[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                      SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS:
                         GUIDING THE TRANSITION
                         TO A CIVIL CAPABILITY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 12, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-50

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
 
 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
                                   

       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
       
                              __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-329PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     

              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                MIKE CAREY, OHIO
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
                                 ------                                

                 Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics

                   HON. DON BEYER, Virginia, Chairman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              BRIAN BABIN, Texas, 
AMI BERA, California                     Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             MO BROOKS, Alabama
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BILL POSEY, Florida
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          YOUNG KIM, California
                        
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              May 12, 2022

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Don Beyer, Chairman, Subcommittee on 
  Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, Space, and 
  Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................     7
    Written Statement............................................     8

Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    10
    Written Statement............................................    11

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    12

Written statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,...................    13

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Matthew Hejduk, Senior Project Leader, The Aerospace 
  Corporation
    Oral Statement...............................................    14
    Written Statement............................................    17

Dr. Moriba Jah, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering and 
  Engineering Mechanics Department, Mrs. Pearlie Dashiell 
  Henderson Centennial Fellowship in Engineering, Oden Institute 
  for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of 
  Texas at Austin
    Oral Statement...............................................    34
    Written Statement............................................    36

Mr. Andrew D'Uva, Senior Policy Advisor, Space Data Association
    Oral Statement...............................................    78
    Written Statement............................................    80

Mr. Kevin M. O'Connell, Founder, Space Economy Rising, LLC
    Oral Statement...............................................    87
    Written Statement............................................    89

Dr. Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of 
  International Affairs, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, 
  Georgia Institute of Technology
    Oral Statement...............................................    97
    Written Statement............................................    99

Discussion.......................................................   109

             Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Matthew Hejduk, Senior Project Leader, The Aerospace 
  Corporation....................................................   128

Dr. Moriba Jah, Associate Professor, Aerospace Engineering and 
  Engineering Mechanics Department, Mrs. Pearlie Dashiell 
  Henderson Centennial Fellowship in Engineering, Oden Institute 
  for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of 
  Texas at Austin................................................   167

Mr. Andrew D'Uva, Senior Policy Advisor, Space Data Association..   174

Mr. Kevin M. O'Connell, Founder, Space Economy Rising, LLC.......   180

Dr. Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of 
  International Affairs, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, 
  Georgia Institute of Technology................................   182

            Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

Letter submitted by Don Beyer, Chairman, Subcommittee on Space 
  and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 
  U.S. House of Representatives
    Karina Drees, Commercial Spaceflight Federation..............   188

Letter submitted by Mr. Kevin M. O'Connell, Founder, Space 
  Economy Rising, LLC
    ``Congress Needs to Act on Space Traffic Management,'' Dan 
      Dumbacher, Executive Director, American Institute of 
      Aeronautics and Astronautics, et al........................   192

 
                      SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS:
                         GUIDING THE TRANSITION
                         TO A CIVIL CAPABILITY

                              ----------                              


                         THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2022

                  House of Representatives,
             Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in 
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Don Beyer 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Chairman Beyer. This hearing will come to order. And 
without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at 
any time.
    Before I deliver my opening remarks, I wanted to note that 
the Committee is meeting both in person and virtually. A couple 
of reminders for the Members about the conduct of this meeting. 
First, Members and staff who are attending may choose to be 
masked, but it is not a requirement. However, any individuals 
with symptoms, a positive test, or exposure to someone with 
COVID-19 should please wear a mask while present.
    And Members who are attending virtually should keep their 
video feed on as long as they are present in the hearing. 
Members are responsible for their own microphones, and please 
keep your microphones muted unless you are speaking. Finally, 
if Members have documents they wish to submit for the record, 
please email them to the Committee Clerk, whose email address 
was circulated prior to the meeting.
    So good morning, and welcome to today's hearing, ``Space 
Situational Awareness: Guiding the Transition to a Civil 
Capability.'' First, thank you to our distinguished panel of 
witnesses for being here virtually today. I'm pleased that we 
are finally able to handle this important hearing. Previously 
scheduled hearing dates had to be postponed due to changes in 
the House voting schedule and to a memorial service for a 
former House Member.
    But today, we're here and we're ready to discuss this 
urgent issue: Space Situational Awareness, or SSA. SSA is the 
ability to identify, understand, and predict the locations of 
objects in space so that potential collision risks can be 
calculated and this information shared with operators.
    The growth in space activity has made SSA crucial. Space-
enabled services like communications, national security 
activities, banking, weather forecasting, and Earth imaging all 
depend on the ability of systems to operate safely in space. 
However, safety is far from guaranteed. Mega constellations of 
thousands of satellites are creating orbital congestion, and 
the orbital debris left behind is compounding the risks of 
operating in space. The sustainability of the space environment 
is in peril if we don't act. Understanding and mitigating the 
risks starts with SSA.
    While the Department of Defense (DOD) has been providing 
SSA services and information to space operators for decades, 
the increasing complexity of the SSA function, the resources 
required to manage it, and the need for ongoing improvements 
are becoming an increasing burden. In 2018, Space Policy 
Directive-3 (SPD-3) recognized the need for a civil agency to 
carry out basic SSA capabilities so that DOD can focus on its 
national security mission. I totally agree. But then how will a 
transition from a DOD-based system to a fully operational, 
civil SSA capability actually occur?
    Some entities suggest that commercial companies can perform 
the civil SSA function and already do so, if only on a smaller 
scale, and others argue the problem has been studied to death 
and we need to just get on with it. But first, we need to know 
exactly what we're getting on with because the transition to 
civil SSA remains unclear.
    What functions and responsibilities should be transitioned? 
What SSA data are needed, and who will provide it? What 
services and information, and at what level, will the civil 
capability provide? And what roles will the government have and 
where should the commercial sector contribute?
    The current approach to civil SSA is the Department of 
Commerce's (DOC's) Office of Space Commerce (OSC) Open 
Architecture Data Repository--OADR. In 2021, the Office 
demonstrated its OADR prototype to enable SSA data sharing 
among government and commercial space operators. For Fiscal 
Year 2023, the Office is requesting a whopping 550 percent 
increase in funding toward bringing the pilot to an operational 
capability.
    What the OADR is, what it would be required to do and how 
it would evolve, however, are open questions. And the path 
forward for civil SSA has not been defined, and it needs to be 
to avoid the mistakes of past programs gone awry. DOD's own 
attempts to upgrade its legacy SSA systems ended up in nearly a 
billion dollars spent and a decade lost before the agency 
canceled the JMS (Joint Space Operations Center Mission System 
) program.
    Today's hearing will examine the questions, actions, and 
issues that must be addressed to enable an effective 
transition. We need a plan to move quickly. And while SSA is an 
essential first step, it is just one element of space safety. 
We need aggressive actions to mitigate the further creation of 
orbital debris. We need a framework to define who moves where 
and when in space, so-called space traffic management or space 
traffic coordination.
    And while the United States has led the world in actionable 
SSA services and information, other nations are quickly getting 
into the game and developing advanced approaches to SSA and 
space traffic coordination. We can't afford to lose our edge. 
Because while space safety is a global issue that requires 
spacefaring nations to work together, we must continue to lead 
the way.
    I'm pleased that the Biden-Harris Administration is doing 
just that by taking initial steps on norms of responsible 
behavior, which includes their new recent announcement of a new 
commitment by the U.S. Government not to conduct anti-satellite 
missile testing, and this is in stark contrast to behavior of 
some of our global adversaries.
    This Subcommittee and the Full Committee are taking very 
seriously the establishment of a robust, evolvable civil SSA. 
We're currently working on the draft Space Safety and 
Situational Awareness Transition Act of 2022. Today's hearing 
will inform that process, and I look forward to working with my 
friend, the Ranking Member Dr. Brian Babin, all our Members, 
and the broader stakeholder community as we advance legislation 
to address this pressing issue.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Beyer follows:]

    Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing, ``Space 
Situational Awareness: Guiding the Transition to a Civil 
Capability.'' I want to thank our distinguished panel of 
witnesses for being here today.
    I'm pleased that we are finally able to hold this important 
hearing. Previously scheduled hearing dates had to be postponed 
due changes to the House voting schedule and a memorial service 
for a former House Member.
    Today, we are here and ready to discuss this urgent issue-
Space Situational Awareness or SSA. SSA is the ability to 
identify, understand, and predict the locations of objects in 
space so that potential collision risks can be calculated and 
shared with operators.
    The growth in space activity has made SSA crucial. Space-
enabled services like communications, national security 
activities, banking, weather forecasting, and Earth imaging 
depend on the ability of systems to operate safely in space.
    However, safety is far from guaranteed.
    Mega constellations of thousands of satellites are creating 
orbital congestion, and orbital debris from past missions-and 
reckless anti-satellite tests-are compounding the risks of 
operating in space. The sustainability of the space environment 
is in peril if we don't act.
    Understanding and mitigating the risks starts with SSA.
    While the DOD has been providing SSA services and 
information to space operators for decades, the increasing 
complexity of the SSA function, the resources required to 
manage it, and the need for ongoing improvements are becoming 
an increasing burden.
    In 2018, Space Policy Directive-3 recognized the need for a 
civil agency to carry out basic SSA capabilities so that the 
DOD can focus on its national security mission.
    I couldn't agree more. How will a transition from a DOD-
based system to a fully operational, civil SSA capability 
occur?
    Some entities suggest that commercial companies can perform 
the civil SSA function and already do so, albeit on a smaller 
scale.
    Others argue the problem has been studied to death and we 
need to get on with it.
    First, we need to know exactly what we're getting on with, 
because the transition to civil SSA remains unclear.
      What functions and responsibilities should be 
transitioned?
      What SSA data are needed and who will provide it?
      What services and information, and at what level, 
will the civil capability provide?
      And what roles will the government have and where 
should the commercial sector contribute?
    The current approach to civil SSA is the Department of 
Commerce's Office of Space Commerce open architecture data 
repository-OADR. In 2021, the Office demonstrated its OADR 
protype to enable SSA data sharing among government and 
commercial space operators. For Fiscal Year 2023, the Office is 
requesting a whopping 550 percent increase toward bringing the 
pilot to an operational capability.
    How the OADR would evolve, however, is an open question. 
The path forward for civil SSA has not been defined, and it 
needs to be to avoid the mistakes of past programs gone awry.
    DOD's own attempts to upgrade its legacy SSA systems ended 
up in nearly a billion dollars spent and a decade lost before 
the agency cancelled the JMS program.
    Today's hearing will examine the questions, actions, and 
issues that must be addressed to enable an effective 
transition.
    For starters, it's clear we need a plan to move quickly. 
And while SSA is an essential first step, it is just one 
element of space safety.
    We also need aggressive actions to mitigate the further 
creation of orbital debris.
    And we need a framework to define who moves where and when 
in space-so-called space traffic management or space traffic 
coordination.
    While the U.S. has led the world in actionable SSA services 
and information, other nations are quickly getting into the 
game and developing advanced approaches to SSA and space 
traffic coordination.
    We can't afford to lose our edge. Because while space 
safety is a global issue that requires spacefaring nations work 
together, we must continue to lead the way. I'm pleased that 
the Biden-Harris Administration is doing just that by taking 
initial steps on norms of responsible behavior, which includes 
their recent announcement of a new commitment by the U.S. 
government not to conduct direct-ascent anti-satellite missile 
testing, a stark contrast with the behavior of some of our 
global adversaries.
    I want to thank our witnesses again for being here and I 
look forward to your testimony. Establishing a robust, 
evolvable civil SSA capability is an essential part of space 
safety and one the Subcommittee and Committee are taking very 
seriously.
    The Subcommittee is currently working on the ``Space Safety 
and Situational Awareness Transition Act of 2022'' and today's 
hearing will inform that process. I look forward to working 
with Ranking Member Babin and Members of the Subcommittee and 
Committee and the broader stakeholder community as we advance 
legislation to address this pressing issue.

