[Senate Hearing 113-653]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-653
ASSESSING THE RISKS, IMPACTS, AND
SOLUTIONS FOR SPACE THREATS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 20, 2013
__________
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Ranking
BILL NELSON, Florida ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington ROY BLUNT, Missouri
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey MARCO RUBIO, Florida
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri DEAN HELLER, Nevada
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota DAN COATS, Indiana
MARK WARNER, Virginia TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
MARK BEGICH, Alaska TED CRUZ, Texas
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut DEB FISCHER, Nebraska
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
WILLIAM COWAN, Massachusetts
Ellen L. Doneski, Staff Director
James Reid, Deputy Staff Director
John Williams, General Counsel
David Schwietert, Republican Staff Director
Nick Rossi, Republican Deputy Staff Director
Rebecca Seidel, Republican General Counsel and Chief Investigator
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE
BILL NELSON, Florida, Chairman TED CRUZ, Texas, Ranking Member
BARBARA BOXER, California ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas MARCO RUBIO, Florida
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota DEAN HELLER, Nevada
MARK WARNER, Virginia DAN COATS, Indiana
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
WILLIAM COWAN, Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on March 20, 2013................................... 1
Statement of Senator Nelson...................................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Statement of Senator Cruz........................................ 1
Witnesses
Dr. James Green, Director, Planetary Science Division, Science
Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics And Space
Administration................................................. 3
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Dr. Edward T. Lu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, B612
Foundation..................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Richard DalBello, Vice President, Government Affairs, Intelsat... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese, Professor, National Security Affairs,
U.S. Naval War College......................................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 26
Appendix
Response to written question submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to:
Dr. Edward T. Lu............................................. 43
Richard DalBello............................................. 43
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to:
Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese...................................... 44
ASSESSING THE RISKS, IMPACTS, AND SOLUTIONS FOR SPACE THREATS
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Science and Space,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. in
room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Bill Nelson,
presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Nelson. Good morning. We are delighted to have this
meeting of our Science and Space Subcommittee in the new
Congress.
NASA and the space programs have been in the news a lot in
the past year. Some really impressive feats. And we are going
to be talking about some of those, from the Rover on Mars to
the berthing of the SpaceX capsule at the International Space
Station.
I am delighted to have my colleague, Senator Cruz from
Texas, as our Ranking Member. It seems like that Texas and
Florida have some interest in the space program. And I am
looking forward to his leadership. And I would ask for his
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. TED CRUZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TEXAS
Senator Cruz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me echo
those sentiments and say how much I am looking forward to
working with you on this subcommittee.
Space flight and our capacity to maintain world-leading
advantage in space flight is a critical priority for the nation
and certainly a critical priority both for the State of Texas
and the State of Florida. And so I am eager for our collective
journey to ensure that NASA and all of the related programs
have sufficient resources, sufficient priority to do what needs
to be done.
And I appreciate all of the witnesses coming here today to
address these important topics and also to begin the process of
what I hope this subcommittee will do over the coming years,
which is continuing to make the case to the American people
about the importance of these programs, about the benefits that
they produce for the private sector, that they produce for men
and women across this country, and, at the same time, looking
for ways to improve those benefits, to expand the cooperation
that we presently have between NASA and the private sector, and
to look for ways to even further increase positive benefits
that are realized in everyone's day-to-day life.
And so I am eager and looking forward to working together.
Senator Nelson. Thank you, Senator.
In the interest of time, we are going to compress things
today because there have been three roll call votes called at
11:15. So I would like to see if we can get the bulk of the
hearing in the time before the votes take place so that we can
be mindful of your time, because those votes will stretch out
over some period of time.
And we are going to get into some interesting stuff here
today on space debris and also asteroids possibly hitting the
Earth. So we want to have time to cover this. Let me suggest to
each of you, keep your comments to 5 minutes so that we will
have a chance to get in depth in some of the questions.
We have Dr. Jim Green, Director of the Planetary Science
Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
We have former astronaut Dr. Ed Lu--two shuttle flights and
a 6-day stay on the International Space Station. He is now the
Chairman and CEO of the B612 Foundation, and he is going to
talk to us about his foundation's Sentinel, which is to track
near-Earth objects.
And then Mr. Richard DalBello, Vice President of Government
Affairs for Intelsat, who is going to speak about the economic
role of satellites and the commercial and security implications
from the space threats.
And then Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese, Professor of National
Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. She is going to
talk about the role of space in our daily lives and how space
threats can threaten our national security.
I will put my formal statement in the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Nelson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator from Florida
Good morning. Thank you all for being here today for the first
Science and Space Subcommittee hearing of the new Congress. NASA and
the U.S. space program have been in the news a lot over the past year
for some impressive feats of technology and engineering, from landing a
rover on Mars to SpaceX berthing for the first time with the
International Space Station.
But about a month ago, there was some news that was more scary than
exciting. That's when a meteor exploded over Russia with more energy
than 20 atomic bombs, shattering glass and injuring over 1,000 people
along the way. And, that same day, an asteroid passed closer to Earth
than we've seen in a while. The days' newspapers read like sci-fi movie
scripts, but all the content was real. The threat from these near-Earth
objects, as well as threats from space weather, debris, and more,
deserves a closer look from this committee.
What have NASA and private space efforts done to increase our
awareness of these space threats? And, what is being done to protect us
and the systems we rely on from these threats? I'm looking forward to
hearing more about that from the experts here today.
Like others who have traveled into space, I myself am no stranger
to space threats. After we landed from my shuttle mission in 1986,
NASA's post-landing debris damage assessment found that Columbia
received several debris impacts.
The orbiter took a major hit on the Orbital Maneuvering System--the
rocket engine used to perform orbit adjustments--and two craters were
found around the right side window, the window that NASA's
Administrator Charlie Bolden used when piloting Columbia.
It is also prudent to point out that the International Space
Station had to do three collision avoidance maneuvers last year to
dodge debris from both the Chinese anti-satellite test in 2007 and the
Iridium--Cosmos collision of 2009.
But before I introduce our witnesses, I want to take a minute to
remind everyone about the important role space plays in our lives, from
the GPS navigation systems some of you used to find your way here today
to the communication satellites that are allowing our remote viewers to
watch this hearing. We live in a world that relies on systems in space
and on the ground that are susceptible to space threats and we need to
protect them just like we need to protect our planet itself.
Without further ado, it is my pleasure to welcome:
Dr. Jim Green, Director of the Planetary Science Division in NASA's
Science Mission Directorate, who will provide an overview of NASA's
work in these areas;
Former NASA astronaut Dr. Ed Lu. After two shuttle flights and a
six month stay on the International Space Station, Dr. Lu is now the
Chairman and CEO of the B612 Foundation and will talk to us about the
foundation's Sentinel mission to find and track near-Earth objects;
Dr. Richard DalBello, Vice President of Legal and Government
Affairs for Intelsat General Corporation, who is going to speak about
the economic role of satellites and the commercial and security
implications from space threats; and
Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese, Professor of National Security Affairs at
the U.S. Naval War College. She is here to talk to us about the role of
space in our daily lives and how space threats can disrupt national
security.
I thank you all for being here today and look forward to your
testimony.
Senator Nelson. Your written testimony will be inserted in
the record, and if you would just give us a quick summary so we
can get into the questions, please.
Senator Cruz. And, Mr. Chairman, I will confess, given the
topic today, I was disappointed that Bruce Willis was not
available to be a fifth witness on the panel.
[Laughter.]
Senator Nelson. We might get a trailer from ``Armageddon''
and show that.
[Laughter.]
Senator Nelson. Dr. Green?
STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES GREEN, DIRECTOR, PLANETARY
SCIENCE DIVISION, SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE,
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Dr. Green. Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I
am pleased to have the opportunity to update the Committee on
NASA's programs and our approach to addressing the risks,
impacts, and solutions for space threats.
One space threat is Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs. NEOs are
asteroids and comets that enter the near-Earth space. They are
primitive leftover building blocks of the Solar System, making
them also compelling objects for scientific study.
Today we do not have a complete inventory of all the
possible impactors. NASA was tasked by Congress in 1998 to
catalog 90 percent of all the large NEOs within 10 years. The
large NEOs are those that are 1 kilometer or more in size. A
large NEO would cause a global catastrophe if one struck the
Earth. NASA now is cataloging up to an estimated 95 percent of
all the NEOs over 1 kilometer in size. That said, none of these
known large NEOs pose any threat of impact to the Earth within
the next 100 years. It is a situation we are constantly
monitoring.
In 2005, Congress directed NASA to expand the survey to
detect, track, and catalog NEOs equal to or greater than 140
meters in diameter. Congress set a goal for this program to be
90 percent completed by 2020. For this expanded survey, NASA's
NEO program currently has three survey teams that operate five
ground-based telescopes and are providing the nonprofit
foundation B612 with technical assistance and operational
support through a Space Act Agreement for their space-based
survey telescope that we will hear about today. NASA continues
to make daily progress on this goal.
Extreme space weather is another threat being studied by
NASA. Space weather refers to the conditions on the Sun and in
the solar wind, and in the near-Earth environment.
Our ability to understand the Sun-Earth system is of
growing importance to our Nation's economy and national
security. The electric power industry is susceptible to
geomagnetically induced currents, which can overload
unprotected power grids and result in widespread power outages.
In the spacecraft industry, intense geomagnetic storms have the
capacity to disrupt normal operations, such as satellite
communication. And, of course, they pose risks to our
astronauts in space. In addition, space weather can cause
irregularities in the signals from our very important Global
Positioning System.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or
NOAA, is the official source for space weather predictions for
the Nation. Several of NASA's research satellites have become
an essential part of our Nation's space weather prediction
system, providing very important data for determining the space
weather conditions. One such mission is the Advanced
Composition Explorer, which sits in the solar wind ahead of the
Earth, providing early warning of incoming solar storms.
Finally, orbital debris is the last space threat I will
address today. The Joint Space Operations Center, managed by
the U.S. Strategic Command, is tracking more than 23,000
objects in orbit around the Earth, of which about 95 percent
represent some form of debris. In addition, millions of smaller
debris objects that can potentially damage spacecraft are
orbiting the Earth.
NASA continues to lead the world in studies to characterize
the near-Earth space debris environment, to assess its
potential hazards to the current and future space operations,
and to identify and implement means to mitigate its growth.
In conclusion, NASA is making great progress in
understanding and developing measures for mitigation of these
space threats.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and
I look forward to responding to any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Green follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. James Green, Director, Planetary Science
Division, Science Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to have
this opportunity to update the Committee on NASA's programs and our
approach to addressing the risks, impacts, and solutions for space
threats.
Orbital Debris
Today, the Joint Space Operations Center, managed by U.S. Strategic
Command, is tracking more than 23,000 objects in orbit about the Earth,
of which approximately 95 percent represent some form of debris. In
addition, millions of smaller debris objects that could still
potentially damage spacecraft are orbiting the Earth. For over 30
years, NASA has led the world in scientific studies to characterize the
near-Earth space debris environment, to assess its potential hazards to
current and future space operations, and to identify and to implement
means of mitigating its growth. The NASA orbital debris program has
taken the international lead in conducting measurements of the
environment and in developing the technical consensus for adopting
mitigation measures to protect users of the orbital environment. NASA
is currently working to developing an improved understanding of the
orbital debris environment and the measures that can be taken to
control debris growth. NASA designs spacecraft to withstand the impacts
of small debris and micrometeorites, and the Agency works with the
Joint Space Operations Center to avoid collisions between our space
assets and other known resident space objects.
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs)
NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the
gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them
to enter the Earth's neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with
embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer
planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer
inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. As the
primitive, leftover building blocks of the solar system, comets and
asteroids offer clues to the chemical mixture from which the planets
and life eventually formed, making them compelling objects for
scientific study.
The events of February 15, 2013, were a reminder of why NASA has
for years devoted a great deal of attention to NEOs. The predicted
close approach of a small asteroid, called 2012 DA14, and the
unpredicted entry and explosion of a very small asteroid about 15 miles
above Russia, have focused a great deal of public attention on the
necessity of tracking asteroids and other NEOs and protecting our
planet from them--something this Committee and NASA have been working
on for over 15 years.
To put these two recent events in context, small objects enter the
Earth's atmosphere all the time. About 100 tons of material in the form
of dust grains and small meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere each
day. Objects the size of a basketball arrive about once per day, and
objects as large as a car arrive about once per week. Our Earth's
atmosphere protects us from these small objects, so nearly all are
destroyed before hitting the ground and generally pose no threat to
life on Earth. While objects the size of the one that exploded over
Russia (a rocky asteroid about 17 meters in diameter and weighing from
7,000 to 13,000 metric tons), enter the Earth's atmosphere roughly once
every hundred years, they do remind us of the potential consequence of
a larger impact. Even this small object resulted in about 6,000
buildings being damaged and about 1,500 people being injured, mainly
from broken glass from the shock wave of the object exploding about 15
miles above the ground.
NASA leads the world in the detection and characterization of NEOs,
and provides critical funding to support the ground-based observatories
that are responsible for the discovery of about 98 percent of all known
NEOs. NASA also has focused flight missions to study asteroids and
comets. NASA uses radar techniques to better characterize the orbits,
shapes, and sizes of observable NEOs, and funds research activities to
better understand their composition and nature. NASA also funds the key
reporting and dissemination infrastructure that allows for worldwide
follow-up observations of NEOs as well as research related activities,
including the dissemination of information about NEOs to the larger
scientific and engineering community. Consistent with the President's
National Space Policy, NASA continues to collaborate with the
Department of Defense and other government agencies on planning and
exercises for responding to future hazardous NEOs.
NASA was tasked by Congress in 1998 to catalog 90 percent of all
the large NEOs (those of 1 kilometer or more in size) within 10 years;
these would be large enough that should one strike Earth, it would
result in a global catastrophe. NASA worked with a number of ground-
based observatories and partners as part of our Spaceguard survey to
reach that goal; NASA has now catalogued an estimated 95 percent of all
NEOs over 1 km in size. None of these known large NEOs pose any threat
of impact to the Earth anytime in the foreseeable future.
In 2005, Congress directed NASA to expand the survey to ``detect,
track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of
near-Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in diameter''
(those that could destroy a city) and set a goal for this program to
achieve 90 percent completion by 2020. NASA's NEO Observation Program
(NEOO) currently funds three survey teams that operate five ground-
based telescopes.
NASA has leveraged its investment in the Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer (WISE) spacecraft by enhancing its operations to search for
NEOs, resulting in the discovery of 146 previously unknown objects.
NASA's NEO Observation (NEOO) Program includes collaboration on
ground-based telescopes such as the Space Surveillance Telescope with
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Air
Force. NASA also funds the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response
System. The wide field of view survey capabilities of these two assets
are expected to provide a significant increase in NEO detection rate.
However, ground-based telescopes will always be limited to the
night sky and by weather. The only way to overcome these impediments is
to use the vantage point of space. The privately funded B612 Foundation
is planning to build a space observatory called Sentinel that would
launch in 2018 and detect 100-meter sized objects and larger that could
come near Earth's orbit. Sentinel will employ an infrared telescope
from a Venus-orbit that will look ``back'' at the Earth in order to see
and track near Earth objects. NASA is working collaboratively the B612
Foundation by providing technical assistance and operational support
through a Space Act Agreement.
