CONFERS Newsletter

NEWSLETTER:

FIRST QUARTER 2021

From the Desk of the Executive Director

After a difficult 2020 on so many fronts, many of us hoped that 2021 would bring with it a fresh start and lay the foundation for a more positive outlook for the future. Unfortunately, some of the same challenges that we grappled with in 2020 have persisted into 2021. That said, there is renewed hope with the global distribution of vaccines and more promising economic news that things will get better soon. That good news extends into the space industry and the work of CONFERS, as we look forward to several big events in 2021 that could bring positive change to the satellite servicing industry.

CONFERS was able to adapt to the new normal of 2020 and continue our core mission of collaborating to research, develop, and publish voluntary, consensus best practices, guidelines and technical and safety standards, and engaging with governments on policy and oversight of satellite servicing activities. Our all-virtual events lost a bit of their networking magic, but still delivered results and kept our members and the broader community engaged. We also saw continued growth in our membership from both established and start-up companies around the world.

This quarter’s newsletter provides more details on what we achieved in 2020, as well as a look ahead to our activities in 2021 and beyond. It includes: a perspective from the new Chair and returning Vice Chair of our Executive Committee, a summary of results from our 2020 activities and events, an update on the status of the first international standard on satellite servicing making its way through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and a preview of our plans for 2021.

There will undoubtedly be some continued challenges as 2021 gets underway, but there are also some bright spots on the horizon to remind us that things will get better, in space and right here on Earth.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brian Weeden

Executive Director, CONFERS

Director of Program Planning, Secure World Foundation

CONFERS and the Future of On-Orbit Satellite Servicing

Chris Blackerby, Chair (Astroscale)

Jeremy Schiel, Vice-Chair (Orbit Fab)

As CONFERS members, we all recognize that on-orbit servicing (OOS) and rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) have the potential to foster the next economic revolution in space. This is not hyperbole. It is more accurate now than it was at the first CONFERS meeting in spring 2018, and it is time to more clearly take stock of what we need to do in order to assure our orbital environment remains safe and sustainable.

We are at a pivotal point in the development of the orbital economy, and this year is going to be a groundbreaking one for the satellite servicing industry. For obvious reasons, we are excited for Astroscale’s ELSA-d and OrbitFab’s Tanker 001 Tenzing, scheduled to launch in March and June, respectively. However, these are just two of several missions this year that will change how we view the technology and prospects for on-orbit servicing. Among other examples, SpaceLogistics will dock MEV-2 for its second GEO servicing mission, Altius DogTags have launched onboard OneWeb satellites, SCOUT will begin its on-orbit satellite inspection service, and several last-mile orbital transportation systems have and will deliver payloads such as the PULSE mission from D-Orbit.

As we move into this seminal year for our companies and our community grows and evolves, it is time that we take a look in the mirror and assess where we stand and where we are going. We see three fundamental next steps in positioning CONFERS to actively support a thriving satellite servicing industry:

Articulate a clear vision and mission for CONFERS: CONFERS was founded with the goal of developing non-binding, consensus-derived technical and operational standards for RPO and OOS. While driving the development of standards should still be high on our list of priorities, we need to have a thoughtful reexamination of CONFERS with a goal of producing a clear vision and mission, as well as an articulation of our goals, objectives, and strategies for achieving success. In our first 2021 workshop, we will call on our members to provide their feedback on how we can best deliver on your priorities and assure that we are providing value – not only to members but to the wider orbital economy as a whole.
Understand the place of CONFERS in the proliferation of similar groups: There are close to a dozen other organizations around the world focused in some degree on space traffic management and the development of technical and operational standards for RPO and OOS. CONFERS must not only remain solvent in this crowded environment, but also work to bridge differences and drive the global discussion amongst disparate groups.
Continue to expand CONFERS membership and show value to our members: We don’t want to keep CONFERS sustainable for the sake of it, but because this is a unique group that has the potential to bring significant benefit. We are the only group that is both international and dedicated solely to supporting the RPO and OOS industry. It is beneficial to our member companies and the orbital economy as a whole that CONFERS survives.

We are all dedicated to providing safe and effective satellite servicing for space sustainability. As we race toward an increasingly crowded, and still minimally regulated, orbital ecosystem, the pressure grows. It grows on each of us individually to operate our missions in a safe and effective manner; and it grows on all of us collectively as CONFERS members to assure long-term utilization of our orbital natural resource.

This is the year when the OOS industry will take off. CONFERS must be prepared to help guide the way.

CONFERS 2020 Activities in Review

Ian Christensen, CONFERS Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator

In 2020, CONFERS worked through virtual and online forums to continue to develop recommended operational best practices for commercial satellite servicing and to promote the ongoing emergence and development of the commercial satellite servicing sector. Consortium membership worked through the quarterly members' Workshops and General Assembly, and through monthly Working Group meetings coving Technical, Lexicon, and Policy Related topics. We also convened our annual Global Satellite Servicing Forum (GSSF) conference in October 2020, as a capstone to the year. CONFERS membership continued to expand last year and now totals 44 companies, representing nine different countries and counting.