    Chairman Beyer. And with that, let me now recognize our 
Ranking Member, the good gentleman from Texas, Dr. Babin.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you, Chairman Beyer. I really appreciate 
your leadership.
    This Committee has focused on Space Situational Awareness, 
or SSA, for several years. We've held numerous hearings and 
considered two significant pieces of legislation: the American 
Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act, which passed the House by 
voice vote, and the American Space Situational Awareness and 
Framework for Entity Management Act. These efforts by the 
Committee informed the development of Space Policy Directive 
No. 3, which called for the Department of Defense to transfer 
its current responsibility to share SSA data to the Department 
of Commerce.
    The debris created by a recent Russian anti-satellite test 
highlights why SSA remains an important issue. As I said at our 
Subcommittee's hearing in 2020, near-misses in space attract 
media attention and calls for draconian regulations, but 
overreacting could be just as detrimental to our Nation's space 
enterprise. There are, however, some important issues that I 
think we can still all agree on.
    First, we need better data. The information the government 
and the private sector rely on to make sound decision 
absolutely needs to be improved. Uncertainty is too high, which 
could lead to unnecessary alerts and unpredicted conjunctions. 
As a result, the private sector is stepping up to the plate. 
They are developing cost-effective, timely, and accurate SSA 
data and services, often relying on off-the-shelf and non-
military technologies. In some cases, commercial capabilities 
are superior to DOD's. This is good news for America and for 
the global community, and we should foster the growth of these 
nascent industries.
    Secondly, the Department of Commerce is the right agency 
for the job. I am closely following Commerce's plans to stand 
up this capability. They don't need to create a bloated 
bureaucracy. Nor should they duplicate DOD's existing 
architecture or reinvent the wheel by building new systems and 
sensors. They should just be a commercial storefront that takes 
the government's data, integrates it with any necessary 
commercial and operator data, and makes that information 
available to the public through commercial architectures. We 
aren't ready for ``space traffic management'' or being a 
``traffic cop in space.''
    Instead, we should elevate the Office of Space Commerce out 
of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) so 
that they can better coordinate across the Department and 
throughout the government and internationally as well. Commerce 
already houses several agencies that are relevant to space. I 
will list a few: NIST (National Institute of Standards and 
Technology), BIS (Bureau of Industry and Security), ITA 
(International Trade Administration), NTIA (National 
Telecommunications and Information Administration), and the 
National Weather Service, and NOAA. Elevating the Office is key 
to their long-term success.
    Commerce also has a history of partnering with the private 
sector to nurture emerging industries. Commerce stood up the 
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, 
through a contract with a non-profit organization. ICANN was 
the organization responsible for developing policies, 
coordinating best practices, and managing the processes that 
led to a stable internet that we enjoy today.
    We've already seen the space community adopt a similar 
approach on their own. Several years ago, operators founded the 
Space Data Association (SDA) to share information and improve 
safety. The SDA demonstrates how the private sector can 
collaborate and innovate. More recently, the Space Safety 
Coalition was established to provide similar capabilities for 
operators in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
    The third issue we should all agree on is that we need to 
develop better standards and practices. And rather than 
imposing a top-down regulatory burden on an emerging sector, we 
should adopt a crawl, walk, run approach. NASA (National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration), while not a regulator, 
has a long history of demonstrating responsible behavior and 
researching orbital mechanics. NASA, along with academia and 
the private sector, can play an important role in advancing our 
understanding of the orbital domain, as well as facilitating 
the development of non-binding consensus-based standards, best 
practices, and customs.
    This could be done similarly to how NASA developed internal 
orbital debris mitigation standard practices that eventually 
informed the international Inter-Agency Space Debris 
Coordination Committee's space debris mitigation guidelines. 
These standards and best practices could also be augmented by 
contributions from the insurance industry, similar to the role 
that they played in the very early days of maritime shipping.
    We have a lot to learn about how to operate in space, but I 
am very optimistic. I believe that we can all work together to 
ensure space remains a safe and prosperous domain without 
smothering the private sector with burdensome regulations or 
crowding out of commercial solutions.
    So I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to 
an interesting panel of witnesses. And I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]

    This Committee has focused on Space Situational Awareness, 
or ``SSA,'' for several years. We've held numerous hearings and 
considered two significant pieces of legislation: the American 
Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act, which passed the House by 
voice vote, and the American Space Situational Awareness and 
Framework for Entity Management Act. These efforts by the 
Committee informed the development of Space Policy Directive 3, 
which called for the Department of Defense to transfer its 
current responsibility to share SSA data to the Department of 
Commerce.
    The debris created by a recent Russian anti-satellite test 
highlights why SSA remains an important issue. As I said at our 
Subcommittee's hearing in 2020, near-misses in space attract 
media attention and calls for draconian regulations, but 
overreacting could be just as detrimental to our nation's space 
enterprise. There are, however, some important issues I think 
we can all still agree on.
    First, we need better data. The information the government 
and private sector rely on to make sound decisions needs to be 
improved. Uncertainty is too high, which could lead to 
unnecessary alerts and unpredicted conjunctions. As a result, 
the private sector is stepping up to the plate. They are 
developing cost-effective, timely, and accurate SSA data and 
services, often relying on off-the-shelf and non-military 
technologies. In some cases, commercial capabilities are 
superior to DoD's. This is good news for America and for the 
global community, and we should foster the growth of these 
nascent industries.
    Secondly, the Department of Commerce is the right agency 
for the job. I am closely following Commerce's plans to stand 
up this capability. They don't need to create a bloated 
bureaucracy. Nor should they duplicate DoD's existing 
architecture or reinvent the wheel by building new systems and 
sensors. They should just be a ``commercial storefront'' that 
takes the government's data, integrates it with any necessary 
commercial and operator data, and makes that information 
available to the public through commercial architectures. We 
aren't ready for ``Space Traffic Management'' or a ``traffic 
cop in space.''
    Instead, we should elevate the Office of Space Commerce out 
of NOAA so that they can better coordinate across the 
Department, throughout the government, and internationally. 
Commerce already houses several agencies that are relevant to 
space - NIST, BIS, ITA, NTIA, the National Weather Service, and 
NOAA. Elevating the Office is key to their long-term success.
    Commerce also has a history of partnering with the private 
sector to nurture emerging industries. Commerce stood up the 
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 
through a contract with a non-profit organization. ICANN was 
the organization responsible for developing policies, 
coordinating best practices, and managing the processes that 
led to a stable internet.
    We've already seen the space community adopt a similar 
approach on their own. Several years ago, operators founded the 
Space Data Association to share information and improve safety. 
The SDA demonstrates how the private sector can collaborate and 
innovate.More recently, the Space Safety Coalition was 
established to provide similar capabilities for operators in 
low Earth orbit.
    The third issue we should all agree on is that we need to 
develop better standards and practices. Rather than imposing a 
top-down regulatory burden on an emerging sector, we should 
adopt a crawl, walk, run approach. NASA, while not a regulator, 
has a long history of demonstrating responsible behavior and 
researching orbital mechanics.
    NASA, along with academia and the private sector, can play 
an important role in advancing our understanding of the orbital 
domain as well as facilitating the development of non-binding 
consensus-based standards, best practices, and customs.
    This could be done similar to how NASA developed internal 
Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices that eventually 
informed the international Inter-Agency Space Debris 
Coordination Committee's Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines. 
These standards and best practices could also be augmented by 
contributions from the insurance industry, similar to the role 
they played in the early days of maritime shipping.
    We have a lot to learn about how to operate in space, but I 
am optimistic. I believe we can all work together to ensure 
space remains a safe and prosperous domain without smothering 
the private sector with burdensome regulations or crowding-out 
commercial solutions.
    Thank you and I look forward to an interesting panel.

    Chairman Beyer. Dr. Babin, thank you very much.
    I'd now like to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the 
record a written statement from the Commercial Spaceflight 
Federation. If there's no objection from Dr. Babin----
    Mr. Babin. No objection.
    Chairman Beyer. And if there are Members who wish to submit 
additional opening statements, your statements will be added to 
the record at this point or at any point during the hearing.
    [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Beyer, for holding 
today's hearing on space situational awareness, and thank you 
to each of our witnesses for testifying today on this important 
topic.
    Some of you may recall that this Subcommittee has 
previously held a hearing on the role of space situational 
awareness - or SSA - in the sustainability of the overall space 
environment. SSA involves collecting location data on space 
objects, processing that data to understand how those space 
objects move in space, and developing information to support 
spacecraft operators so they can avoid collisions in space.
    As the amount of space debris and number of satellites 
orbiting the Earth have exponentially increased in recent 
years, SSA is critically important to maintaining space safety 
and ensuring that we continue to reap benefits on Earth from 
monitoring, operating, and living in space.
    Currently the Department of Defense has the authority to 
publicly provide basic SSA information and notify space 
operators of potential collisions. Transitioning some of these 
services to a civilian authority is not a trivial task and 
there are important questions that must be answered.
    We need to ensure that a clear path is in place.
    The role of a strong SSA civil capability to our future in 
space is too important to risk limping along through a 
transition. We need a plan to do this responsibly.
    The civil SSA system is the foundation on which we will 
build toward space traffic coordination. Our capability must 
consider international engagement to ensure space safety and 
sustainability in the years to come. The global community will 
not watch and wait for the United States to take action. The 
time is now.
    I want to commend Chairman Beyer and Ranking Member Babin 
for holding today's hearing. This Subcommittee has been working 
hard on this topic and I look forward to the testimony and 
discussion on the considerations for transitioning to a civil 
space situational awareness capability.
    Thank you, and I yield back.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you, Chairman Beyer. Today's hearing on space 
situational awareness is an important one. Russia's anti-
satellite launch this fall brought the issue of space debris 
once again into mainstream discussion.
    Fortunately, there were no collisions with the 
International Space Station as some worried would happen, but 
it did highlight the need for effective monitoring and 
coordination of space objects and debris.
    In the two years since we last held a hearing on this 
topic, the commercial space situational awareness industry has 
continued to expand. The market is predicted to grow to a $1.8 
billion industry by 2026.
    That growth is due to the innovation and effectiveness of 
our commercial satellite operators and space data providers.
    If we are to achieve our goal of effectively coordinating 
space objects, accurately tracking space debris, and advancing 
space safety, then we need to be sure we don't constrain the 
commercial industry with poorly considered regulations.
    The Department of Defense has been providing the lion's 
share of space situational awareness information, but the 
private sector has emerged as a valuable partner with 
innovative solutions and services.
    With the responsibility for sharing this data being 
transferred to the Department of Commerce following Space 
Policy Directive 3, it's more important that ever to encourage 
private sector growth. This industry can fill critical gaps in 
existing data, providing services, sensor data, and situational 
awareness.
    There is an ever-growing need for these services as more 
and more industries discover its value.
    So it's important that we don't take a heavy-handed 
regulatory approach that will stifle this growing industry. If 
the Department of Commerce adopts a clearinghouse approach, 
then the government can partner with the private sector and 
international community to share data and establish consensus-
based best practices and standards.
    This will improve data availability and utility and allow 
for better information and better services. I'm hopeful that 
the Department of Commerce will take a pragmatic approach that 
prioritizes growth and innovation rather than stifling 
commercial development.
    The best way to ensure this is by taking the Office of 
Space Commerce out of NOAA and returning it to where it is 
authorized - at the Department of Commerce. That will allow 
them to provide better coordination and make full use of the 
Department's resources.
    I'm encouraged by the continued growth of the commercial 
space industry and I'm hopeful that we can continue to 
encourage that while improving our space situational awareness. 
I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses today, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.