To find the more numerous smaller asteroids near Earth, NASA is
initiating a project for development of an instrument that will be
hosted on geosynchronous platforms such as communications, TV broadcast
or weather satellites. This modest-sized, wide field telescope will
have detectors that operate in the infrared bands where these faint
asteroids are more easily detected against the cold background of
space,
NASA is a leading participant in the NEO activities of the United
Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). Over
the past several years, a working group on NEOs under the UNCOPUOS
Scientific and Technical Subcommittee has been examining the topic of
Earth-threatening NEOs. Results of that work led to recommendations
this year, endorsed by the Subcommittee, to broaden and strengthen the
international network to detect and characterize NEOs, and to call for
relevant national space agencies to form a group focused on designing
reference missions for a NEO deflection campaign. NASA is at the
forefront of these activities and will continue to take on that role.
NASA is also in discussions with our international partners to
collaborate on several missions or mission concepts that could, in the
future, grant additional access by U.S. researchers to valuable data on
asteroids. NASA is working with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
or JAXA on potential collaboration on the Japanese-led Hayabusa II
mission, building on our joint success with the earlier Hayabusa
mission to the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa. NASA is also discussing
with the European Space Agency potential collaboration on two of their
mission concepts: (1) the Marco-Polo-R mission concept which is focused
on returning a sample from a primitive near-Earth asteroid in the late
2020s, and, (2) the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA)
mission concept that could be used to study the binary asteroid system
Didymos with two spacecraft and see if a small interceptor can affect
any the change in the relative orbit of the two bodies. Finally, the
Canadian Space Agency launched their Near Earth Object Surveillance
Satellite or NEOSSat in February 2013 to detect and track select near-
Earth asteroids, and we look forward to seeing its data.
NASA is moving forward on the Agency's planned asteroid rendezvous
and sample return mission, dubbed OSIRIS-REx (for Origins-Spectral
Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer),
planned for launch in 2016. OSIRIS-REx will approach a near Earth
asteroid, currently named 1999 RQ36 (one of the most exciting,
accessible, volatile and organic-rich remnant currently known from the
early Solar System), in 2019. After careful reconnaissance and study,
the science team then will pick a location from where the spacecraft's
arm will take a sample of between 60 and 1,000 grams (up to 2.2 lbs)
for return to Earth in 2023.
Finally, NASA is working to accomplish the President's policy goal
of sending an astronaut to visit to an asteroid by 2025. This mission,
and the vital precursor activities that will be necessary to ensure its
success, should result in additional insight into the nature and
composition of NEOs and will increase our capability to approach and
interact with asteroids.
Space Weather
Another threat from space being studied by NASA is space weather.
Space weather refers to the conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind
and near-Earth environment. Solar storms pose risks to humans in space
and can cause disruption to satellite operations, communications,
navigation, and electric power distribution grids; a severe geomagnetic
storm has the potential to cause significant socioeconomic loss as well
as impacts to national security.
Our ability to understand the Sun-Earth system is of growing
importance to our Nation's economy and national security. The 2008
National Research Council report, Severe Space Weather Events--
Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts, identified three
industries whose operations would be adversely affected by severe space
weather: electric power, space, and aviation. The electric power
industry is susceptible to geomagnetically-induced currents, which can
overload unprotected power grids and result in widespread power
outages. With warning, power grid operators may be able to adjust
operations to counteract such effects. In the spacecraft industry,
intense geomagnetic and radiation storms have the capacity to disrupt
normal operations such as satellite communication and television
service. Space weather can cause irregularities in signals from Global
Positioning System satellites. The aviation industry is susceptible to
space weather events from both an operational and safety perspective.
Communications between flights taking polar routes and air traffic
control could be disrupted due to interference between the radio waves
and the effects of space weather in the ionosphere. In addition, flight
routes may be re-routed further south during solar weather events to
reduce the radiation exposure to passengers and crew.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the
official source for space weather predictions for the Nation. The U.S.
Government, through the National Science Foundation and NASA, sponsors
research programs to further our understanding of heliophysics and
space weather. NASA's Heliophysics Division is responsible for
formulating a national research program for understanding the Sun and
its interactions with the Earth and solar system.
NASA currently operates 18 missions studying the sun and the solar
wind, which have produced a number of scientific discoveries over the
last year alone. Voyager has taken us to the edge of our solar system,
the twin Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft
have allowed us to view space weather events throughout the solar
system, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is helping us understand
the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth, and the
recently launched Van Allen Probes have already made new discoveries
within Earth's radiation belts. Furthermore, for the first time, we
have complete coverage of the Sun from all angles 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. We are now able to track the evolution of solar events
from the solar interior to the surface of Earth, connecting the
magnetized structure in the Sun's corona to the detailed features of
Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs), or solar flares, to the
intricate anatomy of geomagnetic storms as they impact Earth two to
three days later. Several of these research satellites have become an
essential part of our Nation's space weather prediction system. One
example is the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) mission, which
serves as an operational sentry for NOAA by providing early warning of
incoming solar storms. However, ACE has been operating for 15 years and
is well beyond its design life. Working with NOAA, NASA is refurbishing
the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) in part to replace ACE's
capabilities. Planned for a FY2015 launch, DSCOVR will have instruments
that will provide critical operational space weather measurements to
NOAA.
Conclusion
NASA's portfolio of missions and research addresses fundamental
questions and at the same time, helps to protect our home planet from
natural hazards from space. Research and early detection and evaluation
of space threats are key to assessing the risks and providing critical
information for mitigation to decision makers.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to responding to any questions you may have.
Senator Nelson. And you are going to put up, along with
NOAA and the Air Force, Discover in late 2014 for giving us
early warning on sun explosions, are you not?
Dr. Green. Yes, sir, that is correct. Indeed, Discover is a
mission that is moving forward. It is a NOAA space weather
mission, their first space weather endeavor at what we call L1,
and it is indeed on track.
Senator Nelson. OK.
Dr. Lu?
STATEMENT OF DR. EDWARD T. LU, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, B612 FOUNDATION
Dr. Lu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to talk about
asteroids and what we are doing about them.
The B612 Foundation is a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit
that is building the Sentinel space telescope, and that
telescope is going to find and track asteroids.
As we were reminded a couple of weeks ago, the Earth is
sometimes hit by asteroids. The City of Chelyabinsk in Russia
had an asteroid explode about--that asteroid was only about 18
meters across. That is about the--that would fit inside this
room, roughly. Had an explosive energy about 25 times the bomb
used in Hiroshima, or about 470 kilotons of TNT. The people of
Chelyabinsk were very lucky. That asteroid exploded more than
40 miles from the city, and yet it still injured 1,000 people.
The last major impact before that was in 1908 in Tunguska.
That asteroid was about 500 times the explosive energy of
Hiroshima. It destroyed an area about the size of metropolitan
D.C., and it was only about a factor of two larger. It would
not quite fit in this room, but it is not much larger.
So I would like to start a video just to show you what the
Solar System really looks like. This is an anatomically
accurate depiction of all the known asteroids in our Solar
System. So this is actually off of the JPL data base. This is
every single known asteroid.
So the ones in the outside part of that, that is the
asteroid belt. Those are the ones that won't hit the Earth.
Those are the ones between Mars and Jupiter. The ones on the
inside are the so-called near-Earth objects, and those are the
ones that could hit Earth. And those are the ones that Dr.
Green talked about. And those are the ones we are concerned
with.
There are about 10,000 known near-Earth asteroids which
have been discovered through NASA's Spaceguard program.
However, we know that this is only a tiny fraction of those
larger than the one that struck Tunguska that are out there. We
know that there are about a million of them out there. We know
this by counting craters and by knowing what small fraction of
the sky we have actually been able to survey thus far from the
ground.
So it turns out that, of these 10,000 that I am showing
here--the light green line, by the way, is the orbit of the
Earth. You can see how many of them fly past the Earth. There
is actually about a factor of 100 more. For every one we know
about, there are a 100 more we don't know about. And we simply
don't know when the next one is going to hit the Earth because
we don't know where they are.
The real situation looks more like this. This is what it
looks like with a million near-Earth asteroids. And so you can
see that the Earth really is flying around the Solar System in
a cosmic shooting gallery, in some sense. And that is why these
things hit the Earth.
So let me tell you a little bit about the odds of an
asteroid hitting the Earth. You may be surprised by these odds.
The odds of a 100-megaton impact this century--and 100
megatons, for scale, is about five times all the bombs used in
World War II, including the atomic weapons. The chance of that
in your lifetime, or this century, is about 1 percent on a
random spot somewhere on Earth. Now, the odds of a much smaller
5-megaton impact, like we had in Tunguska, an asteroid that
would not quite fit in this room, is about 30 percent. A 40
meter asteroid has a 30 percent chance.
So if I told you that there was a 30 percent chance of a
random 5 megaton nuclear explosion somewhere on the surface of
the Earth this century, what would we do to prevent that? And
how is this situation any different?
Yes, most of the Earth is unpopulated, and we could get
lucky. But wouldn't it be a shame if the area of the next
impact was an area that wasn't unpopulated? And there are less
and less areas that are unpopulated.
But there is good news. It turns out that we actually have
the technology to deflect asteroids if we have a decade or more
of notice. And NASA has been working on this; the National
Academies has written a report on this. We understand how to
deflect asteroids if we have advance warning. Because you can't
deflect anything, you can't explore anything, you can't learn
anything about something that you haven't yet found. That is
the key.
So in the next video I will show you what the B612
Foundation is doing. We are building a space telescope; it is
called Sentinel. And that is what it looks like. It is about
the size of a FedEx moving van. And it is going to orbit the
Sun, and it is going to track near-Earth asteroids.
According to the National Academies' findings, the best way
to find asteroids is in the infrared, where asteroids are
brightest, and from a vantage point where it can always look
away from the Sun, so in an orbit around the Sun something like
Venus.
So I will show you here where this thing is going to orbit
the Sun, and that is where it can see--the white disc that you
see is what it can see. The light-green line is the orbit of
the Earth. So, as Sentinel moves around the Sun faster than the
Earth does, it will scan Earth's orbit.
So it is going to find about 100 times more asteroids than
all other telescopes combined. So it will be far, far and away
more effective than all other telescopes combined. We have
discovered, as Jim has said, about 10,000 near-Earth asteroids
thus far with all of our telescopes over the last 30 years.
Sentinel will discover roughly that number every 2 weeks. So it
will be an impressive instrument.
We have assembled one of the world's finest spacecraft
teams to work on this, and we have chosen Ball Aerospace in
Boulder, Colorado, as our prime contractor. Sentinel is based
on the design of the Kepler Space Telescope and the Spitzer
Space Telescope, both of which were built by Ball. We launch in
July 2018.
A couple things make this project unique. First, the B612
Sentinel project is being funded philanthropically. We are a
nonprofit, and we will openly share the data with the world.
Second, we are managing this project in what I believe to
be an innovative fashion, using commercial procurement
practices. I proudly served at NASA for 12 years as an
astronaut, and I also had the privilege of working at Google.
And I think that we are using the best of both worlds in
managing Sentinel. We are combining the technical rigor of
NASA, which is the best in the world, with the innovative,
rapid, and cost-effective practices that I learned at Google.
And the secret to success, as I learned at both of these
organizations, is hiring the very best people, and I think we
have done that.
So I do want to talk a little bit about NASA. They have a
very significant role in this. We are in a true sense a public-
private partnership. We have a Space Act agreement in which
NASA will be allowing us to use the deep space network of
telescopes to transmit our data, and, also, NASA experts are
part of our review teams. So they are a very important part of
our project.
Sentinel will be important on a number of levels. So not
only will it enable us to know if an asteroid is going to hit
the Earth in time for us to actually deflect one, but it will
find asteroids that merely come close to the Earth. And this
happens all the time. And these asteroids that come close to
the Earth will be attractive targets for exploration, both
human and robotic, in the coming years.
So, should an asteroid be found on an impact trajectory
with Earth--and I am reminding you that there is a 30 percent
chance that there is a 5 megaton or larger impactor that is
going to hit us this century--so should we find one, I believe
that humanity will come together to prevent this. We will use
our space technology to nudge this asteroid and prevent it from
hitting the Earth. And I think that will be a watershed moment
in human history.
And so thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lu follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Edward T. Lu, Chief Executive Officer,
B612 Foundation
My name is Ed Lu, and I am the CEO of the B612 Foundation. Thank
you for the opportunity to testify before the Senate Science and Space
Subcommittee to describe the B612 Foundation Sentinel Space Telescope
project. The B612 Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization
dedicated to opening up the frontier of space exploration and
protecting humanity from asteroid impacts. On June 28, 2012, the
Foundation announced its plans to carry out the first privately funded,
launched, and operated interplanetary mission--an infrared space
telescope to be placed in orbit around the Sun to discover, map, and
track threatening asteroids whose orbits approach Earth. Our name was
inspired by the famed children's book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. B612
is the asteroid home of The Little Prince.
As the asteroid impact near Cheylabinsk Russia on February 15, 2013
vividly reminded us, our planet is occasionally struck by asteroids
capable of causing significant damage. This was the largest asteroid
impact since June 30, 1908, when an asteroid flattened 1000 square
miles of forest in Tunguska, Siberia. The Earth orbits the Sun among a
swarm of asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's orbit. These are not the
asteroids that make up the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but
rather the Near Earth Asteroids whose orbits take them much closer to
the Sun, and who regularly cross the orbit of Earth. These asteroids
are remnants of the formation of our solar system, and range in size
from pebbles to many miles across.
More than a million of these Near Earth Asteroids are larger than
the asteroid that struck Tunguska in 1908 with an energy more than 500
times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That asteroid
was only about 40 meters across (about the size of a 3 story office
building), yet destroyed an area roughly the size of metropolitan
Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, less than 1 percent of the over one
million asteroids greater than 40 meters have been identified to date.
We therefore do not know when the next major asteroid impact will
happen.
Currently there is no comprehensive dynamic map of our inner solar
system showing the positions and trajectories of these asteroids that
might threaten Earth. We citizens of Earth are essentially flying
around the Solar System with our eyes closed. Asteroids have struck
Earth before, and they will again--unless we do something about it. The
probability of a 100 Megaton asteroid impact somewhere on Earth this
century is about 1 percent. The odds of another Tunguska 5 Megaton
event this century are much higher, about 30 percent. What if I told
you there is a 30 percent chance of a random 5 megaton nuclear
explosion somewhere on Earth this century? What would we do to prevent
it?
But in the case of asteroids, we as a civilization have the
capability to change the odds, and it is the mission of the B612
Foundation to ensure that such impacts do not happen again. Deflecting
asteroids is technologically feasible, IF we have adequate early
warning. If we know decades in advance of an impact, we can predict and
actually prevent an impact using existing technology (kinetic
impactors, gravity tractors, and if required, even standoff nuclear
explosions) to nudge the asteroid and subtly change its course to miss
Earth. Conversely, we can do nothing about an asteroid that we have not
yet found and tracked. Thus, the first task we must undertake if we
hope to protect ourselves from asteroid impacts is to conduct an
astronomical survey of asteroids whose orbits approach Earth.
The B612 Foundation therefore decided to build, launch and operate
a solar orbiting infrared space telescope called Sentinel to find and
track asteroids which could impact Earth. Sentinel will be launched in
July 2018, and during the first 6.5 years of operation will discover
and track the orbits of over 90 percent of the population of Near Earth
Objects (NEOs) larger than 140 meters, and the majority of those bigger
than the asteroid that struck Tunguska ( 40 meters). Sentinel will
discover 100 times more asteroids than have been found by all other
telescopes combined.
Sentinel is novel amongst deep space missions in that it is being
carried out by a private organization, the nonprofit B612 Foundation,
and also because it is being managed using commercial practices under a
milestone based, fixed price contract with the prime contractor Ball
Aerospace and Technologies Corp. (BATC).
