regularly to say, how can we simplify that for our customer base? But equally think about what that might mean in terms of doing things very quickly if the military needs it. But equally how to make it simpler for commercial customers to do their routine launches, which we know they'll be more and more demand for. So yeah, very interesting time. Yeah, absolutely. So Colin, from a regulatory perspective, and Matt's kind of teed it up here. What are your tips and tricks for, you know, how you can engage stakeholders? Getting things to move faster, or it seems sometimes challenging to do that? Yeah, thanks. So we're working very closely with other regulators around the world at the moment. And I see the UK led a forum of international regulators where we're wanting to look specifically at how we can align or easily to allow joint jurisdictional missions. And I am prioritising these activities in the UK based on actual missions that are coming forward. So we've got a number of missions which could be orbital where they're going from the UK or from the US and coming back to a third country, possibly even a fourth country, and launchers, you're looking to launch from different locations. So there's things that we can do. It is quite difficult when countries have got their own national legislation. You can't simply just say that you're going to copy things across. That just doesn't work. But there are pragmatic and practical things that you can do. So for example, using the expertise within my team on flight safety analysis, they can hopefully support other countries who might not have those capabilities and capacities there. The actual safety around a space port is much more domestic because the safety to operate a chemical factory or other hazardous industries is common around the world. But it's the space rocket launch bit which is a bit different. But actually the calculation, the physics and this flight safety analysis can be done across boundaries in an easier way. So in terms of, and we've talked about stakeholders a bit previously and sort of knowing your audience, knowing your customer base, but also who's contributing to your output. Are there any thoughts you have on supply chain, Colin, that you've seen maybe challenging and recommendations on how to use primes or companies that have significant supply chains can work more effectively? Any thoughts? I think supply chain is quite interesting from a space perspective because there are so few standards. Lots of people will push for more standards. We would prefer to, we're willing to use standards, but we don't think we should be mandating them. And the reason I would say that is if you look at the four different launch companies that we have got licensed in the UK and some of the ones that are coming, some of them use complete carbon fiber bodies, others use steel, some use methane, some use RP1. They get different avionics, some of them build their own, some of them bind off the shelf. So when you do go to standardization, what you do end up with is you're picking someone and maybe that is one solution. You're in one way you can do it. But if you want to have all these new technologies that are coming forward, you don't have standards, but they all have their own supply chains. The other thing that's interesting for most space vehicles compared to aviation is, of course, that they are tending to manufacture almost everything from scratch themselves. So the supply chain is basically the company. They do most of that activity themselves. But as Matt was talking earlier, the other important bit for supply chains is the supply chain for the spaceport. So having access to good logistics, plenty of places for people to stay, good facilities for the people to work in, access to things like liquid oxygen, fuels, other gases, and fabrication and capabilities to do all of those things is really, really important. The worst thing you can have in many cases also is a really remote spaceport, which is great for access to orbit and great for safety. But it's not good for safety if you have people working there in cold environments without proper protection, without proper accommodation, and without the ability to get backwards and forwards quite quickly. So you always can have a trade-off there between what's safe and what is a good way to operate safely. [Music] We'll be right back. [Music] Right. So Colin, bringing it back to Puerto Rico, so they seem to be in a fantastic geography and some weather challenges there, in terms of hurricanes, but generally predictable. Just in general, what are some best practices or lessons learned to integrate spaceport plans with other international partners? So, and Matt, you may want to talk about Starlift here, as an Allied partnership engagement, how does that configure into all of this? Does it sort of create a strong framework for how Puerto Rico can operate in terms of its launch capabilities and things like that? Yeah, I think for me, as I sort of advised, other countries in terms of when they're considering launch or spaceports, is really thinking about the end-to-end chain. So it's about understanding how you want to accommodate your regulatory environment to suit the kind of customer path that you see. So right from spaceport, right through to your potential launch vehicles and customers, what's it launching? Where is it launching it? What are some of the challenges with that? So are we talking about, I'm guessing, largely equatorial launches, where else might you have particular safety concerns in terms of the marine environment? You've obviously mentioned the weather, like it won't surprise you that Scotland has its own weather challenges at times. And as does every spaceport in the world, right, they all have some kind of challenge. That's not unique, but it's understanding what drives the model to make it work and how you then adopt your regulatory framework. For me, make sure that business model stacks up, but equally, in working with other regulators as Colin does, it's starting to say, well, how can we learn about the best bits that match that, our intent as a nation? How do we align and create potential mutual recognition schemes? Or how do we start to make it easier on providers to reduce the barriers of coming to operate from a particular spaceport? And that's going to be particularly key in some of the conversations we'll have around Starlift is, you know, customers of launches generally say, "I just want to get to this place, or I want to get it on orbit cheekily." You'll then discuss it as well. Who can do that well and reliably, which is part of the challenge of building a launch capability, where it launches from is about access to certain audits. And that's where you want to have that, and your regulatory framework underpins that, and whether it makes it harder or not for those providers. So that's the bit you need to get right, is really think through your twin journey. And yeah, build on the experience of people like Colin and others, they can absolutely support kind of allies to think through those challenges. And so what I think I'm hearing both of you say is that in addition to the regulatory policy pieces, the technology pieces, which people always think about, it's really critical to understand your stakeholder base, you know, who you're serving, who your customers are, etc. So thank you both so much. This was a terrific discussion. We are so excited about everything the UK and US are doing together because it's critically important. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] That's Team Ina's Deep Space, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We would 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 this show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Or you can send an email to space@n2k.com. We are 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 Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. And I am T-minus host, Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. [Music] [Music] [Music] (gentle music)