    Chairman Beyer. At this time, I'd like to introduce our 
witnesses, who are with us virtually. Dr. Matthew Hejduk is a 
Senior Project Leader at the Aerospace Corporation and 
currently serves as the Chief Engineer of the NASA Satellite 
Conjunction Analysis Risk Assessment, or CARA, program. His 
research interests include satellite conjunction assessment 
techniques, satellite radar and optical signature modeling and 
analysis, estimation theory, and Space Surveillance Network 
modeling and simulation.
    Dr. Moriba Jah is the Director of the Computational 
Astronautical Sciences and Technologies Group at the University 
of Texas (UT) at Austin where he is also an Associate Professor 
of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. His 
research focuses on the convergence of policy, technology, and 
security related to space traffic management and space 
situational awareness. Prior to being at UT Austin, Dr. Jah 
worked at the University of Arizona, the Air Force Research 
Laboratory, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
    Dr. Andrew D'Uva serves as the Strategy and Policy Advisor 
of the Space Data Association, or SDA, a nonprofit space 
traffic management organization. Mr. D'Uva led efforts to 
create the legal and data-sharing frameworks of the SDA and has 
supported international commercial satellite and 
telecommunications businesses for more than two decades with 
the present emphasis on government services, space 
sustainability, and cybersecurity.
    Mr. Kevin O'Connell is the Founder and CEO (Chief Executive 
Officer) of Space Economy Rising, LLC, and has over 35 years of 
experience in the U.S. Government and research organizations 
and is an entrepreneur and business leader. His prior U.S. 
Government assignments include positions at DOD, the Department 
of State, and the National Security Council, the Office of the 
Vice President, the Office of the Director of Central 
Intelligence, and, most recently, as the Director of the Office 
of Space Commerce within the Department of Commerce.
    Dr. Mariel Borowitz is an Associate Professor in the Sam 
Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. Her 
research deals with international space policy issues, 
including international cooperation, Earth-observing 
satellites, and satellite data-sharing policies. She also 
focuses on strategies and developments in space security and 
space situational awareness.
    As our witnesses should know, you will each have five 
minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony, 
which could be significantly longer, is--will be included in 
the record for the hearing. And when you've all completed your 
spoken testimony, we will begin with Member questions. Each 
Member will have five minutes to question the panel.
    So we will start with Dr. Matthew Hejduk. Dr. Hejduk, the 
floor or the Zoom is yours.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. MATTHEW HEJDUK,

        SENIOR PROJECT LEADER, THE AEROSPACE CORPORATION

    Dr. Hejduk. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, 
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 
inviting me to join this discussion. I'm on the staff of the 
Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit, federally funded research 
and development center (FFRDC) whose purpose is to provide 
advice to the government on all aspects of the Nation's space 
enterprise. The full 33 years of my career in the aerospace 
discipline have been dedicated to space situational awareness, 
the last decade of which as a subject matter expert for the 
orbital safety mission for NASA. It is a great pleasure to give 
testimony today on the subject that has constituted my life's 
work.
    The very title of this hearing testifies to the consensus, 
both on the part of the government and within industry, of the 
need to transition the U.S. Government's support of the civil 
and commercial orbital safety mission, which is the principal 
nonmilitary use of space situational awareness to a civil 
agency. The remaining question is the best way to do this that 
provides needed capability while promoting a healthy synergy of 
government and private industrial roles.
    The orbital safety mission, which is the process of keeping 
active spacecraft from colliding with space debris and with 
each other, is divided into three parts: satellite conjunction 
screenings, which look several days into the future to 
determine which satellites will come within close proximity of 
each other; conjunction risk assessment, which determines which 
of these close approaches actually presents a high risk of 
collision; and conjunction mitigation planning, which plans a 
satellite maneuver to avoid the high-risk close approach.
    In support of civil and commercial space, the DOD actually 
performs only the first part. These satellite owner-operators 
presently look to their own resources to perform the latter two 
parts. The first transition steps should thus be simply to 
transfer what the DOD is doing presently for civil and 
commercial operators to the new civil agency using the DOD 
precision space catalog and the existing DOD algorithm for 
conjunction screening modified slightly to accommodate a modern 
computer architecture with a modern and automated user 
interface.
    This part of the process is the most basic and would 
benefit least from innovation, will serve as a good confidence-
building measure among owner-operators, and relies entirely on 
technology proven over decades. The regular export of the 
declassified version of the DOD precision catalog for use 
elsewhere in the U.S. Government is already an established and 
proven procedure.
    Once this first step is established and working, the latter 
two parts of the orbital safety process can be considered. 
These tasks are, for many owner-operators, performed either 
internally or by private industry. This is an excellent 
opportunity to continue to encourage the SSA industrial sector 
by allowing such companies to use the civil agency's automated 
user interface and receive data directly for their owner-
operator customers.
    An additional industrial opportunity hosted as part of the 
user interface could be to provide the basic conjunction 
screening service but with more flexibility and extremely low 
time latency. The basic free service modeled after the DOD 
would thus continue, but owner-operators who would benefit from 
advanced services can obtain them from private industry 
facilitated by the civil agency.
    One worrisome gap in the current process is its inability 
to accommodate satellites that perform autonomous flight 
control, including autonomous orbital safety actions without 
any necessary contact with their ground systems. The SpaceX 
Starlink constellation operates this way, and it will 
undoubtedly become a favored mechanism for large 
constellations. Special orbital safety solutions are needed for 
autonomous systems, and the civil agency can take the lead 
perhaps through a government-industry partnership to develop 
and implement a durable solution.
    The availability of commercial SSA data offers exciting 
opportunities to improve the orbital safety mission through 
increased data availability, and these opportunities should 
definitely be embraced. The acquisition of commercial SSA data 
should, however, be targeted. Not all orbit regimes or objects 
will benefit appreciably from additional SSA data, and only 
certain narrow orbital safety objectives will be advanced by an 
expanded space catalog that contains additional small objects.
    Finally, while the transition of the execution of the 
orbital safety mission is important, overshadowing this is the 
great need to establish standards, guidelines, and norms of 
behavior for safe satellite operation. The lack of a 
reasonable, analytically grounded set of such norms, integrated 
with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and FCC (Federal 
Communications Commission) licensing process, is the 
circumstance perhaps doing the most injury to orbital safety at 
present. Progress in this area cannot wait for the transition 
of the orbital safety mission execution to complete. It must be 
pursued immediately.
    This concludes my prepared remarks, and I'm happy to 
entertain any questions the Subcommittee may have.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Hejduk follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much, Doctor.
    And we now recognize Dr. Moriba Jah for his testimony.

                  TESTIMONY OF DR. MORIBA JAH,

           ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

             AND ENGINEERING MECHANICS DEPARTMENT,

                MRS. PEARLIE DASHIELL HENDERSON

             CENTENNIAL FELLOWSHIP IN ENGINEERING,

          ODEN INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTATIONAL ENGINEERING

        AND SCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

    Dr. Jah. Thank you very much, Mr. Subcommittee Chairman 
Beyer, Mr. Ranking Member Babin. It's good to see you again and 
hear your voice today, other Members of this Subcommittee. 
Thank you so much for the invitation to appear before you today 
live in from the Space Object Situation Room here at the 
University of Texas at Austin.
    And, you know, I've testified a couple of times. I'm glad 
to see that we're finally able to do this today. And I love all 
the people here that are also witnesses with me. I know them 
personally and professionally, so it's great to be with them.
    Let's talk about a couple of things. Look, we started 
launching things in 1957. We track, you know, 30,000-plus 
objects ranging in size from cell phone all the way to the 
space station. The number of operational satellites that we had 
just 2 years ago has doubled in the last like 2 years. So 
basically it's like if you look at all the operational 
satellites that we had, you know, somewhere around this time in 
2020 and the number of operational satellites now, that's 
almost doubled in just 2 years. That's not a bad thing. That's 
good. We got some global internet. We've seen some of this--the 
benefits of that actually to support folks in the war in 
Ukraine and these sorts of things, so there's positive aspects 
of increasing space traffic for sure. And we're not going to 
stop launching satellites.
    We see people going and taking suborbital flights. We see 
commercial entities now rendezvousing with the space station, 
that sort of stuff, more activity. People that have lots of 
resources going up to space, that's a great sign. We need to 
see more of that.
    What are the not-so-good things? Oh, I don't know, you 
know, people like Russia blowing up their own satellite and 
basically causing all this debris that now is a hazard to human 
spaceflight. I've heard that the Starlink satellites that fall 
under the United States SpaceX have had to maneuver--I think 
since the Russians blew up this stuff in November, almost 2,000 
times these things have had to get out of the way. That's not 
so good.
    When people talk about conjunctions and possible 
collisions, all these great commercial capabilities, they're 
awesome but, you know, they're all opinions. So the thing is 
when one commercial entity says, hey, get out of the way, the 
DOD might say, oh, that's really, you know, a nothing burger. 
You know, those aren't the droids you're looking for. That's 
not a problem. Somebody else says, well, it's kind of a problem 
but not so much, so there's lots of ambiguity. There's lots of 
opinions. There are disparate sources of evidence. There's not 
a combined, aggregated pool of evidence by which to draw 
consistent interpretations or opinions about what's going on in 
space.
    We see the Chinese saying, oh, you know, to the United 
Nations, well, you know, basically Starlinks were a hazard, 
U.S. saying, oh, based on our evidence, not so much. I think 
you kind of get the point. We see astronomers negatively 
impacted by space traffic and actually discovering natural 
phenomenon that really were satellites that were glinting at 
the time. I don't know, I looked at this movie, you know, Don't 
Look Up, I'm kind of worried about near-Earth asteroids 
because, you know, I'm allergic to things like hitting the 
Earth and ending all life. And our ability to detect these 
things is now hindered by more and more things that are 
reflecting sunlight getting in the way and confusing stuff.
    This is all to say transitioning this to a civil entity is 
critical if we want to be able to sustain our way of life, if 
we want to be able to support space commerce, if we want to be 
able to support space exploration. And so one of the main goals 
of this transition has to be measurably making space more 
transparent. What's up there, who does it belong to, what can 
it do, making space more predictable, where are things going to 
be, and given any situation between two entities, can we 
predict how they'll behave and what they'll do with the 
information provided to them? And then last but not least, can 
we develop a body of evidence that's consistent, that is 
accurate, that's timely, that can be used to help people be 
safe, more secure, and more sustainable and hold them 
accountable for their behaviors in space?
    That's what we need this civil entity to do. That's what we 
need the Office of Space Commerce to do. And that is my hope 
that, you know, from this gathering that we have here today and 
talking about these things, that we're able to advance that in 
a way that is very credible. Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Jah follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Beyer. Dr. Jah, thank you very much. And thank you 
for the graphs in your testimony, fascinating.
    We'll next hear from Mr. D'Uva for his testimony.