Sentinel Mission Overview
In 2005, the U.S. Congress recognized the need to extend the
existing Spaceguard Survey for 1 km and larger NEOs down to smaller but
still dangerous asteroids. The George E. Brown Act \1\ authorized NASA
to complete (>90 percent) a survey for NEOs down to a size of 140
meters, a size which while not threatening to human civilization is
still capable of causing great damage (having an impact energy of
roughly 100 Megatons of TNT). However, this future enhanced survey has
not been funded by Congress, and the goal remains unfulfilled.
Currently 90 percent of NEOs larger than 1km have been discovered and
tracked; while only about 5 percent larger than 140 meters, and only
about 0.2 percent of those larger than 45 meters 2,3 have
been tracked.
With this situation as a backdrop, the B612 Foundation decided in
2011 to undertake such a survey itself, and publicly announced the
Sentinel Mission on June 28, 2012. Because asteroid deflection requires
relatively small change in asteroid velocity when done many years to
decades in advance of the impending impact,\4\ the goal of this survey
is to find and track asteroids with enough orbital accuracy to know if
a serious threat exists and to give sufficient warning time to enable a
successful deflection if necessary. We have chosen to adopt the 140
meter 90 percent completeness goal as our driving requirement, knowing
that in addition in to generating a largely complete catalog at the 140
meter size level, many smaller yet still potentially dangerous
asteroids will also be cataloged. The Sentinel mission is designed to
give humanity sufficient warning time to be able to prevent threatening
asteroid impacts.
Novel Private Funding and Commercial Program Management
One of the novel aspects of this mission is the way in which it is
being funded. The B612 Foundation is a nonprofit charitable
organization which is raising funds through philanthropic donations.
Interestingly, large ground based telescopes (such as Lick, Palomar,
Keck and Yerkes) have historically been largely funded through
philanthropy.\5\ In some sense Sentinel will be like these large
observatories, with the exception that Sentinel will be in solar orbit
rather than on a mountain-top. The B612 Foundation will in turn
contract the spacecraft out to BATC, with B612 functioning in the role
of program/contract manager and carrying out independent assessment of
program progress. The total cost of the mission is currently under
negotiation. The B612 Foundation expects to raise about $450M over the
next 12 years to fund all aspects of this mission including
development, integration and test, launch, operations, and program
expenses.
The Sentinel mission is also taking an innovative approach to
building and operating this interplanetary space mission. While
previous missions that have departed from Earth orbit have been
scientific investigations that have been developed with oversight by
NASA or other governments (e.g., ESA), Sentinel will be managed by B612
Foundation by adopting commercial practices for procurement and
operations. Currently, communications and remote sensing imaging
satellites (such as Digital Globe's WorldView series) are routinely
procured under fixed-price contracts using commercial terms and
conditions. These successful missions are compatible with such an
approach because their performance requirements are very carefully
specified in the contract and both parties are very familiar with the
risks involved in the contract. In contrast, science missions typically
push technology and performance margins in pursuit of innovative
objectives. Furthermore, mission risks and possibly even the detailed
design, are often not well understood at the time of contract signing.
In these cases, NASA and contractors prefer a performance-based cost-
reimbursable contract to limit the risk to the manufacturer. B612 has a
very well-defined and stable requirement as articulated above. Thus,
one of the prerequisites for commercial contracting is met.
One of the advantages B612 Foundation has as a private organization
is that it is not bound by Federal procurement regulations. This allows
B612 to make decisions and move quickly without the cumbersome
regulations designed to prevent favoritism in Federal contracts, but
which can add great overhead and slow decisions in cases where there is
a clear best approach and contractor. BATC has carefully explored the
implementation of the Sentinel mission and has identified high-heritage
existing hardware system implementations (The Kepler and Spitzer
spacecraft) that enable BATC to quantify the risk of manufacture and
operation of Sentinel. Thus, we have been able to choose BATC as our
contractor, and to make rapid progress towards a commercial contracting
approach. This gives us the opportunity to enter into a fixed-price
contract, an important feature for B612 since we must have a definite
fund-raising target and do not have the ability to cover open-ended
liabilities and cost-growth that might result from programmatic
uncertainties. Crucially, the management of costs is the responsibility
of BATC, which frees them from expensive accounting and compliance
requirements associated with cost-reimbursable contracts.
A key feature of a successful implementation of this commercial
contracting approach is frequent and detailed communications between
B612 and BATC. While BATC is responsible for meeting performance
requirements, B612 remains aware of programmatic risks and mitigations
and approves the progress of the work. This is facilitated by the
identification of milestones within the contract that detail various
development achievements at which point the progress of the overall
contract can be assessed. These assessments provide opportunities for
dialog on programmatic and mission risks and mitigations. This
arrangement is relatively hands off compared to typical large space
missions, and works both because B612 has a small but highly
experienced technical team, and because of the high heritage of the
BATC design. B612 has also enlisted an independent panel of experts
known as the Sentinel Special Review Team \6\ to provide advice on
technical and programmatic risk to B612. In addition, B612 will have
permanent on-site technical and management personnel to enhance our
visibility into progress on the contract. This approach has been
implemented with great success on numerous other commercial space
missions.
Another key aspect of the mission is support from NASA. B612
Foundation and NASA have signed a Space Act Agreement \7\ in which NASA
will provide use of the Deep Space Network (DSN) for telemetry and
tracking, as well as allowing NASA personnel to participate on the
independent technical advisory team known as the Sentinel Special
Review Team. NASA and the scientific community benefit because B612
will make the data available to the community through the standard
process for reporting NEO observations (see Detection Scheme below).
Sentinel Mission Overview
The Sentinel mission places an infrared imaging telescope in a
Venus-like orbit to identify and catalog NEOs over a 6.5-year mission
life. Figure 1 shows Sentinel's viewing geometry. The ``Venus-like''
orbit at 0.7 AU provides up to a 200 degree, anti-sun viewing field
that the observatory methodically scans to detect the infrared light
coming from any moving object in the field. By making observations from
0.7 AU, Sentinel views a much larger portion of the sky relevant to
finding NEOs than can be seen from the Earth, either from ground-based
or space-based observatories. A space-based survey is also not
compromised by the atmosphere, or by the presence of the moon, or by
the requirement to look for NEOs low in the sky during twilight.
Locating Sentinel in space near 0.7 AU from the Sun has the additional
benefit of being interior to most NEOs, thereby observing them when
they are closest to the Sun and at their brightest. This, or a similar
orbit, is essential for detecting those long-synodic-period (low
relative velocity with respect to Earth) NEOs that are the most
dangerous and valuable to future exploration missions.
Sentinel will be launched from Earth on a Falcon 9 rocket. The
cruise to the final heliocentric orbit at 0.7AU uses a Venus gravity
assist to minimize fuel requirements. Communications through the DSN
with Sentinel consists of two kinds of interactions. Infrequent command
uplinks occur through low speed command link, while mission data uses a
high speed downlink. The total downlink data volume is 4 gigabits a
week, and the DSN link-time is approximately 4 hours per week. Flight
data from the DSN is first processed at a ground station at the
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of
Colorado.
The Sentinel uses proven designs successfully flown on the Kepler
and Spitzer missions to demonstrate feasibility and low development
risk, and to provide a firm cost basis. Figure 2 shows the notional
Sentinel Observatory. The tall structure on left is the thermal shield,
which also carries the body-fixed solar array, a system based on
Spitzer.\8\
The central region shows the two intermediate-temperature thermal
shields, rendered in brown. To the right of the intermediate
temperature shields is the 50-cm-aperture mid-wave infrared (MWIR)
telescope. The telescope is cooled to 45K by a combination of radiative
and active cooling. The instrument's HgCdTe focal plane is actively
cooled to 40K. The detection band from 5 to 10.4 microns is optimized
for detecting T=250K objects, a characteristic temperature for NEOs
near 1AU. The telescope is mounted on a Kepler-derived spacecraft, and
reuses Kepler's avionics and structure.
Detection Scheme
To detect a NEO, we require two pairs of observations of the anti-
Sun hemisphere in 24 days. The basic detection scheme's timeline is
presented in Figure 3. There are 4 separate observations made of every
part of the anti-Sun hemisphere every 24 days (and 4 pairs on most
sections in 26 days.) The images are taken in correlated pairs that
reveal the motion of any NEO in the 1-hour span between images. All the
data for each pair of images is first stored, and then later compared
on-board, and NEOs are detected by their motion during the one hour
interval between the two images.
We greatly reduce the amount of telemetry data by retaining only
those portions of the imaged field that contain pixels determined by
the dedicated on-board Payload Computer to contain moving objects.
Additionally, for each tile we include roughly 100 well-known infrared
stars used to establish an astrometric grid.
At the ground station, these observations are converted into
detection-fragments called ``tracklets.'' Tracklets are then sent to
the IAU Minor Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MPC
maintains the world's NEO database, and will convert tracklets into
orbits. These MPC orbits then go to the Near-Earth Object Program
Office at JPL which refines the initial MPC orbits, calculates the
likelihoods of any impacts and globally distributes its findings.
Survey Performance
In 6.5 years of operation, Sentinel will detect and track the great
majority (>90 percent) of all NEOs larger than 140m. In addition,
Sentinel will detect and track 50 percent of all NEOs greater than 50m.
Figure 4 presents Sentinel's NEO cataloguing rate. These results were
generated using an integrated-systems model which includes a modeled
NEO population in combination with spacecraft telescope and detector
performance models as well as the preliminary observing cadence
described in figure 3. We iteratively used the model to guide our
design through the phase-space of options until we hit the 90 percent
level for 140 meter objects on this plot. Among the parameters
considered in these trade studies were aperture, field of view,
detector wavelength cutoffs, final spacecraft orbital parameters, focal
plane array operating temperature, detection thresholds, pixel size,
integration time, etc. Over 75 such trade studies have been carried out
thus far.
Summary
Sentinel is important on a number of levels. First, the B612
Foundation is pioneering a new model for carrying out large space
missions in which Sentinel is philanthropically financed and privately
managed, but with a crucial government partnership. Second, the primary
goal of the mission is not scientific. While it is true that Sentinel
will be a groundbreaking new astronomical instrument, the primary
requirement for the mission stems from a planetary defense (i.e.,
public safety) goal. Once Sentinel is in operation, it will generate a
flood of new NEO discoveries, far in excess of all other observatories
combined. After 6.5 years of operation it will discover and track
approximately 1,000,000 NEOs, as compared to the currently known total
of about 10 thousand. Not only will this catalog provide a list of
potential targets for robotic and human exploration, but should any of
these NEOs be on a collision course this information can allow us to
successfully mount a deflection campaign and prevent a catastrophe. Our
future may depend on it.
References
1. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-109publ155/pdf/PLAW-
109publ155.pdf
2. Harris, A.W. NATURE 453, 1178-1179, 2008.
3. Alan W. Harris, personal communication
4. Schweickart, R.L, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.actaastro.2009.03.069
5. MacDonald, A. 2012. PhD Thesis.
6. http://b612foundation.org/the-foundation/sentinel-review-team/
7. http://b612foundation.org/images/SAA_redacted.pdf
8. M. W. Werner et al. 2004 ApJS 154 1 doi:10.1086/422992
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Figure 1--Sentinel's mission architecture enables it to detect and
track NEOs within a much larger search volume than is available from
the ground, and without the constraints of weather and lunar cycles.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Figure 2 shows the Sentinel Observatory. It consists of a rebuild
of the Kepler spacecraft (modified for the Venus-like orbit) and an
infrared telescope.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Figure 3. The basic viewing scheme uses one-hour pairs on two-day
and then 26-day centers to locate moving NEOs.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Figure 4. Survey completeness for all NEOs > 140-meter and 60-meter
diameter vs. time for Sentinel, assuming simultaneous operation of
ground based Pan-STARRS1
Senator Nelson. And we want to get into how you are going
to nudge it away. And we will get into that.
Mr. DalBello?
STATEMENT OF RICHARD DalBello, VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT
AFFAIRS, INTELSAT
Mr. DalBello. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Cruz. It is
a pleasure to be here today to talk about the issues of space
risks and how they influence the commercial operators who are
earning their living day to day in space.
Intelsat has been in this business for about 50 years. We
are currently flying over 70 satellites. So we are pretty
familiar with the space environment and the risks it entails.
As a global fleet operator serving both commercial and
government customers, reliability and continuity of service are
our highest priorities. Whether it is UAV operations over
Afghanistan or the final game of the NCAA tournament or
financial statements that have to be transferred securely
around the world, we know that our customers expect flawless
performance.
To deliver this level of performance, we have to daily deal
with a range of threats. Probably the highest priority issue
for us today is radio frequency interference. In most cases,
this service disruption is accidental, however, it sometimes is
intentional. Other threats include space debris and other
challenges of space flight; cyber attacks; solar weather; space
systems reliability; the fact that we today don't have an
affordable technical solution for refueling and repairing
satellites on orbit; and last but not least, an international
launch industry that is far from robust.
Now, our economy depends on the ability to create and
instantly distribute vast amounts of data around the planet.
Space-based platforms have become a vital link in the national
and global economies. They are essential to the prediction of
weather, navigation in all kinds of transportation, the
operation of power grids, the completion of local and global
financial transactions, and communication to mobile platforms,
whether they be on land, sea, or air.
The commercial satellite industry also plays a critical
role in supporting government operations. Commercial satellites
supply the majority of communications in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today, our satellites are still flying almost all of the DOD's
unmanned aerial vehicles, and we are providing the vast
majority of the Navy's communications at sea.
To address the challenges that I mentioned earlier, the
leading space operators have gotten together on a number of
complex cooperative projects.
Probably the most significant of these is the Space Data
Association, or SDA of which Intelsat is a founding member. The
formation of SDA is a major step toward creating a voluntary
space traffic control, if you will. It is an interactive
repository of satellite orbit and maneuver information and soon
will contain satellite configuration data. That will allow us
to also use the same database to help resolve radio frequency
interference issues.
The Space Data Center allows satellite operators to augment
government-supplied data with precise orbit data, maneuver
plans, and to retrieve information from other member operators
when necessary.
Determining the orbit of objects in geo is a complicated
task. The U.S.'s current Space Surveillance Network is subject
to a number of constraints. Some of those constraints are
weather, scheduling, geographic diversity, and overall
capacity. Recent efforts within SDA to share owner-operator
data provide clear proof of the value of collaboration. NASA
and NOAA have both joined SDA and are providing information
into this common data base.
In creating SDA, the private sector has taken the first
step toward a new paradigm of managing risk in space, but to be
most effective, far more cooperation is needed.
In other areas of interest to this committee and being
discussed today, such as space weather or highly uncommon
events, such as the asteroid fly-by, there are no clearly
established links between the government and the commercial
sector.
In space weather, although we are aware of the good work
that NOAA is doing at the Space Weather Prediction Center,
there is no established alert protocol between government and
industry. Nor is it clear what levels of solar activity would
mandate change to routine operations. So it is one thing that
good solar information exists, but the lack of a communication
ability to translate that information into action is a
significant deficit.
For a highly uncommon event, such as an asteroid fly-by,
there is simply no established communication mechanism. I
believe our flight operations team learned of DA14 when they
received a courtesy call from a colleague at the Aerospace
Corporation.
Last year, the commercial satellite industry participated
in DOD's Schriever Wargames. Now, these games are held every
other year, and they are designed to exercise DOD thinking
about the deployment of its terrestrial and space assets in
response to a conflict situation. Last year, those games
concluded, as they have several times in the past, that DOD
relies on the commercial satellite industry--their reliance is
considerable and that a crisis is the wrong time to try to
establish clear lines of communication with your major partners
and suppliers. I suspect the same conclusion can be safely
applied to the topics that we are discussing today.