The 2020 GSSF was held Oct. 28-29, 2020 and was the third edition of our flagship event. GSSF is the annual conference CONFERS organizes to highlight members' activities and milestones and to discuss our work on developing industry-led operational standards, as well as technology, market, and policy developments in on-orbit satellite servicing and maintenance capabilities (including manufacturing and assembly). The 2020 GSSF took place in an entirely virtual format with a half-day of content and programming on both Oct. 28th and 29th. The agenda for the 2020 GSSF is available on the CONFERS website here. Recordings for all 2020 GSSF sessions have now been made available online here.

The 2020 GSSF kicked off with a panel to highlight the in-space achievements of the on-orbit servicing community in 2020, including mission achievements by CONFERS member companies SpaceLogistics, OrbitFab, and Momentus. Keynote speeches throughout the conference covered investment perspectives on satellite servicing, global trends in on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM), and an introduction to the U.S. Government (OSAM) Strategy.

Taking advantage of the online format of the event, the 2020 GSSF included several concurrent breakout sessions that provided an in-depth discussion of topics of interest to CONFERS membership and to the satellite servicing community. These sessions discussed a range of topics: an introduction to the European Operations Framework for satellite servicing related activities; the business of active debris removal, standard interfaces for servicing; experience in government/industry partnerships for demonstration missions; and an outlook for the contribution of servicing-related technologies in a roadmap to on-orbit infrastructure.

The 2020 GSSF was supported by Titanium level sponsors Astroscale and SpaceLogistics, as well as keynote sponsor Maxar.

Update on CONFERS Work on Commercial

Satellite Servicing Standards

Fred Slane, CONFERS Standards Development Coordinator

Early on in its existence, CONFERS established an open standards development program for Rendezvous and Proximity Operations/On-Orbit Servicing (RPO/OOS) as a fundamental part of our activities. CONFERS identified Safety and Mission Assurance for RPO/OOS as core reasons for needing standards and created the CONFERS Operating Principles, Recommended Design and Operational Practices, and RPO/OOS Mission Functional Diagram to lay the foundation for future standards. In April 2019, CONFERS worked through the U.S. delegation to submit a draft standard based on our Principles and Practices documents to the International Organization for Standards (ISO) Subcommittee for Space Systems and Operations (ISO TC20/SC14).

The international delegations within TC20/SC14 voted to accept the proposal as Working Draft (WD) 24330 in summer 2019. Since then, TC20/SC14 has been collecting inputs from Subject Matter Experts from the US, UK, Japan, Germany, France, Ukraine, Russia, and Brazil to revise and refine the proposal. These meetings continued in a virtual format throughout 2020, and WD 24330 is expected to be published as an ISO standard in 2021.

In parallel to the work in ISO, CONFERS has continued to develop further ideas for future standards work through the CONFERS Technical Working Group (CTWG). Consistent with the RPO/OOS Mission Functional Diagram, the CTWG established descriptions of each mission phase with actions and interactions of Servicer organization, Servicer Spacecraft, Client organization, and Client Space Object. In a subsequent step, the CTWG established perceived risks associated with business, systems, operations, and anything else of relevance, for each phase. Based on the risk list, the CTWG identified risk mitigations that either exist in current standards or practices or could exist. This provided a good list of areas where CONFERS could focus its efforts next.

As we move into 2021, the CTWG will be working on evaluating that list of mitigations and determining the areas or topics that should be the focus for the next phase of development, either as more fleshed-out practices or as full standards. At the same time, we will be examining topics raised by the discussions within TC20/SC14, such as how countries will get notified of RPO/OOS activities and the interplay between robotic satellite servicing standards and those developed for human spaceflight.

Upcoming CONFERS Events and Outreach

As CONFERS continues its technical and industry development work, the Consortium will take part in satellite industry events and outreach activities. During the next six months, CONFERS plans to participate in panels or discussions at the following events:

Sustainable Space Logistics Digital Symposium: Feb. 16-18, 2021
6th Symposium on Ensuring Safe and Sustainable Use of Outer Space: March 4, 2021, hosted by the Japanese National Space Policy Secretariat
Satellite 2021: July 26-29, 2021
4th Annual Global Satellite Servicing Forum (GSSF): Planned for late 3rd quarter or early 4th quarter of 2021. Details on the GSSF will be announced in the coming months.

CONFERS will also continue to hold member-only workshops throughout the year on a quarterly basis. Workshop 11 will be held virtually on March 9 and 11, 2021. Further details will be distributed to our members as they are available.