                 TESTIMONY OF MR. ANDREW D'UVA,

         SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR, SPACE DATA ASSOCIATION

    Mr. D'Uva. Thank you. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, 
and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 
the opportunity to appear before you on this important topic 
for the United States and for the people worldwide.
    Space systems are now undeniably essential to our way of 
life. For example, U.S. private sector capabilities effectively 
and affordably deliver crew and cargo to the ISS for NASA. 
Global public communications and remote imagery depends on 
commercial satellites. More than 100,000 new spacecraft 
applications have been filed through 2029, and 32 percent of 
all payloads since 1957 have been launched within the past 4 
years.
    As noted in my testimony, nations and operators each have 
reasons to avoid collisions in Earth orbit. Space situational 
awareness, or SSA, capabilities are foundational to managing 
this shared risk. In 2009, following the Iridium-Cosmos 
collision and lack of adequate SSA support from government 
agencies, commercial satellite operators established the Space 
Data Association, or SDA. The SDA is an open, nonprofit, risk-
management entity dedicated to safety of flight and space 
sustainability. SDA's 30 stakeholder participants include 
leading fiercely competitive commercial and civil satellite 
communications, weather, and imagery operators.
    Since 2011, SDA has offered the world's first private 
cooperative space traffic coordination service operating our 
Space Data Center, or SDC, at 99.99 percent reliability. I must 
stress it was developed without any government funds. The SDC 
now protects 769 spacecraft in multiple orbital regimes with 
over 50 percent of the GEO (geostationary) active spacecraft 
and 423 LEO and MEO (medium-Earth orbit) spacecraft 
participated. Operators contribute data, enabling the SDC to 
generate actionable, forward-looking collision warnings, 
deconflict plan maneuvers, and securely share SSA information.
    In my testimony I note that SDA pioneered many traits that 
are now widely accepted as modern SSA system baselines. In 
fact, SDA's processes and products augmented and improved on 
DOD's products to the extent that NOAA and NASA became early 
and continuing SDA subscribers. SDA probably collaborates with 
and contributes operator data daily to the DOD's CSpOC 
(Combined Space Operations Center).
    We achieve results using only U.S. commercial entities and 
technologies, including the foundational SSA analytics engine 
that fuses, normalizes, and transforms disparate data into 
usable knowledge. As further described in my testimony, new 
space operational paradigms seriously challenge legacy flight 
safety capabilities. Safety requires DOC to qualitatively 
improve on legacy DOD products for SSA in conjunction to 
assessment. SDA helped conceive and conduct the data fusion 
exercise through Space Coordination Traffic and Management in 
September 2020, including NOAA for participation, which 
indisputably demonstrated the importance and effectiveness of 
U.S. private sector analytic capabilities in partnership with 
government.
    Accordingly, SDA is disappointed that since early 2021 the 
Office of Space Commerce's work, informed by the strategic plan 
which was endorsed by the National Academy of Public 
Administration (NAPA) and Congress in 2020, appears to have 
been shelved, perpetuating unavoidable--excuse me, avoidable 
risks and delays. Speaking from SDA's operator support 
perspective, DOC have not conducted satellite operator industry 
days, stated how they intend to incorporate satellite operator 
data, and improve on DOD's products. Instead, they turned 
inward, taking a government system development approach with 
Federal research and development centers.
    Developing new government systems is too risky and slow, 
and it's unnecessary. The DOC's prior commercial partnership 
vision responded to specific commercial and civil satellite 
needs for timely and actionable SSA data and space traffic 
management services. These services are essential to securing 
space-safe operations, preserving U.S. leadership, and enabling 
increased use of space.
    Let me suggest three actions we take. First, we should 
establish a clear 1-, 5-, and 10-year vision for DOC's delivery 
of space traffic coordination capabilities, including fee-free 
based--basic services and data. Require DOC to promote not 
compete with U.S. private sector SSA data and analytics 
providers. DOC should contract existing technically mature, 
validated commercial capabilities to provide services, not try 
to develop them. We cannot risk waiting for U.S. Government 
development, and international competition is fierce.
    Second, require DOC to qualitatively improve on today's DOD 
products to ensure DOC products are sufficient for safety and 
sustainability. For example, Congress could require DOC to use 
validated U.S. commercial technology to reprocess observational 
data from government SSA sensors such as the Space Surveillance 
Network and adjust operator data to drive timely and actionable 
information. This will leverage over $1 billion being spent 
annually.
    And third, Congress should curtail public investments to 
redevelop or study needs for near-or midterm government SSA 
data and STM processing capabilities where private sector 
capabilities exist.
    Thank you very much for your attention, and I look forward 
to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. D'Uva follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, sir, very much.
    We'll now hear from Mr. O'Connell for his testimony.

              TESTIMONY OF MR. KEVIN M. O'CONNELL,

               FOUNDER, SPACE ECONOMY RISING, LLC

    Mr. O'Connell. Good morning, Chairman Beyer and Ranking 
Member Babin. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before--
again before the Committee to talk about U.S. leadership in 
space safety and sustainability.
    Today, while I'm representing my own views on this topic, 
I'm also a member of a group of experts organized by the 
American Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics or AIAA. 
AIAA sent a letter to the Committee last October, and I have 
resubmitted it along with my prepared testimony.
    Mr. Chairman, the need for the United States to create a 
civil SSA capability is as urgent and as compelling as ever. As 
part of it, there's a need to fully leverage commercial 
providers in the interest of making rapid progress, ensuring 
compatibility with space operators and allies, and the ability 
to leverage massive private investments in information 
technology and other areas. Safety is fundamental to all space 
operations and is the key enabler of the extraordinary 
opportunities we expect in the space economy. One of the most 
important benefits, as you've already mentioned, Mr. Chairman, 
is that it will free up the U.S. Space Force to focus further 
on its national security missions.
    The Biden Administration has reaffirmed the principles in 
Space Policy Directive 3, which acknowledged the urgency of the 
problem, mandated a whole-of-government approach to mitigating 
it, and recognized the critical importance of working with 
industry and international partners.
    I would like to emphasize two key points on the shift to a 
civil SSA system. First, it's often thought that the mission 
given to the Department of Commerce and SPD 3 was to replicate 
or simply shift the DOD system over to a civil agency. While 
some linkages do need to be incorporated, a civil SSA system 
will have to be adaptive enough to accommodate rapid changes in 
space over the next few years such as the projections of 
100,000 satellites and new complex missions like satellite 
servicing. It will have to be a state-of-the-art system in 
order to accomplish this.
    Second, there's sometimes a perception that the ultimate 
goal is improving conjunction warnings. While it is certainly 
the most immediate goal, accomplishing that will actually 
enable wholly new services related to space sustainability. For 
example, the historic decision to unlock the military GPS 
(Global Positioning System) signal fueled the development of 
commercial services that we use dozens of times every single 
day. Another natural beneficiary of a civil and commercial SSA 
system would be the space insurance industry, as more open data 
will inform their risk models and improve all of our 
understanding about risk in space.
    Aside from U.S. debris mitigation policy, national space 
policy not only directs U.S. leadership in commercial space 
activities, but the Federal agencies play a key role in 
encouraging it. Hardly a week goes by without a major report or 
expert opinion expressing concern that the government is not 
moving fast enough to leverage commercial capabilities.
    In my prepared remarks, Mr. Chairman, I've highlighted 
almost 30 years of observations on commercial satellite 
imagery, which I might describe as a long and challenging path 
to government adoption. The problem is many see it on space 
debris is that we're out of time. We don't have 30 years to 
deal with this problem, and we don't want to have this 
conversation in the wake of a terrible accident in space.
    The United States has a diverse and impressive group of 
companies focused on SSA and related capabilities. Some are 
focused on unique sensing of the space environment from Earth, 
and they'll soon be joined by space-based sensors to detect, 
track, and provide insights into the behavior of debris and 
other space objects. These companies are staffed with world-
class talent, and all are leveraging world-class capabilities 
in data management, analytics, and other areas that form the 
basis for critical decisions in healthcare, finance, and other 
areas. Some are already under contract to NOAA and the Space 
Force. We can leverage these capabilities immediately.
    International cooperation is key. Because of the growing 
concern about the space debris challenge, our allies in the 
United Kingdom and Europe and Japan are moving independently, 
including leveraging of and encouraging their commercial 
organizations. Russia and China on the other hand are advancing 
their own initiatives as they sense an opportunity to challenge 
decades of unquestioned American leadership in this area.
    As we create a new civil SSA capability, simply making 
token commercial purchases will not be enough. There's nothing 
wrong with the government being a first customer so long as 
it's not the only customer. The large, slow, traditional 
government approach will not work here mainly because of the 
speed at which the space-based debris problem is changing. 
Worse, it could wind up stifling exactly the broad-based 
innovation that we need urgently right now.
    A civil SSA system constructed with these ideas in mind 
will support key U.S. Government missions while also 
encouraging the growth of a new and important commercial--as 
part of this commercial space industry. At a time of great 
concern about America's ability to compete against our 
adversaries while still being able to unlock the tremendous 
opportunity of space, we need a new outlook and new ways to 
harness the speed, agility, and anticipation of the private 
sector.
    Congress has not been silent on these issues. In the past, 
Congress has been pivotal in telling the executive branch not 
to build what it can buy in the market. This is--as I 
understand it, this is being discussed right now in conference 
as part of U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. I would urge 
Congress to fund, demand expediency, and oversee proper 
execution of a civil SSA capability on--that capitalizes on the 
themes that I've highlighted in my testimony today.
    Thank you again for the invitation to participate, and I 
look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. O'Connell follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Mr. O'Connell, very much.
    And finally, we'll hear from Dr. Mariel Borowitz. Dr. 
Borowitz?