While governments were first to send satellites to near-
Earth space, commercial enterprise will be the primary user of
the orbital arc in the 21st century. Governments and commercial
space operators need to take a more collaborative approach to
enhancing the safety of the space environment. The SDA is an
important step on this path.
With the support of the U.S. Government, we can create an
international framework that acknowledges the vital
contribution of commercial industry while working to assure the
preservation of the space environment.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DalBello follows:]
Prepared Statement of Richard DalBello, Vice President,
Government Affairs, Intelsat
Good morning. I am Richard DalBello, Vice President of Government
Affairs for Intelsat.
It is a pleasure to be here today to discuss the ``Risks, Impacts,
and Solutions for Space Threats'' as they pertain to the commercial
satellite industry. As requested, I will also comment on the state of
the current collaboration between industry and government on these
topics and offer some ideas on how to improve the planning and
cooperation between the U.S. Government and the industry.
Intelsat is the world's leading provider of satellite services.
With almost 50 years of service and over 50 satellites in orbit, we are
familiar with the complex challenges of this industry. As a global
fleet operator, our concerns go beyond the operation of individual
satellites but are, instead, focused on the maintenance of a highly
sophisticated global fleet of satellites and our IntelsatOne
terrestrial network, providing a multiplicity of services to large
media, corporate, and government customers.
Continuity of service is one of the highest priorities of our
commercial and government customers. Large media companies,
broadcasters, global corporate networks, and government users must feel
that our satellite services are dependable and that their critical
services will not be interrupted. Thankfully, today's satellites are
highly reliable and they often outlive their notional 15-year
lifetimes. Of course, anomalies can occur and satellites must be
replaced at the end of their useful lives. Maintaining a fleet of over
50 satellites means that we are launching several replacement
satellites each year. This raises two other significant topics: the
importance of a vibrant, domestic launch industry and the relevance of
investments in next-generation technologies to allow the refueling and
repair of satellites on orbit. Although these topics are beyond the
scope of this hearing, they have a significant impact on our country's
current and future ability to respond to space threats.
Increased Reliance on Satellite Communications
Over the last several decades, the U.S. economy and the Federal
Government have both grown increasingly reliant on the commercial
satellite communications industry. Today, such vital activities as
television broadcasts, the Internet, oil and gas exploration and
production, financial transactions and agricultural production all
depend, in part, on the ability to communicate by satellite.
Our economy now depends on the ability to create and instantly
distribute vast amounts of information around the world. Space-based
communications platforms have become vital to the day-to-day linking of
national and global economics, the prediction of weather, the
navigation of virtually all forms of transportation, the operation of
power grids and the completion of local and global financial
transactions. In remote parts of the globe, satellites provide the only
link to more populated areas. A sudden loss of satellite communications
would cause significant economic disruption.
The commercial satellite industry also plays a critical role in
supporting government operations, including national security and
emergency preparedness missions. The commercial industry supplied the
majority of the satellite communications used for military operations
in Afghanistan and Iraq and continues today to provide nearly all
beyond-line-of-sight communications for our unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) fleets.
Commercial Satellite Vulnerabilities and the 2009 NSTAC Report
In 2008, Intelsat participated in a review by the President's
National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) to
identify both physical and cyber security threats facing the commercial
satellite industry, mitigation measures employed to combat such
threats, and initiatives to develop a standard security framework among
satellite operators to enhance national security.\1\ The report was
published in 2009, but its major conclusions are still relevant today.
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\1\ NSTAC. (2009). NSTAC Report to the President on Commercial
Satellite Communications Mission Assurance.
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Among the NSTAC Report's conclusions were:
Radio Frequency Interference (RFI)--Radio frequency
interference represents a significant and growing threat to
satellite services, yet Government and industry do not
collaborate systematically to share information regarding the
detection, characterization, geolocation,\2\ and mitigation of
interference. The Government engages with industry only when a
Government service is affected instead of working
collaboratively with industry to identify best practices and
establish shared situational awareness and mitigation
approaches.
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\2\ Geolocation is a technique that allows satellite operators to
rapidly identify the location of an interfering signal by using
advanced signal processing techniques coupled with other known
information.
Cyber security--The terrestrial components of satellite
networks contain many of the same subsystems found in other
communications networks. As a result, satellite and terrestrial
networks share similar cyber vulnerabilities and mitigation
measures. However, because satellites must be controlled
remotely from Earth, satellite operators take special care to
mitigate two risks: (1) remote introduction of a false
spacecraft command; and (2) a malicious third party preventing
the spacecraft from executing authorized commands or
interfering with satellite telemetry reception. Consistent with
Government policy, most satellite companies use the National
Security Agency-approved satellite command uplink encryption
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for satellites supporting U.S. Government services.
Space Traffic Control--While an accidental collision between
space debris and a satellite is unlikely, collisions do occur,
can be catastrophic, and can cause permanent damage. The
February 2009 collision of an Iridium communications satellite
and a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite provides one example.
Every such collision produces additional debris that remains in
the space environment, often for years, and poses an ongoing
threat to other spacecraft. Preventing collisions is of
paramount importance. The NSTAC found that, today, the
Department of Defense (DOD) shares only limited space
situational awareness information with private industry.
However, promising initiatives such as industry's Space Data
Association should promote better location sharing, maneuver
coordination, and collision avoidance.
Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructure--Satellites are far
less likely than terrestrial facilities to be the target of a
successful physical attack due to their location in space. The
NSTAC found that satellite operators use redundant and
geographically diverse facilities to protect terrestrial
infrastructure from man-made and natural threats to ensure
continuity of critical satellite network functions. Ground
stations are connected by redundant, path-diverse,
cryptographically secured communications links and employ
preventative measures such as buffer zones and robust security
systems to protect from attack. Further, operators maintain
personnel security procedures, including background checks,
employee badges, logged entry and exit, and on-site security
guards, as part of their best-practice security efforts.
Collaborative Forums for Government/Industry Dialogue--The
NSTAC report noted, with approval, the creation by DOD of the
Mission Assurance Working Group (MAWG) to encourage a
constructive and collaborative relationship between DOD and the
satellite industry, including at the classified level. The MAWG
had undertaken a variety of issues including enhancing
compliance of commercial services with DOD mission assurance
requirements, increasing mission assurance through
modifications and improvements to communication architectures,
and suggesting new or revised capabilities for commercial
service acquisitions.\3\
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\3\ Since the publication of the NSTAC report, the MAWG has been
disbanded. Discussions are underway between DOD and industry to
replicate some of the functions of the MAWG but, to date, no formal
structure has been established.
Long Term Planning--Satellite operators make every effort to
replace existing satellites with updated or enhanced systems to
meet both future commercial and Government user requirements.
However, the Government does not engage with industry in
planning for its long-term communications needs. As a result,
the Government relies on the ``spot market'' to meet most long-
term service needs and risks a potential shortfall in
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commercial satellite availability when critical needs arise.
Space Weapons--Due to the technological availability and/or
cost of mitigation, the commercial satellite industry does not
mitigate the risk of nuclear detonations or space weapons.
Space Data Association--Industry Collaboration on Safety of Flight \4\
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\4\ Some of the material in this section was previously published.
See: DalBello, Richard. (2011). Managing Risks In Space. Federation of
American Scientists. Retrieved from https://www.fas.org/pubs/pir/
2011winter/2011Winter-ManagngRiskinSpace.pdf.
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Since the launch of Sputnik in 1957, governments and commercial
companies have placed thousands of satellites in orbit around the
Earth. Most of them have long since burned up reentering the atmosphere
or disintegrated into space debris. Today, there are still more than
16,000 active satellites and debris objects in the public catalog of
tracked objects.
The region of space near Earth in which satellites orbit is so
large--extending out 22,200 miles for commercial satellites--that one
might believe a collision of orbiting spacecraft would be impossible.
However, just four years ago, a satellite operated by Iridium
Communications for the company's global communication network collided
with an uncontrolled Russian spacecraft that had been out of service
since 1995. The collision, 490 miles above Siberia, produced over 2,000
pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) in diameter,
each one large enough to destroy any orbiting satellite in its path.\5\
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\5\ NASA Orbital Debris Quarterly News, July 2011.
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To avoid collisions in the increasingly crowded orbital arcs,
agencies and companies operating satellites have informally shared
position and orbit data for many years. One problem with this informal
information sharing is that satellite operators don't use the same
standard to represent the position of a satellite in orbit or an object
in space. Many different types of software are used to track and
maneuver satellites and the data is stored in a variety of formats. So
even operators who wish to share data can't rely on a single, agreed-
upon protocol for sharing information. As a result, operators sharing
information must maintain redundant file transfer protocols and tools
to convert and reformat data so that it is consistent with their own
software systems to compute close approaches. As the number of
satellite operators increases, the problem of maintaining space
situational awareness grows more complex. And the smallest operators
may not be able to afford, or have the technicians, to participate in
the data sharing process.
Recently, the world's leading commercial satellite operators formed
the Space Data Association (SDA) to formalize the process of exchanging
information and to deal with the overall data compatibility problem.
One way to minimize risk in space is for all operators to share what
they know about the movement and position of their own satellites in a
way that all other companies can use. While this sounds like common
sense, governments and commercial companies around the world have each
historically acted predominantly on their own in launching and
monitoring satellites. Agencies and companies coordinate frequency
allocation and orbital slots prior to launch, but once a satellite is
in orbit, data about the movement of commercial satellites was shared
only informally until the establishment of the SDA. Information about
the operation and location of many military and intelligence satellites
is still shrouded in secrecy.
The most critical times to share data about satellites are when a
new satellite is being placed in orbit or an existing satellite is
being shifted from one orbital slot to another. A typical
communications satellite is as big and heavy as a loaded semi-trailer,
and though it appears fixed above the Earth, it is actually traveling
thousands of kilometers per hour. Putting a satellite into an orbital
slot or moving it to another position above Earth without disturbing
any of the other 250+ commercial communications satellites in the GEO
\6\ plane, as Intelsat routinely does, is a very delicate operation.
Yet this process is managed entirely by commercial operators using
informal, de facto rules developed through experience and implemented
by consensus.
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\6\ Most commercial and military satellites operate in one of two
orbit planes. The first, low-Earth orbit (LEO), is between 160 and
2,000 meters (100-1,240 miles) above Earth's surface. The other,
geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), is a circular orbit 35,786 kilometers
(22,236 miles) above the equator.
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The formation of the SDA is a major step toward creating a
voluntary ``space traffic control'' system for space. The SDA is an
interactive repository for satellite orbit, maneuver, and payload
frequency information.\7\ The SDA's principal goal is to promote safe
space operations by encouraging coordination and communication among
its operator participants. Through the SDA's Space Data Center, the
satellite operators maintain the most accurate information available on
their fleets; augment existing government-supplied data with precise
orbit data and maneuver plans; and retrieve information from other
member operators when necessary. As a result, the data center:
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\7\ See: www.space-data.org.
Enhances Safety of Flight. The SDA aims to preserve the
space environment by rapidly and automatically sharing
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information about the positions of satellites in space.
Reduces Radio Frequency Interference. Radio frequency
interference--both intentional and accidental--is the number
one operational problem facing communication satellite
companies today. By sharing the precise location of commercial
satellites and the configuration of their payloads, operators
can more rapidly find and address interference sources.
Simplifies Communication in a Crisis. Before creation of the
SDA, the world's satellite operators had no authoritative index
of contact information for engineers actually controlling
another company's satellites. Although there was always a great
deal of informal communication, the SDA has standardized and
automated the information necessary to communicate between
technicians in operations centers during a crisis.
Because of the proprietary nature of the operational data, the SDA
has been designed to protect information and prevent participants from
using for commercial purposes the data supplied by other operators. The
participants of the SDA contribute operational data through a secure
interface on a daily basis and can access data related only to the
operation of their own satellites. For example, an operator who only
has satellites covering Latin America cannot access data from other
parts of the globe.
So far, the SDA has 21 contributing operators and maintains precise
position information on 267 satellites in GEO, and another 90
satellites in LEO. Additionally, both NASA and NOAA joined the SDA in
2012. The greater the participation of the SDA, the more comprehensive
the data and the resulting analysis will be. As new satellite operators
continue to join the SDA, the data center will continually improve its
reliability in all satellite arcs and develop into a truly global and
comprehensive database for space situational awareness.
Several years ago, the U.S. Government began providing the public,
including satellite operators, with satellite position data gathered,
using radars and sensors, by the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM).
The position information provided initially for close-approach
monitoring, called two-line element (TLE) data, had several drawbacks.
First, there was no fixed standard for TLE interpretation. Second, TLE
data did not have the required accuracy for credible collision
detection. Recently, USSTRATCOM developed a procedure for providing
satellite operators with more comprehensive information in the form of
conjunction summary messages (CSMs). These CSMs are used to warn
operators whose satellites have been identified by STRATCOM as closely
approaching another space object.\8\ These CSMs contain vector and
covariance information computed from other data, making them more
accurate than TLEs.
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\8\ Statement of Major Duane Bird, USAF, U.S. Strategic Command to
AMOS Conference, September 2010.
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However, recent studies funded by Intelsat and SES have concluded
that to ensure the highest level of accuracy, it would be beneficial
for USSTRATCOM to incorporate data from routine satellite maneuvers.
The SDA has offered to augment the global data maintained by USSTRATCOM
with more precise operator-generated data to improve the accuracy of
conjunction monitoring. The SDA could also provide a standardized
method and focal point for operators to share information and
facilitate communications between satellite operators and governments
interested in making available timely space object catalogues.
Hopefully, with the passage of time, the U.S. and other governments
will be able to fully capitalize on this industry-sponsored and funded
initiative. Solving the problem of government/industry data sharing and
the role of the SDA should be a key objective of future international
discussions on this topic.
Another major risk to operators is the proliferation of orbital
debris from rocket stages, defunct satellites, equipment lost by
astronauts and the fragments left from explosions and collisions of
satellites. For example, Vanguard 1, launched by the United States in
1958, is expected to remain in orbit at least another 200 years before
slowly burning up as it drifts down into the atmosphere.\9\ The debris
problem is most severe in low-earth orbit (LEO), where the majority of
satellites used for communications and remote sensing operate. Because
these satellites are not geostationary, multiple satellites, rather
than a single satellite, are required to provide continuous coverage of
any given area.
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\9\ NASA's National Space Science Data Center.
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While governments were the first to send satellites to near-Earth
space, commercial enterprises and consumer services will be the primary
users of the orbital arcs in the 21st century and, hopefully, beyond.
Consequently, governments and companies operating spacecraft need to
take a more collaborative approach to enhancing the safety and efficacy
of the space environment. The Space Data Association is the major step
on this path, and that step should be followed by firm actions of
governments and all space users to create an international framework
that assures the preservation of this valuable resource.
Radio Frequency Interference
Radio frequency interference (RFI) is a serious problem that costs
the satellite industry millions of dollars each year. The users of
satellite services routinely state that RFI is the single most
important issue relative to their use of satellite services.\10\ RFI
disrupts television signals, data transmissions and other customer
services, requiring significant operator resources and hindering
business growth. Interference has a financial impact as well to
satellite operators and users. When there is interference on a
satellite, there is revenue lost due to the reduction of available
bandwidth and power capacity. Expenses are increased, ranging from the
purchase of interference monitoring or geolocation equipment to hiring
and dedicating personnel to interference mitigation.
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\10\ Intelsat. (2012). Carrier ID Wins a Gold Medal at the 2012
Summer Olympics. [Blog]. Retrieved from http://www.intelsatgeneral.com/
blog/carrier-id-wins-gold-medal-2012-summer-olympics.
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Intelsat has played a lead role in global efforts of commercial
satellite operators to foster an interference-free space environment.
Intelsat is working with satellite operators, industry groups,
customers and equipment manufacturers to make RFI reduction a top
priority.
