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Space Industrial Base Highlighted by Industry Executives at Two Major Conferences

The association's report on the space industrial base, Tipping Point: Maintaining the Health of the National Security Space Industrial Base, was highlighted at two high-powered conferences recently.

April’s National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., is the major annual symposium for the space community. AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey participated in an industry panel during the conference that examined the state of the space industrial base and its path forward.

Blakey discussed AIA’s Tipping Point report, which argues that without a new push to centralize and elevate our country’s space assets and strategy and provide funding stability, we face a “tipping point” where critical U.S. space capabilities will be lost. The report identifies key technologies that provide vital skills and capabilities to the national security space industrial base, such as liquid rocket propulsion, military satellite communications, missile warning, positioning, navigation, timing, space optics and solid rocket motors and their components. Blakey cited the lack of consensus on the need to protect our core capabilities as AIA’s primary concern.

She recommended multi-year acquisition and block satellite buys, investments in operationally responsive space and modernization of our export control system. Finally, Blakey emphasized the importance of close dialogue between government and industry on implementing the National Security Space Strategy. Blakey’s full remarks can be found at: http://www.aia-aerospace.org/newsroom/speeches_testimony/

AIA staff attended the Los Angeles Air Force Base Space and Missile Systems Center’s 2011 Industry Days conference in May. The health of the space industrial base garnered additional attention at this conference with another major panel of senior industry leaders, including Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Space and Intelligence Systems at Boeing Defense Space & Security; Jeff Grant, sector vice president and general manager of the Space Systems Division at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems; Kevin M. Bilger, vice president and general manager of Global Communications Systems at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company; Dave Taylor, president and CEO of Ball Aerospace and Technologies; and Richard Yuse, president of Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems.

Raytheon’s Yuse highlighted AIA’s Tipping Point report in his remarks. Specifically, Yuse called attention to the report’s recommendation to increase science and technology and research and development accounts for national security space. Science and technology have often been referred to as the “seed corn of the future.” These kinds of investments play an important role in advancing new technologies and are key to attracting the workforce needed to maintain our critical space industrial base skills.

AIA Source: Mike.Conschafter[at]aia-aerospace.org