               TESTIMONY OF DR. MARIEL BOROWITZ,

              ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, SAM NUNN SCHOOL

                   OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS,

              IVAN ALLEN COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS,

                GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

    Dr. Borowitz. Thank you. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member 
Babin, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I want to 
thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on this 
important topic.
    Space assets are critical to the global and U.S. economy, 
as well as U.S. national security, and one of the most 
fundamental missions for ensuring safety, security, and 
sustainability of space is space situational awareness, or SSA. 
Right now, the U.S. Department of Defense operates the most 
advanced SSA system in the world. With the rapid growth of 
activity in space and particularly commercial activity, there's 
been a recognition that some components of the SSA mission 
should be transitioned to a civil agency. However, as we've 
heard, there are still a number of important decisions to be 
made in relation to this transition. So in my testimony I want 
to focus on two key issues: mission definition and commercial 
engagement.
    So with respect to mission definition, a decision needs to 
be made about which elements of the SSA mission will be taken 
on by a civil agency. SSA requires collection of raw data, data 
processing and fusion to create a catalog of space objects, 
analysis to identify potential collisions in space and 
determine their likelihood, and the provision of the resulting 
warnings to space operators around the world. At the very 
least, a civil agency would need to take on that last part of 
the mission. A civil agency would be the main point of contact 
and the prime interface for U.S. SSA capabilities for the 
world.
    However, there are benefits to having a civil agency do 
more. A civil agency that generates its own raw data from civil 
or commercial sensors, generates its own independent space 
object catalog, and generates its own conjunction warnings can 
be much more open and transparent about these activities than 
the U.S. military. When the United States is transparent about 
the data and algorithms it uses, this facilitates trust and 
encourages international partners and commercial satellite 
operators to rely on U.S. data, strengthening U.S. influence 
and leadership in this area.
    Openness and transparency also allow the United States to 
better leverage the commercial and academic communities. When 
government data is freely available, entrepreneurs can use the 
data as building blocks to create new and innovative products 
and services. Similarly, researchers with access to SSA data 
and algorithms can carry out research that improves U.S. space 
situational awareness capabilities overall. We've seen this 
open data model work well in weather and in remote sensing 
where we have open data sharing by the government and thriving 
commercial sectors. And it applies in the case of SSA as well.
    The second issue I want to touch on is commercial 
engagement. A civil agency will be well-suited to leverage the 
strengths of the commercial SSA sector. However, it must 
determine how best to do so, which function, products, and 
services should be provided by the government and what should 
be done by the commercial sector. I would argue that the 
government should focus on providing timely, precise, and 
accurate conjunction warnings to all space operators globally, 
as well as open access to underlying data and analysis to the 
greatest extent possible. Some of the data needed to support 
these efforts should be purchased from commercial entities. 
Commercial entities should also provide tailored SSA services 
directly to customers. This division of responsibilities would 
best contribute to the long-term safety and sustainability of 
space. It would serve U.S. national interests, maximize overall 
socioeconomic benefits, and promote innovative--innovation in 
the commercial sector.
    Let me tell--explain a little bit more about why I think 
that's the case. So nearly half of all operational objects in 
space are owned by the United States. The United States is the 
most reliant on space objects for its economy and national 
security, and therefore, providing these high-quality warnings 
that help satellite operators avoid collisions and ensure the 
long-term sustainability of space is really in the U.S. 
national interest.
    Safety is also an important government mission. An example 
from the weather sector is useful here. The United States has a 
thriving commercial weather sector that's capable of producing 
a wide variety of products and services, and yet the government 
provides forecasts, severe weather watches and warnings for 
free. If tornado warnings had to be purchased from the private 
sector, surely there's lots of people that would buy them. 
However, the National Weather Service continues to provide the 
highest quality warnings free of charge. And this is because 
the government has a responsibility to ensure that all people 
have access to this critical safety information. And the same 
is true for SSA.
    Third, and discussed earlier, open data and open science 
allow the United States to unleash the entrepreneurial and 
research communities, and that helps to maximize socioeconomic 
benefits. In this framework, commercial entities have a 
significant role to play. Commercial entities provide those 
tailored SSA services similar to what's done in the value-added 
weather center. They may also sell data to the government that 
can be incorporated into government SSA capabilities. And this 
would ensure that the U.S. Government can benefit from the 
innovation occurring in that sector and that that strategic 
sector will continue to flourish in the United States.
    The transition of an SSA capability to a civil agency can 
enable the United States to strengthen its global leadership in 
this area and more effectively leverage its commercial and 
research communities. With an organized, efficient, and 
transparent civil SSA system, the United States will be able to 
lay the path for a safe and sustainable space environment.
    Thank you again for this opportunity to testify on this 
important topic, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Borowitz follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Beyer. Dr. Borowitz, thank you very much.
    This concludes our five presentations, and we will begin 
our round of questions. Let me start with Dr. Borowitz.
    It's pretty clear from these five testimonies that the 
primary, conflict is probably too strong a word perhaps, but 
the thicket to work our way through is what should be the 
Department of Space Commerce's responsibility and what can be 
drawn from the private sector, the commercial thing. You 
mentioned that it doesn't make a lot of sense to have two U.S. 
agencies conducting that very similar missions. What role do 
you see for Department of Space Commerce or whatever civil 
agency ends up with the responsibility to conduct its own 
analysis when there apparently are a number of private sector 
entities capable of doing the analysis instead?
    Dr. Borowitz. Sure. Thank you for the question. So I think 
that there are a lot of ways that the United States can 
structure the way it builds that system. And I think certainly 
we should be leveraging the commercial sector. The key thing is 
the product that comes out of it, those conjunction warnings, 
those need to be freely available to the operators, right? 
Those need to be provided without any service fee. And the 
other thing that I think is important to focus on is the amount 
of transparency that we can provide. So while I think we should 
leverage the commercial sector and potentially even for some 
elements of the analysis, I think we want to be careful about 
having a completely opaque system. So if it's done by a 
commercial entity that then can't share any of the underlying 
data or algorithms or things they do, that would really limit 
some of the benefits I think we get from moving to a civil 
system and being able to be more open and transparent than what 
we had with the military.
    Chairman Beyer. Great. Thank you. Let me pivot to Mr. D'Uva 
on essentially the same issue. You've talked about the--what--
the civilian SSA capability and how your Space Data Center has 
put together, you know, a great U.S. space catalog and you're 
willing to share this. How would you respond to the issue of 
the openness of the data? And I know this is a Committee where 
in a very bipartisan way we like as much open data as possible.
    And also on the fees, is there not a structure in which the 
Federal Government could be paying in some cases the commercial 
sector to develop this and then make it free to the American 
public?
    Mr. D'Uva. Yes, thank you for the question. I think that 
there--it's important that the Federal Government, Department 
of Commerce, Office of Space Commerce be seen as the provider 
of the capability, right, and that underlying capability can be 
provided commercially and transparently. We've seen this in the 
SDC where we have a lot of discussion and dialog with the 
users, with the satellite operators. They want to know how the 
processes work and how that--you know, how those warnings are 
derived. They also want to ensure that when they are--we are 
forward-looking in the SDA. We're not just looking at the sky 
and saying, well, what might happen. Operators also contribute 
maneuver data, so we can forecast what will happen based on 
operator intentions. And that doesn't happen anywhere else. So 
that's an important capability and why there needs to be a 
single fusion center.
    But transparency and openness are critical, and it's one of 
the reasons that DOD needs to keep doing what it's doing with 
its own capabilities and the civil and commercial capability 
and data center has to be built from a lot of the same inputs 
but with more transparency while respecting national security 
equities.
    Chairman Beyer. And, Dr. D'Uva--or Mr. D'Uva, under this 
responsibility, who's got the responsibility for safety issues? 
Is it the commercial entity that's providing the data or is the 
government, Department of Commerce, as the one transmitting it 
to the public and to the various users?
    Mr. D'Uva. I believe that it should be the government 
itself that takes on the responsibility of ensuring that there 
are quality products available globally to users in space. And 
that derives from the fact that the United States has 
liability, as other nation-states do, under the relevant treaty 
frameworks for actions undertaken by their private-sector 
operators in space. It's just in the U.S. interest to ensure 
the highest quality safety products are made available as 
broadly as possible.
    Chairman Beyer. Dr. Jah, you talked about accuracy is not 
enough, you also need to have precision. And the precision has 
to deal with uncertainty around how accurate things are. Is 
there a specific recommendation coming from this insight that's 
relevant to this discussion?
    Dr. Jah. Absolutely. You know, there are these things 
called dimensions of data quality. It's a formalism, along 
with, again, accuracy, validity, completeness, uniqueness of 
the data. I think these are the things that Office of Space 
Commerce needs to be able to do, and it's inherently 
governmental, just like, you know, Andrew, you know, just said 
in terms of, you know, helping ensure the best quality products 
out there. It's not so good to just give opinions about where 
stuff is in space and how things might behave but there's 
ambiguity. And every single decision is actually made based on 
this ambiguity, based on this notion of uncertainty because we 
don't know the truth. Error is the difference between what we 
predict and reality, we don't necessarily know what reality is 
because our sources of information are biased, they're corrupt, 
they're incomplete.
    And so I think this is really the importance of--you know, 
this civil SSA capability is to aggregate all these different 
opinions and sources of information from this aggregated set. 
Use this to actually remove ignorance and ambiguity so that the 
precision can actually converge on something that's usable in a 
very meaningful way.
    Chairman Beyer. Great. Thank you, Dr. Jah, very much.
    Let me now recognize the Congressman from Florida, Mr. 
Posey, for his questions, making the leap of faith that Mr. 
Posey is with us virtually.
    OK. Let me now then turn to the other Congressman from 
Florida, Mr. Webster, for his questions.
    Mr. Webster. Thank you, Chair.
    I don't know enough about this to ask a question, but I'd 
like to focus in, Dr. Borowitz, the--what's the specific 
research priorities that the Federal Government should invest 
in to advance SAA capabilities?
    Dr. Borowitz. Sure. Thank you for the question. So I think 
there are a number of things that we can do. I think there were 
mentions in a number of the testimonies of some of the 
technical areas where we can improve the types of data, look at 
which types of data are most useful, look at the algorithms 
we're doing--using to do that data fusion, look at the 
algorithms we do to see if collisions are going to happen, 
improve, as Moriba said, both the accuracy and the precision, 
other kind of elements of that data. So I think there's a lot 
of work still that we can do there.
    As someone coming from a school of international affairs, I 
think there's also work we can do on the social science side 
that will be important to look at how we organize this system 
both within the United States and how we engage in 
international cooperation in this area. It really is an 
inherently international issue, and it's something we want to 
be on the same page with other nations about, so I think 
there's work in both areas.
    Mr. Webster. So how do we ensure that this doesn't do any 
harm to the commercial opportunities?
    Dr. Borowitz. Sure. So I think, you know, the United States 
has this really impressive SSA commercial industry already. And 
we certainly want to acknowledge that and build on that. So I 
think as this moves forward, you know, working closely with 
that industry, making sure we understand what the opportunities 
are for the industry is going to be important.
    I think we do have models for doing this in a productive 
way. I mentioned the weather industry and remote sensing where 
we have the government playing a really important role. The 
government collects weather data, it analyzes weather data, it 
puts out forecasts, it puts out warnings, and yet we have a 
huge commercial weather industry in the United States, very 
successful and growing. And they work closely together, the 
commercial industry and the government. And so I think there is 
good precedent for that. It can be done. I think it should be 
done, you know, very purposefully and carefully, but I think we 
have some good models for that.
    Mr. Webster. Yes. So we had a--we've had a hearing on just 
the weather issue. It was pretty impressive. So can these items 
be separated out and--or do they have to work with other 
things, not necessarily related to weather, to make sure this 
all works?
    Dr. Borowitz. Sure. So I think, you know, the SSA industry 
is going to be separate from the weather industry but just can 
have some lessons learned from the way things have been 
structured there. But in terms of coordinating what are the 
roles of the government versus commercial, I think the key 
thing is for the government to continue to provide the 
conjunction warnings, those warnings of potential collisions, 
to global users free of charge. And like I said in my 
testimony, that's in the U.S. national interest. We really 
don't want to have debris created in space. We won't don't want 
to have those collisions, so we want to make sure people have 