There are both long-and short-term causes of interference.\11\
Long-term interference typically occurs between two adjacent satellites
and can be caused by lack of coordination between users, outdated or
poorly designed equipment, or small mobile antennas. Terrestrial
sources, such as microwave links or radar signals may also cause long-
term satellite interference. Although it has been rare, interference
can also be the result of deliberate, politically motivated actions,
such as the recently-reported Iranian jamming of certain western
broadcasts. Short-term interference typically results from poor
training and operator error. Over 80 percent of interference events
experienced each year result from some form of user error. Proper
training is critical for reducing RFI incidents. A majority of RFI
incidents are attributed to faulty installation practices, uplink
errors and poor equipment maintenance regimes. Intelsat and other
leading operators are endorsing new, comprehensive training and
certification programs to educate technicians on proper equipment
installation and operational parameters.
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\11\ Carrier ID Using MetaCarrier Technology, ComTech white paper,
http://www.comtechef
data.com/
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One concept recently embraced by the global satellite industry is
the deployment of ``Carrier ID'' technology to help identify the
interference source. Carrier ID is a stamp on uplink signals that
enables satellite operators to more efficiently trace the source of
transmissions to their satellites and thereby speed the remediation of
any signal interference. Carrier ID would be on every carrier
transmitted to the satellite. It is a small identification that may
include the operator name, the contact's telephone number, or the modem
serial number. The goal is that, at any given monitoring location, a
single system can extract the Carrier ID for any and all carrier types
where Carrier ID insertion has been provided. This will allow satellite
operators to communicate directly with the RFI source to resolve the
incident.
The 2012 Summer Olympics in London were the most-watched television
event in U.S. history, attracting over 219 million viewers over 17 days
of coverage. The London Games were also a perfect opportunity to test
Carrier ID technology. The major satellite providers all deployed
Carrier ID with positive results.
In addition, the Olympic experiment served as a test bed for a
Carrier ID Database. This database was developed in partnership with
SDA as an adjunct to the existing work of the organization. The open
exchange of operational data is imperative for critical satellite
operator procedures, including RFI identification, analysis and RFI
geolocation. The Carrier ID Database was designed to be complementary
to the other services of the SDA. When implemented, the SDA could then
provide a central repository where satellite operators can standardize,
formalize and automate data collection.
Although the commercial satellite operators have devoted a
considerable amount of time and resources to the issue of RFI and
although this issue is of high importance to the U.S. Government, there
has been very little real coordination on this topic or the larger
spectrum topics that face all satellite users. Both DOD and industry
are under pressure in the U.S. and around the world to release valuable
spectrum, or to share spectrum, with the fast-growing terrestrial
wireless industry. As stated above, DOD relies on the commercial sector
for the vast majority of its satellite communications requirements,
including virtually all of its beyond-line-of-sight UAV communications.
The commercial satellite operators have made a number of proposals for
more creative sharing regimes, such as hosted payloads and DOD
spectrum-specific commercially operated satellites. To date, DOD has
been reluctant to embrace any of these forward-leaning proposals.
Solar Weather Effects on Satellites
The sun is the dominant element in the determination of ``space
weather'' and satellite operators monitor the sun's activities in order
to improve their ability to respond to the impact of solar events.\12\
There is, occasionally, speculation that the partial or complete
disabling of a communications satellite might have been the result of a
solar effect. Such reports are the result of analysis and speculation
since physical analysis of the satellite is impossible. For the most
part, satellite manufacturers build their products to operate in the
sometimes-harsh environment of space and satellite operators have come
to assume that their satellites will withstand such ``weather'' events.
The goal of satellite fleet operators has been to identify and
effectively counter the sun's link to so-called single-event upsets
(SEUs), which happen whenever the performance of one or more spacecraft
components abruptly changes without warning.
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\12\ Intelsat. (2013). Solar Weather [White Paper]. Retrieved from
www.intelsat.com/tools-resources/satellite-basics/solar-weather/
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Solar researchers, space weather forecasters and satellite
operators focus on four elements of solar weather that can affect
satellite communications: solar wind, coronal holes, coronal mass
ejections (CMEs) and solar flares. The solar wind is constant but
varies in intensity, while the other three solar phenomena are more
highly variable. SEUs are not apt to be caused by the solar wind
itself, which is relatively low in energy and seldom penetrates the
outer layers or protective skin of a spacecraft. Instead, coronal
holes, CMEs and solar flares can be more potentially disruptive. When
solar storms erupt, they can bombard a satellite with highly-charged
particles and increase the amount of charging on the spacecraft's
surfaces.
Coping with electrostatic discharges from the sun that can
potentially disrupt satellite services are part of the everyday reality
of the satellite world. Losing solar power is not a serious concern
whereas losing total control and command of a satellite as the result
of solar weather is the most severe effect. Solar panels on satellites
are the most affected components, and normal erosion rates for solar
panels are usually 0.3 percent to 1 percent per year. A solar storm can
reduce solar panel performance by 3 percent to 5 percent in a day, but
since this phenomenon is well understood, spacecraft manufacturers
increase the tolerances by design, and attach larger than needed solar
panels to a satellite in order to allow for losses during the
anticipated solar storms.
The body of a communications satellite, which contains vital
control and communication components, is built with special materials
as well as active and passive measures so as to be highly resilient to
the sun's effect. A so-called ``Faraday Cage'' protects the satellite's
internal equipment from external electrical charges. High-energy
particles discharged by the sun rapidly lose strength as they pass
through the multiple layers of a spacecraft's body or bus as well.
There, they encounter a series of specially designed circuit dividers,
individual compartments, and other unique structural elements that act
as protection barriers.
The disruptive nature of solar weather impacts far more than
satellite operations, and adversely affects terrestrial power and
communications grids. For these and other reasons, a considerable
amount of manpower and money has been devoted to monitoring the sun's
activity, and more research into solar phenomena in general is planned
in the future. Among other things, one benefit has been a steady
improvement in our ability to rapidly detect and track these solar
events using powerful observation and detection systems both on the
ground and in space.
NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and the DOD oversee much of this activity. For example, besides
NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)
spacecraft, the Air Force Research Laboratory launched the
Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite
several years ago to forecast the presence of ionospheric
irregularities caused by the sun that adversely impact communication
and navigation systems. Ground-based measurements also assist in space
weather monitoring.
Satellites depend upon the sun, and satellite operators have
steadily developed tools and techniques that allow them to ensure the
operational integrity of all satellites in the face of all forms of
solar weather. Thanks to proper planning, design and execution, solar
events have had, to date, little impact on commercial satellite
operations.
Conclusion
Dependable and ubiquitous satellite communication services are
critical both to the global economy and to the national security of the
United States. Because of the large capital investments required to
design, build, launch and operate satellites, commercial operators have
a vested interest in doing all they can to protect their spacecraft in
orbit from the real threats posed by other objects in space, signal
interference, solar weather, cyber-attack and intentional jamming. The
U.S. Government also has billions of dollars invested in communications
satellites and shares the industry's desire to protect its critical
satellite communications capability. Because the Government relies so
heavily on commercial satellite capacity, a spirit of cooperation is
required to maintain the overall safety of the global satellite fleet,
both commercial and Government owned.
Determining the orbit of objects near GEO is a complex task,
particularly for uncooperative objects. As the population of objects in
the GEO neighborhood grows, maintaining a secure and highly accurate
catalog of all objects becomes increasingly important to mitigate risk
of collision and for security of high value assets. The current Space
Surveillance Network (SSN) capabilities for tracking these objects are
subject to a number of constraints--particularly weather, scheduling,
geographic diversity dispersion and overall capacity--which leave the
current GEO catalog in significant need of improvement. Recent efforts,
within SDA, to share owner-operator data provide clear proof of the
value of collaboration.
The Space Data Association was established to allow all satellite
operators to cooperate in tracking known objects in space. While NASA
and NOAA have both joined in providing information to the SDA database,
other U.S. Government agencies--most particularly, the U.S. Department
of Defense--have not yet chosen to participate.
In its next evolution, the SDA will employ the resources and
relationships it has developed to address the growing issue of radio
frequency interference. While the user error that causes most RFI
incidents will never be completely prevented, commercial operators now
are deploying Carrier ID and developing other tools in place to quickly
solve interference problems. However, this only applies to commercial
satellites. Currently, there is little coordination between Government
and industry when government-owned satellites are involved. This is an
area where better cooperation could ensure that space assets are
available to all users when they are needed.
In creating the SDA, the private sector has taken the first step
towards a new paradigm for managing risk in space, but to be most
effective, far more cooperation is needed by both commercial and
government satellite operators worldwide.
Senator Nelson. And we will want to know, Mr. DalBello, how
you ``safe'' your satellites when there is a solar flare.
Dr. Johnson-Freese?
STATEMENT OF DR. JOAN JOHNSON-FREESE, PROFESSOR, NATIONAL
SECURITY AFFAIRS, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE
Dr. Johnson-Freese. Thank you. It is my pleasure and honor
to speak to the Committee today, just as it always is to speak
to students and the public about space, which I do many times a
year.
I am going to take a slightly different approach to
assessing risks, impacts, and solutions for space threats by
talking about the threat of the American public not
understanding the importance of space.
From my course on space and security at Harvard to speaking
to the public about the immediate importance of space activity
in their lives, the number one comment I subsequently receive
is, why don't we know this stuff?
Space, based on my interactions with the public, is not the
final frontier; it is not the next frontier. In 1997, I
coauthored a book calling it the dormant frontier, but it is
not really that either. Quite the opposite, given the ambitious
work being done on the International Space Station and other
activities, though I contend that that work is largely unknown
to the public.
Space is, however, for many Americans not living around a
NASA center, a benignly neglected frontier. The problem with
space and public support--support that translates into
prioritized spending of their tax dollars--is that the public
views space much as most people view their cars: they just want
them to work. They don't care about the mechanics of a
combustion engine or how to build or repair the car; they just
want to drive the car.
Similarly with space, because of the resounding success of
NASA and other organizations responsible for putting
substantial space infrastructure into orbit, Americans--indeed,
people all over the world--use their ATM cards, use GPS in
their cars and boats, and rely on the Weather Channel to tell
them whether they should carry an umbrella, totally oblivious
to the role that space assets play in providing that
information.
So, in that regard, the immediate benefits of space
activity are not forgotten to most of the public; perhaps that
knowledge was never known in the first place.
Space is associated largely with exploration, and so
considered expendable during times of economic restraint,
something that can be put off until later. But that premise is
incorrect, even regarding exploration. Infrastructure isn't
built or launched quickly, and, once in orbit, it must be
maintained and updated.
Though, because they use it, the public is familiar with
some satellite systems, like GPS, but less familiar with
others. For example, the probes that study radiation belts and
satellites that watch for the solar storms to protect other
satellites in terrestrial electrical grids are essential.
Unfortunately, however, the public generally views these space
activities as little more than interesting science projects, if
they know about them at all.
Yet, without them, Americans' lives would fundamentally
change. Let me explain with a few brief examples. GPS is, with
the Internet, one of only two global utilities. It facilitates,
for example, having emergency response vehicles reach their
destinations by the shortest routes, potentially saving lives;
for transoceanic air travel to be safer and more efficient
because planes can fly closer together; and if the new
satellite-reliant air traffic control system is implemented,
reduce jet fuel consumption by 1 million barrels annually,
saving both money and the environment; and it saves the
trucking industry an estimated $53 billion annually in fuel
costs and better fleet management.
In addition to the economic benefits of space, which are
vital to the national interest, there are also direct security
implications. Politically, the recent meteorite that hit the
Russian Urals with the force of an atomic bomb was a stark
wake-up call regarding threats from space and certainly raised
the importance of space surveillance and the communication of
those threats.
Given the complex political state of the world, it is
clearly imperative that government officials have accurate
scientific data to distinguish between meteorites and missile
attacks. Since miscalculation is a historic cause of war, we
must be aware of what is going on in our solar system.
The military benefits of space are too lengthy to be
catalogued in a short period of time, but suffice it to say
that every letter in the acronym which basically describes
military operations, C4ISR--command, control, communication,
computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance--is
reliant on space assets. Space surveillance allows the military
to have eyes and ears into locations otherwise inaccessible and
on a 24/7 basis.
Geostrategically, America is hindered by our own success
with Apollo. Especially in tough economic times, many Americans
view space exploration with a been-there-done-that attitude.
But for the rest of the world, space still represents the final
frontier, the future, and, consequently, global leadership.
Space capabilities add to U.S. prestige and soft power, which
has spillover into U.S. influence in multiple policy areas.
Two final questions tie many of these issues together and
hopefully illustrate why a vigorous space program must be
maintained.
First, would China have conducted a high-altitude kinetic
ASAT test in 2007, with the resultant debris threatening the
sustainability of the space environment, if it had been a
partner on the International Space Station?
Second, if called upon to deflect a meteorite threatening
Earth, are the technologies in place to do so, and are the
mechanisms in place so it could be done without a geostrategic
nightmare?
In conclusion, America will stay ahead in space and, thus,
capable of addressing these economic, political, military, and
geostrategic risks and threats by staying active and staying
ahead. Therefore, we must remind the American people and
remember ourselves that space exploration and development is
not expendable; it is in our strategic national interest.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Johnson-Freese follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese,\1\ Professor, National
Security Affairs, U.S. Naval War College
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\1\ The views expressed here are the author's alone and do not
represent the official position of the Department of the Navy, the
Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. The author thanks the
Naval War College EMC Chair for its support to participate in this
hearing.
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It is my pleasure and honor to speak to this Committee today, just
as it is my pleasure and honor to speak to students and the public
about space many times each year. Based on that interaction with the
public, I'm going to take a slightly different approach to assessing
Risks, Impacts & Solutions for Space Threats by talking about the
Threat of the American Public Not Understanding the Importance of
Space. From my course on Space & Security \2\ at Harvard Extension and
Summer Schools, to speaking at the Mid-Coast Forum in Maine \3\ in
December 2012, and to the Blue Water Sailing Club earlier this
month,\4\ the number one comment I receive after talking about much the
same material covered in my oral and written testimony today--the near-
term importance of space to every American--is, ``why don't we know
this stuff?''
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\2\ After teaching this course in during the Fall Semester 2011 at
Harvard Extension School--with a student population rich in diverse
student backgrounds and perspectives--I wrote an article about student
attitudes. See: ``Guest Blog: Views on Space From an (Rare) Informed
Public,'' Space News, January 5, 2011.
\3\ http://www.midcoastforum.org/speakers/dr-joan-johnson-freese
\4\ http://www.bluewatersc.org/news/27/BWSC-Visits-U-9S-Naval-War-
College-Newport/
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Space, in my opinion and based on my interactions with the public,
is not the final frontier, and it is not the next frontier. In 1997 I
co-authored a book calling it the dormant frontier \5\ but that isn't
really correct either--quite the opposite given the ambitious and
effectual work being done on the International Space Station (ISS). I
would posit though that few Americans are even aware of work being done
on the ISS. If the general public is more than casually aware of the
ISS at all, it is as a lame-duck program waiting to be de-orbited some
time in the near future. Space, for many Americans not living around a
NASA Center, is largely a benignly-neglected frontier.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Joan Johnson-Freese and Roger Handberg, Space: The Dormant
Frontier, Praeger, 1997.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem with space and public support, support as it translates
into support for prioritized spending of their tax dollars, is that the
public views space much as they view their cars. When they get into
their cars, they just want it to run. They don't care about the
mechanics of a combustion engine, or how to build or repair a car, they
just want to drive it.