that information.
    And I think beyond that, you know, tailored services, if 
somebody wants information very specific to that--their 
satellites, something maybe they're planning in the future, 
that's a great place to go to commercial. If the government 
wants to bring in more data, I think certainly we should be 
taking advantage of this commercial data that's out there. 
That's another opportunity. So I think there's lots of places 
that commercial entities can still play a role, and I'm sure 
they'll think of more ideas as well and continue to innovate in 
that area. And it's really this core kind of safety product the 
government should do--should provide, as well as kind of 
general openness and transparency as much as possible.
    Mr. Webster. Thank you very much. I yield back. Go Jackets, 
by the way.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Congressman, very much. Now, let 
me recognize the senior leader of the congressional Science 
Committee CODEL (congressional delegation) to Colorado, Mr. 
Perlmutter.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Yes. He says that because he didn't join us 
in Colorado, but that's OK. You broke my heart.
    So I--first, I want to thank the Chairman for putting this 
draft together because I think this is a very urgent matter, 
both understanding where the objects are, where the debris 
might be, where different things are, as well as providing a 
civilian context to really start policing, if you will, or at 
least cleaning and being aware of what's up there so we avoid 
the accidents, we avoid collisions, we avoid, you know, bad 
outcomes.
    And so, you know, I've been supportive of moving things to 
the Office of Space Commerce out of the Defense Department. 
Maybe some of the responsibilities of NASA all reside there so 
that they can then develop the regulations for both commercial, 
as well as keep an eye on the stuff that we have up there that 
is just floating around as potentially dangerous.
    So let me ask, to all our witnesses, what are the most 
critical actions that need to be taken to ensure an effective 
transition to a civil space situational awareness capability? 
And, to go along with that, what do you think Congress can do 
to affect a smooth transition? Anybody? Bueller, anybody?
    Dr. Jah. Right, well, I'll go. Look, I think this really 
has to be worked as a matrixed organization, meaning 
recognizing that, you know, the Office of Space Commerce isn't 
the Lord of the Rings, is one entity to rule them all that 
knows how to do all this stuff. Other parts of government need 
to come together, coalesce to help this be successful, 
everything from policy and regulatory aspects to the scientific 
and technological that could be led by organizations such as 
NASA. And I think really lending an ear to the community to try 
to address the community needs instead of just saying, hey, how 
do we just take what's currently being done and give it another 
like storefront? That's not going to do it. We have needs that 
go way beyond what's currently being done. So I think----
    Mr. Perlmutter. Like what?
    Dr. Jah. Well, look, astronomy, right now, there's no 
capability to help astronomers predict light pollution from 
reflecting objects. There's nowhere to find that at this point 
as a for instance. We have in-space servicing and 
manufacturing. I just saw, you know, the White House put out 
something on that. All these companies that want to go service 
something else, the catalog that's currently maintained by the 
DOD represents everything as if they were cannonballs, 
everything's a sphere. Nothing actually looks like a satellite 
in their catalog. So when people want to service something, 
we're not interested in servicing spheres. We're interested in 
servicing things that are satellites. Is it brittle? Where do I 
grab this thing? How is it tumbling? Does my technology work 
for it? We have no place to point people to to actually get 
that information in a way that is effective and usable.
    And I'll even say one more thing. From a liability 
perspective if there is a satellite, let's say, operated by--
I'm just going to pick some African country--Ethiopia, right, 
and they want it serviced by an American company, what if that 
satellite from Ethiopia actually shares liability with China? 
What does that U.S. company do? Do they just talk to the 
Ethiopians and service it? What if China doesn't like that so 
much? So----
    Mr. Perlmutter. Yes, but here's my question to you. The--at 
some point we've got to have somebody who's in charge of all 
this. You can't have a bunch of different entities, but 
somebody's got to be--and it--there--maybe they're not the Lord 
of the Rings or the Lord of the Flies or whatever, but there's 
got to be a place where this resides, particularly on the 
commercial side of this.
    And right now we've got different agencies, particularly 
the Air Force, maybe NASA a little bit, but this is a 
burgeoning area. You just mentioned two or three or four more 
things that I certainly hadn't thought of. I mean, doesn't 
somebody have to be in charge of this?
    Dr. Jah. Yes, so just very quickly to let other people here 
talk, when I worked at JPL, which is a matrix organization, I 
had a project manager and a line manager. And I guess what I'm 
saying is that it's fine for Commerce to be the project 
manager, but all the line elements need to be other agencies. 
That's what I'm trying to propose here.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Got you. And I think that makes sense 
because there are so many different potentials here. So I'll--
my time is about up. I'll yield back to the Chair, and thank 
you for your answers.
    Chairman Beyer. And, Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Webster, we will 
have time for another round or two or three if you so wish. So 
let me move to round two.
    Mr. Hejduk--Dr. Hejduk, you're a Senior Project Leader of 
the Aerospace Corporation. It's pretty clear already that the 
tension that we will have to work to overcome with setting up 
this responsibility--actually, let me pause because--are you 
ready to jump in for questions?
    Mr. Babin. Yes. Yes, sir.
    Chairman Beyer. Then I will--we'll go back to round one 
with our Ranking Member back from solving the Conference 
Committee between the Senate and the House on the COMPETES Act. 
Thank you for doing that.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir, just came back from the Senate side.
    Chairman Beyer. And the time is yours.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate 
it. I want to say thank you to all of our expert witnesses and 
our panelists here.
    My questions would be, No. 1, to Mr. O'Connell. The 
Department of Commerce's recent budget request proposes to 
acquire a SSA capability similar to DOD's capability. Previous 
testimony before this Committee highlighted that legacy 
infrastructure and acquisition processes made it difficult for 
the Department of Defense to employ commercial approaches to 
modernize space situational awareness capabilities. For 
example, the U.S. Air Force spent billions over the last 30 
years but failed to modernize its systems and still uses 
decades-old technology. Mr. O'Connell, what can Congress do to 
ensure that Commerce does not have to reinvent the wheel or 
adopt the same failed acquisition approach?
    Mr. O'Connell. Congressman, nice to see you again. Thanks 
for the question very much.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
    Mr. O'Connell. I think the first thing that we should say 
is that Congress in this area, just as in other areas, should 
really mandate maximum use of commercial capabilities, both to 
take advantage of what I see as a playing field of commercial 
companies that's really highly complementary when I look across 
all the companies that I'm aware of, and so insisting that that 
be a key element of this.
    As I said in my testimony, we are not going to simply 
replicate what DOD has. We really have to create a state-of-
the-art capability on the civil side for all the reasons that 
we've all spoken about that can keep up as the space 
environment changes very, very rapidly. This is going to move 
very quickly. There need to be new ways--and this is a common 
refrain in today's world--of new ways to think about 
acquisition. How can we creatively, credibly, competitively get 
money into the market in a way that we're comfortable for--on 
behalf of the taxpayer? I think it's very much doable in this 
area. The key is getting money into the market not only to use 
and experiment with the capabilities that are in the market or 
just about in the market but also to encourage this important 
segment of the space industry.
    Mr. Babin. Absolutely. Thank you very much. I appreciate 
it. I appreciate your service, too.
    Mr. O'Connell. Thank you.
    Mr. Babin. Mr. D'Uva, the cloud-hosted Space Data Center 
has evolved into one of the largest clearinghouses for 
spacecraft operator data, which provides geographic diversity, 
military-grade computational security, a legal framework, high 
availability, ongoing forensics, data quality checks, and 
comparative space situational awareness analyses. The space 
safety coalition offers similar capabilities for low-Earth 
orbit. What are some of the strengths of private sector 
organizations in coordinating data sharing and developing best 
practices, and what carrots can be provided to incentivize 
operators to join such groups?
    Mr. D'Uva. Thank you for the question. It's been an 
interesting journey because the SDC capabilities that you 
outlined were cutting-edge, but they rely on the U.S. 
Government data for catalog. What we saw as the gap of data 
capability was the lack of transparency because of national 
security equities. So as we looked to improve the capabilities, 
we investigated whether we would be able to build our own 
catalog and essentially provide a basic flight safety service.
    And that's where we discovered that in fact only some of 
the satellite operators in space are interested in paying for 
these services. Instead, many don't know the limitations of the 
current--for example, the legacy DOD products that are 
available publicly. And so what they don't know doesn't hurt 
them until there's a problem. And even one problem in orbit is 
too many in this area, so it's very important that we leverage 
those commercial capabilities that exist to transparently 
provide a capability under the auspices of the Department of 
Commerce but available to everyone. And that--I think that's 
what lies before us.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir, thank you very much. And one last 
question for Kevin O'Connell again. Liability significantly 
influences how operators act in space. How can the government 
leverage the insurance industry to influence safe operations 
without regulations?
    Mr. O'Connell. Thanks, Congressman. Great question, and 
it's a topic you and I have talked about before. I think the 
insurance industry is--and the space insurance industry 
specifically is a key next user of the kinds of data that will 
be available on the civil side. You know, the challenge that 
the space insurance industry has had is that they do not have 
enough data for many different new things in orbit to inform 
their risk models. And so I think in the process they will 
benefit from the data that's available in a civil system and be 
able to characterize risk in a way that will help us all 
understand different aspects of risk in space.
    The second point just quickly is I think an earlier 
question was about the kinds of research that is being done in 
this area or that could be done. I still think that there is an 
enormous amount of, if you will, economic and financial 
research that needs to be done. When I look at discussions 
about regulation, we really need to understand the economic and 
financial aspects of that in addition to the technical aspects.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And I 
just have one little announcement I'd like to make, a public 
service if you will. I'd like to take just a moment, Mr. 
Chairman, to recognize Jeff O'Neil from Representative 
Perlmutter's office, who is here today. I've been told that 
this is Jeff's last Committee hearing as a staffer. This is it. 
Jeff has worked closely with my staff, great friends over the 
years. And while we may not have agreed on everything, like 
Jeff's boss and I, we agree on a lot. Our offices have 
accomplished some fantastic things together, especially for the 
space community, and so I want to say best of luck to you in 
your future endeavors, Jeff. I wish you the best. Thank you for 
your service and your boss's, too. God bless.
    Chairman Beyer. OK. Thank you. And it's only appropriate 
now to recognize Mr. Perlmutter for whatever----
    Mr. Perlmutter. If I could have----
    Chairman Beyer [continuing]. Disconcerting----
    Mr. Perlmutter. If I could have a moment of personal 
privilege.
    Chairman Beyer. Granted.
    Mr. Perlmutter. I'm embarrassed. Thank you, Dr. Babin, for 
recognizing Jeff. Jeff has been instrumental in my office for a 
dozen or more years now, particularly on the Science Committee 
where he and I have this passion for outer space and our space 
research and our space exploration and all of those kinds of 
things. The two of us have been like twins, even though we're 
not the same size, in terms of our love for this Committee and 
our love for space exploration.
    And Jeff obviously has done so much more. He's handled the 
Rules Committee packet of things that I've got to do as well, 
which is a pretty busy schedule. Our office is going to miss 
him desperately. The constituents of the Seventh Congressional 
District are going to miss him desperately.
    I--I've never for a second had any concern that I wasn't 
getting good information, that I wasn't prepared for this 
Committee for different things we were going to do. He helped 
with the Science Committee staff, and I should make a note of 
this. We had a fantastic trip and I tried to get everybody--Don 
can attest to this. We had a great trip to Colorado last week. 
And Jeff, together with the staff, put together a visit that I 
wish everybody had been part of just in terms of the science 
that's going on in Colorado and the laboratories and the 
aerospace and all that stuff.
    But to my friend Jeff O'Neil, the Congress is going to miss 
you. I know your future endeavor at Planet will be something 
very exciting for you. And, you know, Brian sort of one-upped 
me here, but his remarks are everything that I feel and 
multiplied by about ten. Thank you.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Dr. Babin, Mr. Perlmutter. And, 
Jeff, I know along with all the rest of us, we felt so betrayed 
by Representative Perlmutter's announcement of retirement that 
we had no choice. But we know you'll have a much better job in 
the years to come at Planet, so----
    Mr. Perlmutter. Than working for me.
    Chairman Beyer. Yes, exactly.
    Moving on to something less serious, now let me recognize 
the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Norcross, for 
his questions.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman. And it's good to be in 
the hearing room. After coming through COVID, this is literally 
the first time I've stepped foot in here, and it's great to see 
people back. So we're here to say goodbye to you, Mr. 
Perlmutter, but it will not be the same, and certainly our trip 
out West to see the assets that our country has really 
reinforces why we are who we are. It's just--it was great.
    But let's talk about the situational awareness and 
something I've been focused on since my early days sitting on 
the HASC (House Armed Services Committee) Subcommittee on 
Strategic Forces where space was virtually the domain of the 
Defense Department and NASA mixed in. And the idea that it is 
now a commercial entity in addition to assets to defend 
nations, literally around the world, and we're seeing what 