Much the same way with space, because of the resounding success of
NASA and other organizations that have been responsible for putting
space infrastructure into orbit, Americans--indeed people all over the
world--use their ATM cards, use GPS in their cars and boats, and rely
on the Weather Channel to tell them whether to wear a coat- totally
oblivious to the role that space assets play in providing that
information. I have had people ask me why the United States should
invest in more weather satellites, when we already have the Weather
Channel, unaware of the connection. So in that regard, the immediate
benefits of space activity are forgotten to most of the public, or
perhaps that knowledge was never known in the first place. Space is
associated largely with exploration, and so considered ``expendable''
during times of economic restraint; something that is desirable and
exciting to do, but can be put off until later.
But that premise is incorrect--even regarding exploration, as I
will point out regarding the geostrategic importance of space.
Infrastructure doesn't go up quickly--and once in orbit infrastructure
must be maintained, and updated. And while some satellites--like GPS--
are relatively easy for at least some of the public to understand
because of they use it, other systems are less obvious. For example,
the probes that study radiation belts and satellites that watch for
solar storms to protect satellites and terrestrial electrical grids are
essential.\6\ Unfortunately though, the public generally views these
activities as little more than interesting science projects, if they
know about them at all. Yet, without them Americans' lives would
fundamentally change. Let me to explain with a few brief examples.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Lisa Grossman, ``NASA's tentacle spacecraft will probe solar
storms,'' New Scientist, August 9, 2012. http://www.newscientist.com/
blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/08/tentacled-spa
cecraft-will-prob.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
GPS is--with the Internet--one of only two global utilities. Its
usage allows us to, for example:
use our ATM cards wherever we are in the world,
to buy gasoline at the pump using a credit card,
for emergency response vehicles to reach their destinations
by the shortest possible route, potentially saving lives,
for trans-oceanic air travel to be safer and more efficient
because planes can fly closer together, and if the new
satellite reliant air traffic control system is implemented,
reduce jet fuel consumption by 1 million barrels annually--
saving both money and the environment \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Ann Schrader, ``Air Traffic Control's Next Generation May Give
Airlines' Fuel-Saving, Fliers a Lift, September 7, 2011, The Denver
Post, http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_18840006
and save the trucking industry an estimated $53B annually in
fuel costs and better fleet management.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Eric Ogden, ``Study: GPS Could Save the Trucking Industry $53
Billion,'' July 1, 2008. http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/
business/study-gps-could-save-trucking-industry-5/229211071
In addition to the economic benefits of space, which are vital to
the national interest, there are direct security implications of space.
The recent meteorite that hit in the Russian Urals with the force
of an atomic bomb was a stark wake-up call regarding threats from
space, and certainly raised awareness about the importance of space
surveillance and the communication of threats. Press reports talked
about the panic experienced by local residents, including that the
world was coming to an end, and that one Russian official blamed the
event on the United States.\9\ Given the complex political state of the
world, it is clearly imperative that government officials have accurate
scientific data to distinguish between meteorites and missile attacks.
Since miscalculation is a historic cause of war, we must be aware of
our solar system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Associated Press, ``About 1,100 injured as meteorite hits
Russia with the force of an atomic bomb,'' February 15, 2011. http://
www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/15/injuries-reported-af
ter-meteorite-falls-in-russia-ural-mountains/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The military benefits of space are too lengthy to be briefly
catalogued, but suffice it to say that every letter in the acronym
which basically describe military operations, C4ISR--Command, Control,
Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance--is reliant on space assets. Space surveillance allows
the military to have eyes and ears into locations otherwise
inaccessible, on a 24/7 basis. It is also important to note that an
estimated 80 percent of military communications is carried on
commercial satellites,\10\ making it imperative that the private space
sector be kept healthy and viable. Without space-based assets, the
United States would simply cease to be a superpower.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Stew Magnuson, ``Military Space Communications Lack
Direction,'' Space Daily, January 7, 2013. http://www.spacedaily.com/
reports/Military_Space_Communications_Lacks_Direction
_999.html
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Geostrategically, America is hindered by our own success with
Apollo. For many Americans, unfortunately, space exploration is viewed
from a kind of been-there/done-that perspective. But for the rest of
the world, space activity and space exploration still represents the
Final Frontier, the Future, and, consequently, Global Leadership. Space
capabilities add to U.S. prestige and soft power, which has spillover
into U.S. influence in multiple other policy areas.
The U.S. is the global leader in space--one need only look at both
the quantity and quality of spacecraft the U.S. has in orbit to verify
that--but the U.S. has in some cases already lost the perception of
being the leader in space, ceding that position to China.\11\ The
prospect of a U.S.-China Space Race has titillated the press and
pundits for several years.\12\,\13\ But the U.S. will cede
space leadership to China not from the lack of scientific and technical
potential or capacity in the United States, but due to the lack of
political will to maintain it.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ ``China eyes lead in international space race,'' CBS News,
July 11, 2011. http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-20078365.html; Clara
Moscowitz, ``US is losing in race to its own Moon,'' Space.Com, October
19, 2011. http://www.space.com/13331-china-space-race-moon-ownership-
bigelow-ispcs.html;
\12\ Peter Ritter, ``The New Space Race: China vs the US,'' Time,
February 13, 2008. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/
0,8599,1712812,00.html; Clara Moscowitz, ``US & China: Space Race or
Cosmic Cooperation,'' Space.Com, September 27, 2011, , http://
www.space.com/13100-china-space-program-nasa-space-race.html: Daryl
Morini, ``The Coming U.S.-China Space Race,'' The Diplomat, August 15,
2012. http://thediplomat.com/china-power/a-u-s-china-space-race-in-the-
offing/
\13\ Even in Russian press reports on the recent testimony of U.S.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to the Senate
Intelligence Committee, differing Russian views were given regarding
whether China will try to threaten U.S. access to space, or whether
threats are being hyped in the U.S. for budget purposes. ``Will China
Surpass the USA in Space?'' Voice of Russia, March 13, 2013. http://
english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_13/Will-China-surpass-the-USA-in-space/
\14\ Joan Johnson-Freese, ``Will China overtake America in Space?''
CNN, June 20, 2012. http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/20/opinion/freese-china-
space
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two final questions tie many of these issues together, and
hopefully illustrate why a vigorous space program must be maintained.
First, would China have conducted a high-altitude kinetic ASAT test
in 2007--with the resultant debris threatening the sustainability of
the space environment--if it had been a partner on the ISS? This
certainly question begs consideration of the best approach to dealing
with Chinese space ambitions:\15\ by cooperation, competition, or
attempted isolation, the latter unlikely to be successful. The Baker
Institute at Rice University recently recommended that China be
included in the ISS partnership,\16\ a recommendation with which I
strongly concur. Ironically, however, there are individuals in the
Chinese space and foreign policy communities who, though once
interested in such a partnership, have lost interest because they feel
the U.S. politics are too fickle for the U.S. to be a reliable partner,
and consequently would hinder their own ambitious domestic space
exploration efforts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Joan Johnson-Freese, ``A Long March Into Space,'' Cairo
Review, February 10, 2013. http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/
Pages/articleDetails.aspx?aid=297
\16\ See: Marc Carreau, ``Think Tank Recommends Role for China in
ISS,'' Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 13, 2013. http://
www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_03_13_2013_p05-
01-558310.xml
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, if called upon to deflect a meteorite threatening Earth,
are the technologies in place to do so, and are the mechanisms in place
so it could it be done without it being a geostrategic nightmare? An
International Space Code of Conduct \17\ is currently being considered
by on a global basis. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed the
concept on behalf of the United States, and the Pentagon is on board as
well.\18\ This indicates recognition of a need for mechanisms or
guidelines for international cooperation on space issues beyond
national control, which encompasses nearly all space issues.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Micah Zenko, ``A Code of Conduct for Outer Space,'' Council on
Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/space/code-conduct-outer-space/
p26556;
\18\ Sydney Freedberg, ``Why the Pentagon Wants an International
Code of Conduct for Space,'' AOL Defense, March 20, 2012, http://
defense.aol.com/2012/03/22/safe-passage-why-the-pentagon-wants-an-
international-code-of-c/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Space is increasingly described as a congested, contested and
competitive environment. It is undoubtedly all of those in one way or
another, which inherently means America must stay actively engaged. For
that engagement to be effective though, will require the addition of
another ``C'' to that list of descriptors--cooperative, as space and
space activity is also inherently international, intercultural and
interdisciplinary in nature.
In conclusion--America will only stay ahead in space and thus
capable of addressing economic, political, military and geostrategic
risks and threats, by staying active. We must remind the American
people, and remember ourselves, that space exploration and space
development is not expendable, it is in our strategic national self-
interest.
Senator Nelson. Thank you to all of you.
And I want to welcome--we have a number of emergency
responders that are in the audience, a new kind of threat that
we are talking about that they may have to respond to.
And I suppose, in response to one of your questions, Dr.
Johnson-Freese, that, as Senator Cruz had posed at the outset,
maybe we ought to have Bruce Willis start doing another
``Armageddon'' movie to get everybody sensitized to the fact of
how space could well play such a huge consequence in our lives
if one of these asteroids starts coming toward us.
So let me turn to Senator Cruz.
Senator Cruz. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And there
probably is no doubt that, actually, Hollywood has done more to
focus attention on this issue than perhaps a thousand
congressional hearings could do.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cruz. Although I would not wish a thousand
congressional hearings on anyone.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cruz. You know, Dr. Green, Dr. Lu, I would like to
go back to your testimony and get a little bit more in terms of
the magnitude of the potential threat that near-Earth objects
could present.
February 18 we had the meteor strike in Russia. Did we have
any real warning of that strike before it occurred?
Dr. Green. Yes, it was February 15, it was really quite a
special day because we actually had two events. The first one
was a very close fly-by of a much larger asteroid that we call
DA14. We had been watching that one for over a year, and we had
calculated its orbit. We knew it was on a safe trajectory to
pass by the Earth.
Indeed, the much smaller meteorite of 17 meters in size
that struck Russia was not observed prior to its entry into the
atmosphere. It was on a very difficult trajectory for us to be
able to see from ground-based telescopes and came basically in
the sunward direction.
So our telescopes operate from the ground in the evening,
of course, on the night sky. One of the next major steps that
has been now initiated by B612 is to provide a space-based
asset that would plug that hole in a number of ways.
This is why our public-private partnership is extremely
important for us to be able to continue to be able to help B612
with the Sentinel mission, to get up into space this decade, to
then begin to observe many more of these objects that are on
difficult orbits for us to see.
Senator Cruz. If that same meteor, instead of striking a
relatively rural area, had struck Manhattan, what would likely
the consequence of that have been?
Dr. Lu. This meteor exploded at altitude, 20 miles high or
something like that, and, again, about 40 miles outside of the
city. So, had it struck over a populated area, say, Washington
or New York, it would have probably caused quite a few
injuries, as it did over Chelyabinsk, but it wouldn't have
taken out the city. It was too small to do that.
But, as you could see, even from a distance of 40 miles,
which is a very long distance, it basically blew in windows and
doors. Every window in that city was busted. And remembering
that the shockwave that caused that drops off very rapidly the
further away you are from it, had that shockwave been much
closer to a city, there would clearly have been a lot more
injuries.
Senator Cruz. Now, my understanding is we have identified
nearly 1,000 near-Earth objects----
Dr. Lu. Ten thousand.
Senator Cruz. Well, nearly 1,000 that are a kilometer or
more.
Dr. Lu. Yes.
Dr. Green. Correct.
Senator Cruz. What would the consequences be of an impact
from an object of that size?
Dr. Green. Well, the large objects, the ones that are 1
kilometer and larger, are actually very bright. Starting 15
years ago from the 1998 congressional action, really these are
the ones that we have been after. Indeed, we believe we have
gotten well over 95 percent of them.
What we do when we attain that information is we calculate
their orbits out to more than 100 years. It is from that
database that it is clear to us that those currently, the ones
that we know of, will not pose a hazard. However, we are
constantly monitoring them, and we constantly see them through
our surveys.
So, from that perspective, that speculation is just that:
it is speculation. So what we want to continue to do is, of
course, get into space, continue our program on the ground, and
methodically, over a number of years, complete the survey so
that we can see what the real threats are, rather than
speculate.
Senator Cruz. Now, Dr. Lu, you mentioned that you think our
current knowledge is roughly 1/100th of what is out there?
Dr. Lu. Yes, of those larger than the one that missed us on
February 15, which is roughly the size of the one that struck
in 1908.
Senator Cruz. Yes.
Dr. Lu. And so those are the ones that would be only large
enough to take out a large city, for instance, not something
that would kill off civilization or send us into the Dark Ages,
but maybe only destroy New York City.
And of those asteroids, we know well less than 1 percent of
those. So right now the amount of warning time that we are
likely to get from one of those is zero.
Senator Cruz. And let me ask a final question. What is our
capacity if we discovered a sizable asteroid that was on a
collision course? What is our capacity right now to do
something to change that?
Dr. Lu. If you find it early, decades in advance, which is
what the goal of NASA is to do and goal of the B612 Foundation
is to do, we have many options. Then you only need to change
its trajectory by a very, very tiny amount.
Senator Nelson, you know from, you know, having flown in
space, that when you are many orbits ahead of time, very tiny
changes in your speed make big differences in the timing of
where you are many orbits later. And that is exactly what you
do. So, in real terms, if you change an asteroid's speed by
something like a millimeter per second--you know, that is about
the speed that an ant walks--and you do that 10 years or more
decades before it is going to hit the Earth, you can make it
miss the Earth.
So that means all you basically really need to do is either
run into it with a small spacecraft; it is called a kinetic
impactor. You can tow them gravitationally using a small
spacecraft called a gravity tractor. For the very larger ones,
the kilometer-sized ones, you can use a nuclear standoff
explosion. These are all technologies that we believe we know
how to do.
The key is, if you don't know where they are, there is
nothing you can do. If you have less than a few years' notice,
right now we have no options.
Dr. Green. There is another aspect of this that I want to
mention, and that is, these objects are very heterogeneous.
They can be rubble piles. Their composition is quite different.
Some have iron, some don't. Some are carbonaceous chondrites,
stonies. Consequently, it is important to know what you are up
against.
In fact, this particular decade is a great decade for us to
be able to do some of the research necessary that will
contribute to potential mitigation concepts into the future.
One mission is OSIRIS-REx. It is an asteroid-sample-return
mission. It is going to an asteroid that is called RQ36, which
is a potentially hazardous asteroid in more than a 150 or so
years. But it gives us an opportunity to get up close to it,
grab a sample. We will orbit it for more than 500 days. We will
understand how the solar wind and the light from the Sun
potentially moves the object.
So this kind of study is essential for us to be able to
really determine the potential mitigation strategies that we
would use in, potentially, future missions that we may have to
pull off.
Senator Nelson. So, right now, until Dr. Lu gets his
satellite up there in 5 years, we are just hoping that we can
identify and then correctly calculate the trajectory that one
of these asteroids would have.
And assuming that we found one before you got your
satellite up, let's go back to Senator Cruz's question: What
would an asteroid that is a kilometer in diameter, what would
it do if it hit the Earth?
Dr. Lu. That is likely to end human civilization.
Senator Nelson. So that was typical of maybe what hit at
the time of the dinosaur age?
Dr. Lu. No, that asteroid was yet much larger, another
factor of 10 larger, 10 in diameter larger, which makes it
1,000 times more massive. And that led to the extinction of
essentially 90 percent of all species alive at the time. And
those are quite rare. And so we do not know of anything that
large that is on an impact trajectory.
Senator Nelson. Does the fact, as we prepare to go to Mars
and the stated goal of rendezvousing and landing and returning
with a human crew from an asteroid, does that in any way help
us perfect our ability to avoid this kind of catastrophe?
Dr. Lu. I think, obviously, there is great science you can
do. I think likely the deflection mission that we have to mount
someday--and we will have to someday; we know that, someday--is
likely to be done robotically, just because the distances are
quite large from the Earth.
But there is a connection between the two, in that, again,
for the human missions to asteroids, you still need to find
them. We do not currently have a set of good targets to run
human missions to asteroids. So the same data set which allows
us to know if something is going to hit Earth gives us targets
for exploration.
Dr. Green. Yes, in fact, visiting an asteroid by
astronauts, for instance, is another one of those steps in
terms of understanding much more about their characteristics.
But the ability to do that is an enabling one. It is one of
those where you trek outside of low-Earth orbit. You have a
destination. You then go through a variety of processes and
procedures that you would have to perfect on even longer
voyages if you were to go to Mars.
So there are different objectives with respect to that.
But, indeed, learning much more about our heterogeneous
asteroid environment is incredibly important.
If I can just build on what Ed has mentioned, 50 years ago,
planetary scientists believed that all the craters that are on
the Moon were volcanic. We didn't know that they were of
impact. It really took many years for us to be able to realize
that they were created by impacts.
Then, soon after that, we began to notice the impacts here
on the Earth. The impacts, of course, led us to the Chicxulub
Crater, which indeed now is believed to be one that has created
the extinction of the dinosaurs. In the 4-1/2 billion years of
this planet, there have been five extinction events, for which
that one, we do believe, has been the one done by a near-Earth
object.
So over the last 50 years, we have learned an enormous
amount about a brand new field, things that we needed to be
aware of. And we have been putting in place a methodical
program of observation by starting with the ground, by building
on international partnerships, and also now with our public-
private partnership with B612.
Senator Nelson. Well, until Dr. Lu gets his satellite up
there, I hope you are paying your trajectory specialists well,
Dr. Green.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Green. Indeed we are.
Senator Nelson. Because they have to be right on the ones
that we know to make sure we know their trajectory.
Tell us, Dr. Lu, and don't worry, I am getting to the other
two of you. Tell us about how we are going to nudge this thing.
And what is the potential cost? And are we getting the
international community understanding that they have to
participate in this with us?
Dr. Lu. Well, I think the--again, I mentioned the way you
would likely do it, in most cases, is to simply run into it
with a small spacecraft. Again, you would just need to change
its velocity by a very, very, very tiny amount.
Following that, you will probably want to hover a gravity
tractor near it to verify that you have changed it the way you
think you did and to make any fine-scale corrections on it,
something like a vernier burn on the Space Shuttle. You would
do that with a gravity tractor.
The cost of that, such a mission, I would believe it would
probably be in the range of a billion dollars or more; to do a
couple of missions like that, probably a couple of billion. But
I think you would have to compare it against the potential
losses of a multi-megaton impact.
Also, in terms of the ability for the United States to show
leadership, clearly, such a thing would be led by the country
that has the greatest technological capability, which is the
United States and NASA in particular. I think the world will be
involved in both the decisionmaking process and the actual
implementation of such a thing.
And I just, again, want to point out that there is a 30
percent chance that there is a 5-megaton or so impact that is
going to happen in a random location on this planet this
century. So this is not hypothetical.
Senator Nelson. By the way, why did this one in Russia
explode at 20,000 feet?
Dr. Lu. Tremendous deceleration. You know, when you are
moving that fast--that thing was moving about 12 miles per
second, and, at that speed, even hitting the air is like
hitting concrete. And once it begins to come apart, it really
rapidly comes apart, and it basically exploded.
Senator Nelson. And back to Senator Cruz's question. Had
that occurred 20,000 feet over New York City, other than
blowing out windows, what would have happened?
Dr. Lu. There would have been, obviously, many casualties.
This one is a little bit harder to say.
The one over Tunguska, the one that was slightly larger and
the ones that I have been talking about, had that happened over
a city, say New York City, we would have 7 million casualties,
at least. Whatever the population in New York City is, they
would be gone.
Senator Nelson. Really?
Dr. Lu. Yes. The area of destruction of that impact was
about 800 square miles. So there is nothing standing in an 800-
square-mile-area forest where that impact occurred.
Dr. Green. Just to be clear, Ed is talking about the event
that occurred in 1908 called the Tunguska event.
Dr. Lu. Yes, not Chelyabinsk.
Dr. Green. That was a much larger meteorite.
Senator Nelson. What was the size of it?
Dr. Green. We estimate it was about 50 meters.
Dr. Lu. Yes.
Senator Nelson. Fifty meters.
Dr. Lu. Yes.
Dr. Green. Yes.
Dr. Lu. A little bit larger than this room, about twice the
size of this room.
Dr. Green. Now, a 50-meter impact, we believe occurs on the
Earth every few hundred years.
So it is a rare event.
Senator Nelson. The one over Russia was about the size of
this room.
Dr. Lu. Yes.
Dr. Green. Seventeen meters.
Senator Nelson. Did the one in 1908, did that hit the
Earth, or did it explode in the air like this most recent one?
Dr. Lu. It exploded in the air.
Senator Nelson. I see. And the one that just entered the
atmosphere over Russia, other than causing those windows --how
many miles away from that little city in Siberia was it?
Dr. Lu. Over 40 miles away.
Senator Nelson. Wow. Did it flatten the forest?
Dr. Lu. Not really, no, because it exploded at a higher
altitude than the one in 1908. So it was a huge shockwave,
which doesn't blow down trees but it certainly knocks in
windows, as we saw.
Senator Nelson. And if that one had exploded over New York
at 20,000 feet--you were making reference to the 1908 one--what
would that have done to Manhattan?
Dr. Lu. If Chelyabinsk had exploded over New York City, we
would have a lot more because it would be a lot closer than 40
miles, obviously--then we would have a lot more than broken
windows, that is for sure.
Senator Nelson. Mr. DalBello, you have all these Intelsat
satellites out there. What do you do to ``safe'' them when you
have a solar explosion?
Mr. DalBello. Well, that is an interesting question. The
truth is that these satellites are on and they are operating.
So a typical satellite today is probably about 70 percent,
actually, 70 percent full, so operating near its full capacity.
And it is transmitting pretty much 24 hours a day. So there is
really no opportunity to turn them off without significant
disruption to the service they are providing. That could be
banking or media or the transmission of other important
information or the flights of UAVs or communications with the
military. So there is no real off switch on our satellites
today. So they are on.
So for us, the question is--and this gets back to the issue
I was discussing earlier and the fascinating work that Dr.
Green and Dr. Lu are doing. The question is always, how do you
translate solar storm information into actionable warnings?
When it is appropriate to translate information into practical
warnings for industry?
So in the solar example, a little bit more--I guess a
little bit more practical than some of the discussion on the
asteroids, but the same question applies. How do we know what
level of solar event will translate into a real impact on the
satellites that we are flying?
Intelsat buys its satellites from the major manufacturers--
Boeing, Loral, Orbital--primarily here in the U.S. These
manufacturers are, of course, trying to build their satellites
to operate in any environment. And the good news is that most
satellites live well beyond their 15-year design life, so the
manufacturers are doing a great job.
So the question for us is, at what point would an event be
so extraordinary that we would say, ``Okay, it is dangerous to
do something with the satellite now; we are not going to load
code today, or we are not going to try to communicate with the
satellite today, or we would maybe put the solar panels in a
different orientation.'' These are issues that just aren't
really very clear right now. So we would look to a
collaborative effort with the manufacturers and the government
to provide advice on this.
Now, a similar thing happened in space debris. Several
decades ago, NASA got very interested in understanding the
debris environment. That led to the situation where we have
today, where we actually get warnings from the Defense
Department--they are called conjunction summary messages--we
actually get warnings in advance if DOD thinks that there might
be a collision between two space objects.
But it took us a long time to connect the basic information
that we needed to gather to have the knowledge to the point
where we felt comfortable warning people that they might want
to take specific action, in this case moving a satellite. So I
think the same situation will apply with solar. As we get more
sophisticated in understanding solar storm impacts, then we
will be able to translate those into specific actions. But
today that knowledge just doesn't exist.
Senator Nelson. Senator Cruz?
Senator Cruz. You know, going back to the discussion about
potential meteor impacts, I would assume for an impact that the
most likely place for an impact would be in water, given the
percentage of the Earth that is covered by water.
What is the relative severity of an impact on land versus
an impact on water and the consequences that would flow from
one versus the other?
Dr. Lu. It depends on the size of the asteroid. To cause a
tsunami, it actually has to be large enough to strike the
surface. And, as we saw, the smaller asteroids do not strike
the surface. They explode in midair, which is--so the smaller
asteroids, when they are over land, that can be more
catastrophic. For the larger asteroids, when they strike the
water, that could potentially be more catastrophic. And the way
to think about is, essentially, these larger ones create a
crater in the water, which then fills in.
So I don't know if you have ever been to Meteor Crater in
Arizona. It was created by a small iron asteroid, and it is
about 700 feet deep. It is about a kilometer across. And so,
had that hit the water, you would have a 700-foot-deep crater
in the water, momentarily, which then fills in. So you know the
size of the wave; it would be about double that. You know, if
you think of a rock dropping into a pond, right, you get a wave
that is about twice the height of that. So you would get a
1,000-foot wave or so, something like that, coming off of
something like that, which then drops off the further away you
get from it.
So that is one of the great worries, especially with a
couple hundred meter asteroids, the football stadium size
asteroids. They are likely to hit in the ocean, and you are
likely to have tsunamis. And, you know, as we saw in Fukushima,
a tsunami can cause great damage and can affect--you know, that
tsunami, which was not very large, historically speaking, had a
noticeable effect upon world GDP because of damage that it did
in one prefecture north of Tokyo.
Senator Cruz. Do we have indication of near-Earth objects
striking the water in the past and producing tsunamis?
Dr. Lu. It must have happened before. It is a little bit
difficult to distinguish a tsunami that was caused by an
earthquake from one that was caused by an asteroid. At least, I
mean, in the past, you know, in the historical record.
Senator Cruz. And using the example you used about the size
of asteroid that struck Arizona, if--and what was the size that
we expect that was?
Dr. Lu. The estimates of that are it is in the range of
about 30 meters or so, so smaller than Tunguska but larger than
Chelyabinsk.
Senator Cruz. OK. But that would likely not be large
enough--I guess there it did strike, so----
Dr. Lu. There it did because----
Senator Cruz.--it didn't explode in the atmosphere.
Dr. Lu.--that one happened to be made out of iron, so it
was a lot tougher than the stony ones, which can explode at
higher altitudes. So even though that was smaller, it hit the
ground.
It is worth a visit, by the way.
Senator Cruz. I have not been, but I will have to add it to
the list of places to take my daughters, and hopefully it--
well, what are the odds of the same spot getting struck twice?
[Laughter.]
Dr. Lu. Pretty low.
By the way, there is an interesting impact site in Texas,
just--it is about 100 miles or so to the east of El Paso. We
used to see it in our T-38s flying back from El Paso all the
time. John Young and I used to like to fly over it. John loves
impact craters.
Senator Cruz. So, using that example, you said that if a
similar impact were to occur in water, we would see a 1,000
foot tsunami. What kind of distance would that be expected to
travel where it would maintain----
Dr. Lu. It depends greatly upon where. You know, the shape
of the ocean bottom, the depth of the water, and so on. So I
don't have a good answer for you.
Also, the characteristics of that tsunami are going to be a
little bit different than earthquake-caused ones, which we
understand much better because those are sort of done by a line
in a fault, whereas this is more of a point, more like dropping
a pebble into a bathtub.
And so the answer is, basically, it depends.
Senator Cruz. You also testified about your estimates of
the probability of a 5-megaton incident or a 100-megaton
incident, which, if I remember right, was 30 percent and 1
percent, respectively?
Dr. Lu. Yes. In the next century, in this century, yes.
Senator Cruz. Could you provide a little bit of the data
that go into those probability estimates?
Dr. Lu. Yes. Yes. In fact, that is--there is not a lot of
scientific disagreement about that. This was documented well in
the National Academies' report of 2010 called ``Defending
Planet Earth,'' and that data comes from NASA. And there isn't
a lot of dispute about that.
And just for your information, where it comes from is from
three different sources. You can count craters on the Moon. You
can look at your asteroid surveys with telescopes. And,
finally, there are DOD assets that look down upon the Earth for
rocket launches and nuclear weapons tests, but mostly what they
see is asteroid impacts that exploded in the atmosphere. And
much of that data has been declassified.
And those three independent means of measuring the numbers
of asteroids agree with each other, and that is why we have
fairly high confidence in it.
Senator Cruz. Let me ask a final question, which is, in
your professional judgment, and I would ask this to anyone at
the panel who would wish to answer it, what else should we be
doing to assess the threats that could seriously jeopardize
human life and to be in a position to prevent those threats?
Dr. Lu. Well, from my standpoint, on this particular
problem what we need to do is an extensive survey of the
objects in our own solar system. We know the locations and
trajectories of the million nearest stars because our
telescopes can look away from the Sun. We do not know the
locations and trajectories of the million nearest asteroids,
and yet those things hit the Earth sometimes. And I think that
is a big, gaping hole, and our organization is working with
NASA to fill that hole.
And I think that is tremendously exciting not just simply
from the preventing-death standpoint, which is obviously a
wonderful thing, but from the exploration aspect of it and the
inspirational aspect of it. Because, again, I think a
demonstration that humanity can work together to go out there
and do something incredible--changing the Solar System to
prevent our planet from being hit is an incredible
demonstration of science, technology, mathematics, astronomy,
and all the things that make our country great.
Senator Cruz. Are there concrete steps that, in your
judgment, would be prudent, beyond launching the Sentinel
satellite that you are working on, that we should be taking in
order to be aware of the potential risks?
Dr. Lu. Well, in the meantime, obviously NASA is running
its own searches, and those need to be supported.
They also just began supporting a telescope system called
ATLAS, which is just at a couple million dollars. It is a
fairly inexpensive system. What it is basically going to do is
look for asteroids just before they hit, not to be able to
prevent their impact, but potentially to be able to evacuate an
area. So you might get a day or 2 or 3 notice before something
hits. And the sole purpose there would be to simply, you know,
get out of the way, to the extent you can. And I think that is
a great program. And it involves lots of small observatories
around the world and students working on it, and I think that
is a wonderful thing.
Dr. Green. Now, from my perspective, let me build a little
bit on what Ed said. That is, indeed, we have methodically had
an observation program in place from the ground. We have also
used other space assets. One is the WISE mission, which was an
astrophysics infrared mission, that had a particular orbit that
made it appealing to be used to look for near-Earth objects.
That was quite successful.
That really was the proof of concept for that next step,
and that next step is, indeed, as Ed mentions, a survey, an
infrared survey. So we are working with Ed and taking that
step.
In addition, we have a really aggressive program to uncover
much more of the characteristics of these bodies. We need to
know those. As Ed mentioned, their compositions are very
different. Some are iron, and they pack more of a wallop. So we
need to go out and we need to understand other aspects of that
that would feed into a mitigation strategy.
That is one of the reasons why OSIRIS-REx, the next mission
that we are going to do from a science research point of view,
is also going to help us inform a potential mitigation
strategy.
So we have in place a methodical program that we need to
continue to work on and execute over this next decade.
Senator Cruz. And what is our ability in terms of a near-
Earth object that is not that near to determine the composition
of that particular object?
Dr. Green. Well, it can be done in a variety of ways. We
have opportunities to hit it with radar. Radar is incredibly
important. We have facilities in Puerto Rico that we use,
National Science Foundation, that we work with on that, in
addition to our Goldstone radars. This enables us to get ideas
about surface composition in a small way. We also from the
ground make spectral observations. Indeed, from space, even
several important points in the infrared will tell us a lot
about its composition. So, from a scientific point of view, we
are doing a lot in that particular area, and that is helping us
classify these and understanding their origin.