Russia is doing with their space assets and Ukraine and 
certainly China.
    But as we start to move into this area of the commercial, 
one of my biggest concerns--and I'd love to hear from the 
witnesses on this--is about how do we ensure the accuracy of 
the information on the commercial side, that difficult blend 
between, not as much the United States but certainly some of 
the non-friendly nations, to make sure we are being provided to 
the commercial side that information that will accurately 
indicate that there could be a potential collision or other 
issues? So how do we ensure that based on a number of the 
proposals that we see? And I would open that up to each of our 
witnesses.
    Dr. Jah. Can I--yes, thank you so much because I'm chomping 
at the bit to kind of address this. So one of the things that I 
guess I would ask to people there in the room is how do you 
know that you have the world's most accurate clock? And the 
answer is you have hundreds of them. That's how we tell time. 
We have hundreds of atomic clocks around the globe, and the 
United States is one entity that aggregates all these opinions 
about time, finds the very center, the centroid, the mean of 
all those opinions in a weighted sense, an ensemble of clocks 
to come up with what the time actually is. And then accuracy is 
based on the difference between that ensemble clock time and 
what's on your wrist.
    We can do similar things for stuff in space. This is the 
difference where the Office of Space Commerce can step in and 
again aggregate all these opinions, commercial, international, 
that sort of stuff, look at the statistical consistency of the 
opinions, and then therefore be able to infer what is the best 
fused answer out of all of these opinions and be able to then 
judge how far off are other people from that centroid or very 
center. That is something that we know how to do. It just needs 
to be implemented.
    Mr. Norcross. And certainly as you give me your answer, the 
standards--and we were just in Boulder talking about the 
standards of the world, which are so important. So for the rest 
of the witnesses, incorporating those standards into the 
accuracy.
    Mr. O'Connell. Congressman, that's very, very important. 
It's another reason why the Department of Commerce needs to 
have a lead role in this area. The National Institute of 
Standards and Technology is our national expert on standards, 
and so to help evaluate standards, even ones that come from the 
bottom up as we say out of the private sector, look at new 
standards being evolved, that's a very important government 
role. When new companies come into the market, there's a role 
to validate the kinds of capabilities that they are saying they 
are providing as part of an integrated system, as Dr. Jah just 
said.
    Mr. Norcross. Anyone----
    Dr. Hejduk. Yes, let me make a couple of comments about 
that. Validation is difficult. It takes experts, it takes time, 
it takes a lot of test cases, it takes exposure.
    And one of the greatest impediments, I think, to using 
fused solutions and solutions from other entities is to go 
through this validation exercise. It is considerably simplified 
if the providing entity understands their own errors very well, 
but you have to get them to a level of maturity where that 
happens as well.
    One of the reasons I've--I'm--look like the one dinosaur on 
this Committee here proposing the transition of some basic DOD 
capabilities first is because I think they represent a very 
good foundational level that you have to show equivalence with 
in order to be brought into the fold as a data provider. And we 
can get past the idea of what data are good enough, which data 
are not good enough. If you provide something of the same look 
and feel and heuristic quality as the DOD, you can be admitted. 
And that is a much easier standard to assess and certify than 
absolute standards for accuracy and precision, which are much 
more difficult to establish and then justify.
    Mr. Norcross. I see my time has run out, but it's also 
about cooperation. The United States obviously can lead the 
way, but unless all nations participate, we are flying with one 
eye closed. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Norcross. And now 
let me recognize virtually the Congressman from Florida, Mr. 
Posey.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you very much for having this hearing, 
Chairman Beyer.
    Mr. O'Connell and Dr. Jah, we all understand the 
seriousness of space debris and the threat from the small 
pieces of debris that are not tracked or are difficult to 
track. And it seems like it's something that needs more data, 
continually better data, and increased resources from low-Earth 
and on orbit. Mr. O'Connell, how can the private sector provide 
augmenting data to better improve space situational awareness?
    Mr. O'Connell. Thanks, Congressman. Nice to see you again. 
The--you know, this is a place where the private sector 
continues to innovate. We are working right now with a couple 
of organizations that are looking, for example, at how to use 
high-altitude UASs (unmanned aircraft systems) of aircraft and 
sensors that look up to try to deeply track and identify what 
is known as the lethal non-trackable space debris. And so there 
are a lot of people that recognize the gaps that exist in our 
current coverage and things that need to be understood in a 
much better way. The private sector is investing in those. 
They're innovating in them, et cetera. So, you know, again, 
it's another reason why we need to encourage the commercial 
industry forward on this topic.
    Mr. Posey. Thank you. Dr. Jah, I'm going to go back just a 
little bit to your last discussion here about the gaps in R&D 
(research and development) related to space situational 
awareness and how NASA and the Department of the Defense can 
engage or better engage with the academic community to fill 
those gaps.
    Dr. Jah. Well, thank you so much for that question, 
Congressman. So, look, in terms of some technical gaps that 
currently exist for SSA, for one, we do need to get better 
measurements. If you want to know something, you have to 
measure it. We don't have enough eyes on the sky as it were. We 
certainly--the United States to this day still has no 
commercial space-based SSA capability for a variety of reasons 
that kind of maybe go beyond the scope of our conversation here 
that we can talk offline about. But, you know, that needs to be 
resolved because the United States would stand to benefit quite 
a bit from having a commercial space-based SSA capability.
    And in terms of how to engage with academia, I have to say 
this is where you've hit a sore spot with me. I'm so frustrated 
by the absence of funding for academia in this regard. You 
know, the National Science Foundation doesn't consider this to 
be basic enough research. Everybody says it's somebody else's 
problem. Oh, this SSA space debris thing, it's not alluring 
enough, it's not interesting enough, it's--you know, it's not 
basic research. And so the Air Force Office of Scientific 
Research and the Air Force Research Lab by and large seem to be 
the only people that disparately kind of care about this 
problem and funding it. So I think that there definitely needs 
to be a very serious pool of funding to allow the DOD and other 
entities to actually engage with academia.
    And every year I'm turning away students that are U.S. 
citizens that want to get involved because there's not enough 
research support to actually get these people, you know, 
through the system and delivering great on science and 
technology. And the thing that is really the thing that really 
upsets me is that a lot of these companies that we're talking 
about helping them thrive, where's the work force coming from? 
They're hurting. Every day I'm getting people emailing me 
saying, hey, can you just send over like a dozen students? I'm 
like, well, they're not growing on trees. Like where do I get 
these students from? So this is a big problem that we need to 
fix.
    Mr. Posey. Yes. Where do you think we start? I mean, what 
would your suggestion be?
    Dr. Jah. Look, I think the academic community is actually 
ready. It's begging. We actually--if we could have some 
cooperative agreements, if we could actually--you know, 
Congress could say this amount of money is dedicated to space 
situational awareness, scientific and policy research, that 
would be a great start. And the thing is there is no pool 
identified uniquely to support the research.
    Mr. Posey. Listen, thank you very much. I see my time is 
about to expire. I thank all the witnesses for appearing today 
and deeply appreciate your comments. I yield back.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Posey.
    I will now go to a second round of questions. And let me 
begin.
    Dr. Hejduk, you're in this unique role as head of--you 
know, Senior Project Leader at an FFRDC. If I wildly 
oversimplified the conversation today, on one end of the bell-
shaped curve is the notion that we need to stand up a second--
you know, parallel to the DOD space situational awareness 
within the Department of Commerce, hence, the 550 percent 
increase in the budget and the like. On the other end of the 
bell-shaped curve was the notion that our civil sector can do 
it all. And of course no one's argued for either of those.
    But, Dr. Hejduk, in the draft legislation we have, which 
has not been introduced yet of course, we call for the--a 
mandate for the maximum use of the civilian capabilities. How 
do you figure we best balance that as opposed to standing up 
our own Department of Commerce capability?
    Dr. Hejduk. Yes, thank you for the question. In this 
hearing even though it's titled transition to a civil 
capability, we've actually talked a lot about end states and 
haven't talked all that much about transition. I think when--in 
my testimony earlier, comments when I talk about beginning with 
the DOD capabilities, that's in order to establish a foundation 
and give us a springboard from which we can move to an almost 
entirely commercial end state in my view. If we try to meet the 
timelines that are laid out in the draft legislation, we're 
going to have to move very quickly.
    The fastest thing we can do to build confidence in the 
broader community is to be able to emulate what the DOD is 
doing presently for the CDM, Conjunction Data Message 
distribution. And then what we can do is run that in parallel 
with other commercial proposals, some of which are actually 
funded by the DOC, to show how they are performing against the 
DOD baseline. And what that will do is provide the transparency 
where owner-operators out in the field will then look forward 
to the changeover from a DOD capability to a commercial one.
    If you talk to owner-operators--and we talk to a lot of 
them at NASA--they--if you propose changing information that 
they have--well, don't change anything. We know what's there, 
we like it, we know how to use it. If we were suddenly to knife 
switch to a commercial capability, I don't think that would be 
received very well by the owner-operators who have spent a 
decade learning to use the DOD product and have written 
software that uses it automatically. Instead, we need to phase 
in these improvements.
    So where am I on the bell curve? I'm well over on the 
commercial side. I don't think that this needs to be an 
indigenous, you know, government-produced acquisition product. 
But I do think we need a much longer transition time, and we 
need to show the improvements so it doesn't look like ``we're 
from the government and here to help you.''
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. Dr. Borowitz, a 
parallel question. Do you see our potential legislations use of 
the idea of mandating the maximum use of civilian capabilities 
in any way to conflict with the concerns you had laid out in 
your testimony?
    Dr. Borowitz. Thank you for the question, Congressman. So I 
think it just depends on exactly the way those partnerships are 
set up. I think absolutely we want to leverage the commercial 
industry and the strengths that already exist there, and there 
are lots of different ways to structure those partnerships. If 
it's done in such a way that, you know, all of that data and 
those processes are seen as proprietary and becomes a black 
box, then I think we lose some of the benefit of moving to a 
civil agency.
    And if it's done in a way, as I believe it can be, that 
allows us to still have some open data, some transparency even 
while we leverage those commercial entities, then I think we 
still at the key benefits we want from that civil transition. 
So I think, yes, it definitely is possible to leverage 
commercial to a very large extent if those partnerships are 
done in a way that still emphasize transparency.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. And Mr. D'Uva, Dr. Jah 
complained--that's probably too strong a word--but noted there 
was no commercial space-based--underlying space-based SSA. Is 
that coming from the NDC or others?
    Mr. D'Uva. Probably not unless the Congress acts to fully 
fund DOC activities because, as Kevin O'Connell mentioned, the 
government might be a good first customer of such a sensor, you 
know, that would cause the private sector to want to launch 
space-based SSA sensors and then develop the capability, but 
absent that, we can make pretty quick gains with just improving 
on the existing DOD CDMs that were mentioned just by including 
more data about them using a lot of the same sensor inputs that 
are available today.
    So I think we can get a long way toward improvement by 
bringing modern analytics processing capabilities to some of 
the data sets we already have and then augmenting those data 
sets with, you know, ground-based SSA capabilities that are 
commercial, perhaps space-based SSA capabilities, and other 
sensor types, not just, you know, whether it's radar, electro-
optical, RF (remote frequency). There are other sensor types. 
So it's a combination that brings us closer and closer to a 
level of truth that actually becomes actionable for use by 
operators. And that's the key. And so that needs to be done 
transparently, as several of the witnesses have said. I 
couldn't agree more.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. Now, let me recognize 
the Ranking Member from Texas, Dr. Babin.
    Mr. Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got a couple of 
questions for you, Kevin O'Connell. I appreciate you being here 
and all of you excellent witnesses, Dr. Jah, all of you. But, 
Mr. O'Connell, on April the 15th, 2022, NOAA published a notice 
of intent to issue a sole-source order for low-Earth orbit data 
to LEOLabs. NOAA stated that our market research has determined 
that LEOLabs is the only U.S. company that possesses the 
necessary real-time LEO space surveillance tracking data that 
meets OSC's requirements for its Open Architecture Data 
Repository. Are you aware of OSC's requirements for its Open 
Architecture Data Repository? And if so, are they publicly 
available?
    Mr. O'Connell. Thanks, Congressman. I appreciate the 
question. So 16 months after having left the government, I'm 
not specifically aware of the new requirements as they laid out 
by NOAA. I suggest you hear from NOAA directly on that.
    I think the thing that I would emphasize--and maybe I'm 
going to tie a bow around some of the last couple of comments. 
You know, I think was envisioned back in 2018 that as we began 
this transition, that we would leave everything in place until 
everyone was satisfied that there was technical competency on 
the civil side. And so there will be some duplication if you 
will of effort, redundancy while we do this.
    And to go to Dr. Hejduk's comments a minute ago, you know, 
if DOD is going to continue to provide this, then the extent to 
which we can really experiment on the civil side with new 
commercial capabilities, new services, there are in fact a 
couple space-based SSA companies coming into the market, you 