Senator Nelson. Dr. Johnson-Freese, you are constantly
trying to get people to understand the relevance of our space
program. There would be nothing like focusing the mind than
survival with one of these things heading toward us.
What about these and other threats, to protect life on
Earth and protecting our astronauts, with all of the collisions
that we find going on out there with space debris? How are we
going to get the human space exploration to be conveyed to the
American public just what is at stake here?
Dr. Johnson-Freese. I think that goes back to Bruce Willis
and ``Armageddon.'' And I am all for Bruce Willis testifying,
don't get me wrong, but after that movie came out I was part of
a project called ``Armageddon: Fact and Fiction.'' And what
that movie did was basically convince the American public that
if anything bad happened, people would get in the shuttle and
go fix it. It was myth, it was not reality.
I think what we need to do is get far more of the
information of the kind that Dr. Green and Dr. Lu have conveyed
today to the American public. When I talk about it in class,
when I talk about NEOs in class, the overwhelming response of
my students is, ``I don't know anybody who ever died from a
NEO. I know people who have died of cancer, traffic accidents,
but nobody I know has died from a meteorite.'' And this gets
into, again, the idea that we need to convey more of the fact
and separate it from the fiction that the movie industry has
really convinced much of the American people, that we are all
over it, we can take care of this.
So I think there needs to be--exploration and vision and
inspiration is wonderful and has to be a component of our space
program. But I think we need to get much better and much more
aggressive at conveying the risks and the benefits and the
self-interest in not just continuing but expanding the space
program.
Senator Nelson. Well, the American people are certainly
appreciative of the conveniences----
Dr. Johnson-Freese. Absolutely.
Senator Nelson.--that they have every day, but do not know
the connection, as Mr. DalBello has said, that all of these
conveniences happen to be space-based, one way or another.
Now, you take--that is why I ask about solar explosions,
which is a nuclear explosion on the surface of the Sun. It
emits radiation. Unless satellites are safe or they are within
the magnetic sphere surrounding the Earth that would repel this
radiation, there is a possibility they are going to be knocked
out.
Let's take another scenario. What about a rogue country
like Korea or Iran, if they get a nuclear weapon--which we
certainly hope and it is the United States' intention that they
don't. But what if they put it on one of their rockets in North
Korea, sent it up at altitude, and exploded a nuclear weapon?
That would have some rather serious consequences, wouldn't it,
Mr. DalBello?
Mr. DalBello. It would be a very, very bad day for
satellites, yes.
Senator Nelson. Explain that.
Mr. DalBello. The radiation environment----
Senator Nelson. Explain that so our audience will
understand it.
Mr. DalBello. Actually, we went back--when there was upper-
altitude testing previously, we did have evidence that the way
it energizes the orbits also interferes with the electronics of
the satellite. And depending on where it is in altitude and
which portion of the orbit you are in--obviously, satellites at
geostationary orbit, which are 23,000 miles away, are a little
bit safer. Satellites in lower-Earth orbit would be saturated
soon and would probably die, because the electronics would be
saturated by the energy released from the nuclear explosion.
So a high-altitude/near-space explosion could have a very
catastrophic effect on many of the satellites we rely on for
weather, early warning, imagery, and other very critical
functions.
Senator Nelson. Dr. Lu, what would that do to our
astronauts on the Space Station?
Dr. Lu. It clearly wouldn't be good. You know, I have had
the experience of being told to take shelter on board the
International Space Station because of a large solar flare.
That happened in 2003, and it has happened a few times since.
But, you know, these levels of radiation could be much higher.
Senator Nelson. Senator Cruz?
Senator Cruz. I am good.
Senator Nelson. Staff?
Mr. DalBello, your company has over 50 satellites in orbit.
Mr. DalBello. Correct, more than 50 that we own. We fly
over 70 satellites total because we also fly satellites for
other operators.
Senator Nelson. How do you build the risk to these
satellites into your business model?
Mr. DalBello. Well, planning for a fleet of that size means
that you are always doing several things. First of all, you are
always building new satellites. You are always planning the
launch of those satellites. And, again, this is well beyond the
topic of discussion today, but launch is still a problematic
area for us. We wish the industry were much more robust and
reliable. We welcome the entry of SpaceX and other new entrants
into the marketplace. But it is still a challenging and
expensive component.
So you are obviously building satellites, you are preparing
to launch those satellites, and you are managing your fleet by
moving satellites around in orbit in a way that, in the past,
actually, we really didn't do.
Typically, in the past, we would put a satellite in one
place, and it lived and died in that orbital location. Now it
is much more dynamic, and we are constantly grooming the
fleets. We move satellites to meet demands. For example, when
the war in Iraq started, we actually moved two entire
satellites to the Middle East to accommodate the increase of
traffic in the region.
So it is a really dynamic equation, and so we do
occasionally get anomalies. And when something bad happens--
unfortunately, we lost a brand new satellite a few weeks ago
when the launch vehicle failed, the sea-launch vehicle failed.
And that satellite was supposed to supply a lot of services.
One was a military component in the UHF band, but it was also
supplying a lot of television service to Latin America. And so
we have to scramble to try to find replacement capacity.
Sometimes we can find that in our own fleet, and sometimes we
have to go to our colleagues and competitors to get that kind
of capability.
So the same thing applies more generally to any effect
which perturbs the fleet. You know, there is not a whole lot of
excess capacity in the sky, so it requires a creative and
constant maintenance of that capacity and understanding where
our requirements are.
Senator Nelson. The vote has started, so we will wrap up in
5 minutes.
Space debris is really a problem. And I was struck several
years ago, the deafening silence, lack of criticism of the
Chinese when they launched their ASAT and blew up a satellite,
adding tens of thousands of pieces of space debris that are up
there that just add to the problem. And the problem, even if we
didn't launch another rocket on Planet Earth, you would have a
real problem of space debris up there for some period of time.
So, Dr. Green, what space debris removal technology is NASA
considering?
Dr. Green. That is a good question. I know there is a
variety of studies that they are working on, and I will have to
get back to you with much more of the details of those studies.
Senator Nelson. Dr. Johnson-Freese, what are the legal and
national security barriers to space debris removal?
Dr. Johnson-Freese. One of the big barriers is that there
are no salvage laws in space. So if the United States were to
start an initiative today to clean up all the debris, we don't
own it, we can't just go and get it.
And you decide, are you going to get the little pieces?
That would determine if you are going to use some of the
techniques like foam to catch it. Or do you go for the big
ones? And from a legal perspective, if I went after a big piece
of junk and grappled it and it broke apart, am I then legally
liable for the damage caused to Rich DalBello's satellites?
So there are many legal issues to be considered. And then
the political and geostrategic--if, for example, you are using
lasers, well, I am certain if the United States decided to
start using lasers to de-orbit large pieces of debris, that
would make other countries of the world very nervous, just as
it would legitimately make the United States very nervous if
other countries were to do the same.
So I think there is a host of not just technical problems
but legal and political problems. But debris and the NEO issue,
I think, provide opportunities for international
collaboration--require international collaboration and for the
U.S. to take a real leadership role.
Mr. DalBello. Senator, can I make a brief comment about
that?
First of all, I completely agree with what Dr. Freese just
said, but we are very interested in--there is a next generation
of technologies that is not very far away. We know that DARPA
is looking at this, we know that NASA is looking at this. We
know that there are a couple of private sector opportunities
that people have come to us with proposals.
We are very interested in the ability to do more in space
robotically. That is because--for example, we had a satellite
that went up a couple years ago. One of the antennas didn't
open, which meant that half of the revenue for the life of that
satellite was lost. Had you been able to go up, grab that
satellite, and just tweak that antenna a little bit, you
probably could have saved the entire mission.
So we think the technology is there today, and perhaps this
is a good opportunity for another hearing. We know that DARPA
has some forward-leaning programs that they are working on. And
it is a technology that we in the private sector support fully
and want to participate with government on because it is a
valuable thing.
That technology would also allow you, at a minimum, to
remove very large pieces of debris from the most useful orbits.
Senator Nelson. Senator Cruz, anything?
Senator Cruz. I just want to thank all four of you for what
I think has been a very interesting and productive hearing.
And I thank the chairman, as well.
Senator Nelson. Indeed, it has been most enlightening. We
thank you for your expertise and your testimony.
Have a great day. The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:18 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Dr. Edward T. Lu
Question. Dr. Lu, once Sentinel detects the many thousands of 140
meter asteroids and completes its mission, how do we sustain our
detection efforts so that we don't lose track of these objects?
Answer. The orbits of the asteroids detected by Sentinel will be
valid for approximately 100 years. That means that the complete
asteroid survey does not need to be repeated for quite some time.
However, it is important to maintain our capability to do targeted
follow up observations for particular asteroids of interest that may
pass uncomfortably close to Earth.
______
Response to Written Question Submitted by Hon. Bill Nelson to
Richard DalBello
Question. We're currently tracking over 21,000 pieces of space
debris larger than 10 centimeters in diameter, but there may be many
thousands of pieces even smaller we can't track accurately. Mr.
DalBello, if NASA and Air Force tracking of space debris weren't
available to companies like yours today, how would you protect your
satellites?
Answer. To avoid collisions in the increasingly crowded orbital
arcs, companies operating satellites have, for years, informally shared
position and orbit data amongst themselves. Over time, operators have
sought better information sources and formed cooperative structures--
like the Space Data Association Limited (SDA)--to ensure that their
operations were as safe as possible. Over this same period, the U.S.
Government has slowly developed mechanisms for working with the
commercial operators. [See Brief Timeline below]. In the absence of
U.S. Government information, satellite operators would look for
additional data sources from Europe, Russia, and private sources,
however, none of these today are as comprehensive as the U.S.
Government data. Without U.S. Government cooperation, all space
operators--including the U.S. Government--would face increased risk and
the potential degradation of the space operating environment. In
particular, without data on debris, no satellite operators would be
able to screen their satellites for potential collisions. Given the
limitations of the current legacy software and processes currently used
to provide that service and DOD's higher priorities for military space
operations over supporting commercial or civil space operations, the
potential exists for threats to be missed. The consequences of a
collision--particularly in GEO--could be catastrophic. Not only would
billions of dollars of commercial investment be at risk, but so would
more than 90 percent of all military communications worldwide.
Brief Timeline of Information Sharing
It is important to note that accurate space tracking is a non-
trivial task that has changed considerably over time. The following is
a brief overview of the history of U.S. Government/industry data
sharing:
In the early-1980s, NASA provided orbital data (called two-
line element sets or TLEs) to private individuals via mail. In
1985, one of those individuals began distributing that data
electronically, first via a dial-up bulletin board and then via
the Internet. This service became known as CelesTrak. This
service still exists today and is operated by AGI.
In the late 1990s, NASA began an informal program, run by
their Orbital Information Group, to share this information on
space objects gathered by the U.S. Strategic Command
(USSTRATCOM) using radars and optical sensors. In 2005, the
NASA dissemination was terminated and transferred to Air Force
Space Command,.
In 2004, Congress authorized DOD to establish a pilot
program called the Commercial and Foreign Entities (CFE)
Program. Through the CFE program, the U.S. Government began
providing the same orbital data directly to commercial
operators.
Recently, USSTRATCOM acknowledged that the TLE data was not
precise enough to screen satellites for close approaches and
developed a procedure for providing commercial operators with
additional information in the form of conjunction summary
messages (CSMs). The CSMs are provided to operators whose
satellites have been identified as closely approaching another
space object. These CSMs contain state vector (position and
velocity) and covariance (uncertainty) information computed
from other data.
Even with government information, informal information
sharing between operators is problematic. Satellite operators
use multiple standards to represent the position of a satellite
in orbit or an object in space. Many different types of
software are used to track and maneuver satellites and the data
is stored in a variety of formats. So, even operators who wish
to share data can't rely on a single, agreed upon protocol for
sharing information. As a result, operators sharing information
must maintain redundant file transfer protocols and tools to
convert and reformat data so that it is consistent with their
own software systems to compute close approaches. While some
operators use third party software for predicting close
approaches, others write their own software tools. As the
number of satellite operators increases, the problem of
maintaining space situational awareness grows more complex. And
the smallest operators may not be able to afford, or have the
technicians, to participate in the data sharing process.
In 2009, the world's leading commercial satellite operators
formed the Space Data Association Limited (SDA) to formalize
the process of exchanging information and to deal with the
overall data compatibility problem. Clearly, the best path to
minimize risk in space is for all operators to share what they
know about the movement and position of their own satellites,
including any planed maneuvers in advance of execution, in a
way that all other companies can use.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Amy Klobuchar to
Dr. Joan Johnson-Freese
Question 1. In Minnesota, GPS technology has transformed many
industries, making them more efficient. From farmers' tractors that
steer themselves, to safer and quicker road construction, to navigating
ships on the Great Lakes, high-precision GPS has made our economy more
competitive. What can be done to make our network of GPS satellites
more resilient in the face of solar storms?
Answer. There are two actions which address your question. First,
the best protection is prevention. That means funding the satellites
which observe the solar storms and allow scientists to predict when
potentially dangerous flares will occur so that actions can be taken to
protect the GPS satellites from damage. Second, the constellation of
GPS satellites themselves will need upgrading that incorporates the
latest technologies for protection, and GPS ``spares'' must be kept on
orbit as well for inevitable instances when needed.
Question 2. Additionally, though many utilities are prepared to
respond to downed power lines in the face of severe weather, what steps
can we take to prepare the electric grid for the widespread damage to
key infrastructure that could occur after a massive solar storm?
Answer. Again, prevention through prediction of the solar storms is
a solid first step, so that power companies can take necessary
actions--potentially including shutting down certain facilities--to
avoid damage.
Question 3. You mentioned in your testimony that Americans aren't
sufficiently aware of the work being done by NASA and other
organizations, that the American public is often unaware of the
connection of space work to many of the things we rely on a daily basis
like GPS, credit cards, and weather satellites. Americans, you say,
largely equate space to exploration. What are your thoughts as to why
there's a disconnect between what the American public thinks space
programs do and what they actually do? What can we do to better connect
the dots?
Answer. In many instances, ``space'' is taught as a history lesson
as part of a science curriculum in schools, and often in an outdated
way. Yet space infrastructure is much like the railroad infrastructure
or the computer industry--it provides services. So students must be
exposed to and taught about space differently. Additionally, too often
media people from whom much of the public gets its information are ill-
informed, and consequently pass along wrong or sensationalist
information. I heard a local morning radio broadcast recently berating
NASA over the new accelerated asteroid mission--wrong in their
information and analysis, and passing it along to a wide audience. My
advice to do better: education, education, education (perhaps biased
because I'm a teacher).
Question 4. You've laid out concrete examples of important
functions that space programs serve, but in a time of belt-tightening
across all Federal agencies, how do we strike the right balance of
cutting programs when necessary, yet ensuring these programs have the
capabilities to perform?
Answer. I have stated repeatedly that more consultation between
policy people and scientists/engineers is needed regarding what
programs have the potential to reach fruition and be useful, and those
which are programs of little value and with large science/technology
question marks. Most of those are in the Defense Department. For NASA,
programs should expand capabilities, rather than repeating past
successes. Hence, I strongly support the accelerated asteroid mission:
it provides a role for both robotics and human spaceflight, will return
valuable information to protect Earth from an event that is not a
question of ``if'' but ``when,'' and will offer the U.S. the potential
to take a global leadership role in space, again. That is important for
both scientific and geostrategic reasons.
[all]