know, I think it gives us a real opportunity to experiment with 
what's coming in the market and look at things a different way.
    I did want to highlight, Congressman, I wanted to highlight 
an activity known as the Sprint Advanced Training Concept--
Concept Training rather, or SACT as it's known, which has been 
a venue that the Department of Defense and the Department of 
Commerce have cosponsored since 2018, but it's been in 
existence longer than that. And this is a venue within which 
two things happen. When the United States works with it its 
allies to actually understand how to transition SSA-related 
information amongst allies, but more importantly to this 
conversation it's been a place where there has been a 
tremendous amount of experimentation with government 
transitioning custody of space-based objects to the commercial 
entities to see the comparative strengths and weaknesses of 
companies that are in the market and participating in the 
exercise obviously. And so that's a tremendous learning 
opportunity that we already have beside--you know, with us to 
take advantage of here.
    So on the specific question of the sole-source contract, I 
think I'd have to defer back to NOAA on that.
    Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you. And one last question for you as 
well. Fiscal year 2023 budget request from the Office of Space 
Commerce asks for $88 million. Do you know how that funding 
level was derived?
    Mr. O'Connell. I don't, Congressman. You may recall that in 
the NAPA report, I think it was page 82, we had our best budget 
estimates just as I was going--as I was departing my role at 
Commerce and as--if I recall correctly, we had proposed a 
budget estimate of between about $40-60 million per year during 
the transition. But again, I don't have any detailed knowledge 
on the specific budget request for Fiscal Year 2023.
    I would make one point that I do hope that in that budget 
request, given the extent of the budget growth, I do hope 
there's enough resources left for the other capabilities that 
the office is required by law to undertake. You know, SSA is 
the top mission, but obviously the advocacy and the regulatory 
and other missions will also have to be tended to as well.
    Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. And, you know, I think this just shows 
that we need--there's some need to know on the part of Congress 
about these requirements that I ask you about. And then also 
how this office is deriving, you know, their budget request. 
That's information that should be available to us. But anyway, 
I thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I will yield back, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Babin--Dr. Babin.
    Let me now recognize the distinguished gentleman from 
Colorado.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    So I want to start with you, Mr. O'Connell. It's good to 
see you again. Since 2018, 2019, has--where there has been some 
initial transition, how have things been going in terms of 
elevating the Office of Space Commerce, ensuring that it really 
begins taking on this role, and is it capable of taking on kind 
of--I don't want to go back to the Lord of the Rings or the 
Lord of the Flies, but to take on a real management role with 
respect to particularly commercial space but space situational 
awareness?
    Mr. O'Connell. So, Congressman, thank you. Good to see you 
again. I did refer in my testimony to the long battle on 
commercial imagery adoption. And I know you've been part of 
that battle on the right side of things, and so thank you for 
your leadership on that over the years.
    In terms of the Office of Space Commerce, my views on this 
are very well known. The job is as much about economic 
development, job creation, innovation, and things like that, 
which is the job of the Department of Commerce. The extent to 
which the Office of Space Commerce sits within NOAA, at a 
minimum it has to seamlessly be able to work with all other 
aspects of the Department of Commerce and obviously have the 
attention of the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary. We wish 
Rich DalBello, the--you know, my successor in that role, wish 
him the best in that regard.
    It does have the ability--the office does have the ability 
and it's an important ability to be the convener I think is the 
word used in the NAPA report and apparently in a brand-new 
report that's come out of NAPA to look at the issue of what the 
role of the convener means for the Office of Space Commerce. It 
does have that ability as long as it's able to tap into the 
rest of the Department.
    Mr. Perlmutter. So my next question, a little different, 
but for you and for Dr. Borowitz, so I certainly want to see 
Commerce and particularly commercial efforts continue to grow 
in space, but I do share a concern that Dr. Borowitz brought 
up, and that is on sort of the open source elements of this, 
that we do make information available to as many people as 
possible. And is there a tension, do you think, between sort of 
developing more commercial assets up there to be aware of 
things that are floating around or that need to be collected 
and disposed of? Are we going to run into some proprietary 
problems, or is it going to be open source?
    Mr. O'Connell. So I think one of the questions--one of the 
key questions that remains unanswered is something we were 
working on just as I left Commerce was the distinction between 
what SPD 3 called the basic service, in essence what the 
government would provide available free of user fees as the 
phrase is, and the commercial services. And I think the extent 
to which the government can define exactly what it is going to 
give away for free in the interest of national foreign policy, 
you know, other things like that, to define that technically 
would probably be a very important thing to enable the 
commercial industry to know where its efforts can start. And 
that's known as the advanced services in SPD 3.
    I've thought about this a lot since I left the government. 
And, you know, there are different ways to think about that 
distinction whether in terms of the precision of the 
information that the government would provide, in terms of 
confidence levels that it has in the information, things like 
that. There are ways to think about this, but it's still an 
area where I think we need to do some work so that we can 
actually give confidence to industry as to where it's, you 
know, beginning point if you will for that emerging space 
safety industry is starting.
    Mr. Perlmutter. OK. Dr. Borowitz, can you share what your 
concerns were----
    Dr. Borowitz. Sure. So----
    Mr. Perlmutter [continuing]. In terms of the open source?
    Dr. Borowitz. Yes, absolutely. I think one of the most 
important things when we're moving this to a civil agency is to 
allow that--you know, first, the freely available conjunction 
warnings, to make sure those are still there, but also 
increasing the transparency and the availability of data. That 
was something--there was a 2018 report by the Institute for 
Defense Analysis that identified that lack of transparency as a 
key issue for some of our allies and others using our 
information. So I think that's something you can really address 
moving to civil.
    I think it can be done well with, you know, cooperating 
really closely with the commercial sector but ensuring that we 
still get some level of transparency and openness that's 
sufficient. And I think Kevin's point about, you know, thinking 
about what is that basic product that the government is 
providing, I think that is a really important element. I think 
it has to be a high-quality product that increases in quality 
over time.
    You know, the--in my written testimony I compare it to 
tornado warnings, right? You need your tornado warning to be 
accurate enough to have a low enough number of false warnings 
that people listen to it, you know, so kind of an actionable 
warning. And that's what you need in space as well. We're 
getting too many warnings to operators or they're not accurate 
enough and people aren't using them, aren't finding them 
actionable, then that's not a high-quality enough product. So 
when we think about that basic product is that needs to be 
freely available and transparent, I think we need to make sure 
it's actionable.
    Mr. Perlmutter. Thank you. My time is expired.
    Chairman Beyer. I now recognize Mr. Posey from Florida for 
a second round of questions. I'm hoping that Mr. Posey is on 
board. I'll give him a minute. If not, then let me recognize--
--
    Mr. Perlmutter. There he is.
    Chairman Beyer. Oh, good.
    Mr. Posey. I'm still here but I'm in listening mode. Thank 
you.
    Chairman Beyer. OK. You're in speaking mode now if you so 
wish.
    Mr. Posey. I'll pass, thank you.
    Chairman Beyer. OK, great, thank you.
    Then let me recognize Mr. Norcross to wrap us up for the 
day.
    Mr. Norcross. Thank you again, Chairman.
    This is fascinating as we make a transition to what is 
called commercial. And commercial by definition has a little 
bit of latitude in it. The fact that there are players in the 
private sector who have space situational awareness, whether 
they are ground-based, space-based, or a combination of each. 
This is something that has been around but obviously becoming 
more and more important, particularly when investments are 
going into space on the commercial side.
    So the idea of always using the Department of Defense as a 
validator I don't think is realistic long term because, A, we 
don't need to give up all that information as a check and 
balance. But when we start talking about the Office of Space 
Commerce, we're making the tremendous investment in here. And 
the idea of going up to $87 million, that major increase, it 
takes time to ramp these things up.
    So first to the questions, it's not as much the amount the 
first year but are we able to adequately incorporate this in a 
one-year timeframe to stand up, to start doing many of the 
items that we talked about? So that would be question No. 1. 
And when we start talking about open source or proprietary, 
this is going on already. We have many things up there. But 
when we start talking about those who want to use this 
information, there's--my opinion-- needs to be certain ground 
rules called a driver's license. If we look back to when 
airplanes first started flying and what FAA has done, that was 
certainly an American-based system, but the world also followed 
and now we have standards.
    It's a little different in space because the lines of who 
owns what is clearly not there, so the enforcement of whatever 
standards we create is really difficult. How do we punish 
somebody who's not playing by the rules who says they're going 
to do this? And that's access to markets. And this is where 
commercial comes back in. If you want to use those assets to 
gain access to our commercial market, you have to play by the 
rules.
    So the first question--and I would go to Dr. Borowitz--are 
we able to use this amount--A, is it enough for this coming 
year, the $87 million? And can we adequately put it into place 
in the first year? And then would you talk about the 
enforcement of any rules for space situational awareness?
    Dr. Borowitz. Sure. So on the first question of the 
funding, I haven't looked in detail about exactly how that $87 
million is broken down. But I will say that there is a huge 
community of people who have been thinking about this for 
years, and so I think there is a real opportunity on this 
issue--you know, you always have to ramp up, but there is a 
real ability to hit the ground running and a real desire for 
that around the community, so I think there is a lot that they 
can do even in year 1 if they get the right resources.
    On your second question about how do you sort of enforce 
rules, so I think with space situational awareness, really 
you're providing information. You're providing, you know, 
people with a sense of where things are in space and where 
they're going to be in the near future. So in terms of rules, 
the only thing you might have is kind of the standards for 
people who also want to provide that type of information, so 
there's talk about, you know, if you're going to put out 
conjunction warnings as a commercial entity or provide data, we 
want to make sure you're meeting a certain standard of quality. 
And that I think, as you mentioned, the government can ensure 
that people are meeting that requirement when they work with 
the government.
    When we get to action in space, then we start talking about 
space traffic coordination or space traffic management, and I 
think enforcing action there is going to be hard, but I think 
getting the SSA system in the United States organized and set 
up the way that it's going to work efficiently is going to let 
the United States take a leadership role in those activities. 
And I think that's going to make a big difference in allowing 
us to move forward internationally.
    Mr. Norcross. Do any of the other witnesses have an opinion 
on this?
    Dr. Jah. Well, I think----
    Mr. D'Uva. Yes, thank you, I do.
    Dr. Jah. Go ahead, Andrew.
    Mr. D'Uva. Thank you. Thank you, Moriba. It's very 
interesting. Within the SDA context, in order to participate, 
operators have to communicate their maneuvers in advance and 
deconflict them, and the information system does this. This is 
obviously a voluntary activity, but with a DOC-led capability, 
you could actually verify that what operators say they're going 
to do, for example, with these autonomously maneuvering 
satellites, actually are doing it. So by bringing commercial 
sensors into the mix, which are--which can be used 
transparently, we start building the foundation for space 
traffic coordination and management by first having a robust 
foundational SSA capability that is driven by civil and 
commercial data products and data sources.
    Mr. Norcross. But what happens if they don't adhere to that 
is sort of the followup question that has to be part of it?
    Mr. D'Uva. I agree. What happens is that, first, we have to 
understand that the international framework for operations in 
space are such that we don't have a command-and-control 
environment except through the nations that authorize the 
launch of particular satellites. So within the United States it 
might be an FCC-licensed satellite. The FCC would be the--you 
know, for communication satellite would be the entity that 
would govern that. But they need to have--as regulators, they 
need to have actionable data on which to base those regulatory, 
you know, decisions.
    Internationally, I think we have to start from, you know, 
bringing--defining what is normal, what is proper, what is 
improper, and then just like in aviation, over time, freedom 
led to well-understood norms, which eventually were codified 
into rules of the road that later became binding. And so we're 
on that same journey for space, but until we can measure and 
understand what's happening in space, effective regulation will 
be very difficult. So I think it's--there's a spectrum.
    Mr. Perlmutter [presiding]. Thank you. The gentleman's time 
has expired.
    The--before we bring the hearing to a close, I want to 
thank our witnesses for testifying before the Committee today. 
The record will remain open for two weeks for additional 
statements from the Members and for any additional questions 
the Committee may ask of the witnesses.
    The witnesses are excused, and the hearing is now 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:42 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                               Appendix I

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                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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                              Appendix II

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                   Additional Material for the Record

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