The DownLink Podcast

DIU’s “Bucky” Butow, Space Innovation, and the Industrial Base This week’s is the third episode in a month-long series looking at various, cross-cutting aspects of the state of the space industrial base. Laura Winter speaks with the Defense Innovation Unit’s Director of the Space Portfolio Steve “Bucky” Butow, who is intimately involved in growing the Space Industrial Base through government contr...

Software Drives Printed Rocket Motors, GSaaS, and New Calls for Collective Cyber Security for Space This is the second episode in a month-long series looking at various, crosscutting aspects of the state of the space industrial base. Space and cyber leaders in the United States and Europe are now looking to create systems of collective cyber security for the 21st Century, covering assets on orbit,...

Want a Cutting Edge Space Space Force? We’ve Got To Talk About Bank Failures. This is the first episode in a month-long series looking at various, sometimes neglected, aspects of the state of the space industrial base. This week in Washington, D.C. much of the focus has been on military readiness, sustainment, the state of the military industrial base, and whether the U.S. is ready to meet today’s...

A Missing Lunar Lander, A Mutual Defense Treaty, And “China… China… China” This week’s episode focuses on the very latest space domain developments coming out of the Far East. Laura winter speaks with Jonathan Ward, a China scholar, founder of the Atlas Organization, and book author, who has a new tome out this week titled, “The Decisive Decade: American Grand Strategy for Triumph Over China”; and...

SpaceX, Raytheon, And How Not To Land In Space Force CSO’s “Frozen Middle” This week’s episode is coming out of Space Symposium, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. With much of the civil, commercial, and military space leadership in attendance, U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman put commercial space leaders on notice: embrace speed, risk, and technological difficulty or be...

A Moon Landing And a Test Launch - Two Events That Could Change Almost Everything The White House says it wants, “to achieve the goal of enabling human transportation and settlement within the solar system.” There are two, possibly seismic, events about to happen in the space ecosystem that could help: The ispace moon landing and SpaceX’s first orbital flight test of its Starship super-heavy rocke...

Why Virgin Orbit's Chapter 11 Filing and The Silicon Valley Bank Failure Matter The commercial space ecosystem is weathering multiple storm systems. First, there was the Silicon Valley Bank failure. This week the publicly listed launch company Virgin Orbit, and its subsidiaries - including its defense division Virgin Orbit National Systems - filed for Chapter 11 protection. To understand how these...

Japan’s Commercial Moon Mission, Defense Policy, and its Transformer Lunar Rover SORA-Q This month the Tokyo-based company ispace plans on delivering three rovers to the lunar surface, including a small but real Transformer. This could be a first for Japan, but perhaps more importantly, if successful, it will also be a first for the commercial space sector, worldwide. Laura Winter speaks with Namr...

AI Hype is Warranted But What About the Vulnerabilities and Security For Space Operations? In this week’s episode, Laura Winter unpacks the security requirements and the policy the advent of AI necessitates with Samuel Visner, the Aerospace Corporation’s newest Technical Fellow who is a longtime cyberwarfare and intelligence veteran in and outside of government, as well as an Adjunct Professor of...

Space Force Budget, Plus Science Chief Mozer: “We are in a hinge of history moment” This week the DownLink serves up a deep dive into what’s in the Department of Defense’s FY ‘24 United States Space Force budget request and an interview with the service branch’s Director of Science, Technology, and Research, Joel Mozer. In addition to the chief scientist, Laur Winter Speaks with Chris Stone, Senio...

A Space & Defense Startup Takes Aim at Train and Equip Status Quo In the same week the Biden Administration’s FY ‘24 budget dropped, the Chief of Space Operations told Guardians, “Preserving U.S. freedom of action in an increasingly contested space domain requires a military force specifically trained and equipped for the purpose.” To get those requirements, a group of former military space pros h...

This is Your Primer on AI, Space, and Defense, not ChatGPT Did you know that in the past five years, the U.S. Government has inked more than a billion dollars in contracts to develop and utilize artificial intelligence, or AI, according to a Brookings Institution report? While it’s unsurprising that the Department of Defense inked about 87 percent of these contracts, it is a space company that has...

China Learns Lessons From Ukraine’s Use of Space This week is the fourth and final episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. It is highly recommended to listen to the prior episodes first, to understand how Ukraine is using American and European commercial space-based assets to close the kill-chain and achieve strat...

Should the U.S. Military Defend U.S. Commercial Space Operators Involved In Ukraine? This week is the third episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. It is highly recommended to listen to the prior episode first, to understand how Ukraine is using commercial space-based assets to close the kill-chain and achieve str...

David, Goliath, & Space - Is This How Future Wars Will Be Fought? This week is the second episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. This episode explores the David and Goliath story of how Ukraine has used space-based assets, the majority of which are owned and operated by third-parties that are mostly from the comm...

How Russia's War in Ukraine Is a Boon for Space Business The week’s episode kicks off a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the business, and defense. In this first episode, Laura Winter tackles the war’s effects on various space verticals, the capital markets, and the investment challenges and opportunities that have come out of Russia’s exit from the We...

What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 2 This week is the second and final episode looking at what rarely comes to mind when we talk about space - the ground. This week is about the great ground game being played out in what has traditionally been in the U.S. sphere of influence - South America. The southern continent is where Chinese entities have access to or wholly manag...

What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 1 This week’s episode and the next are all about what rarely comes to mind when we talk about space - the ground. This week is about the great game being played out in the High North on the strategic ground where the U.S., its allies, and adversaries, have located critical ground station infrastructure and the capabilities to disrupt a...

There’s No Need To Be So Toxic! This week’s episode is about a potentially disruptive group of thruster technologies that are already being used by space agencies and on U.S. Space Force, DARPA, and other Department of Defense space missions. These thruster technologies are green - better for the environment and humans - and give more real bang for the buck. Could they displace highly toxic gas fu...

Four Space & Finance Experts: What You Need to Know for a “Weird” 2023 Welcome to a “weird” New Year! Most publicly traded space companies are listed on the NASDAQ, which shed a third of its value in 2022. Add to that the highest interest rates in 15 years and dire predictions that at least some of the world’s economies are headed into recession. Yet, the space economy keeps on growing, with new p...

Happy Birthday, Space Force… And Happy New Year This week is the U.S. Space Force’s third birthday. While a lot has been accomplished over the past 12 months, there is a lot more yet to do to make the service branch truly independent and first for purpose. This episode’s guests also reveal what they think were the biggest developments for space, in space, or from space for earth in the past year....

Rocket Lab & SpaceX: Upping Their Defense Business Game Defense primes with offerings in the space sector buckle up. The upstarts coming, prepared. Rocket Lab and SpaceX have just established defense business lines organized to offer U.S.-based end-to-end white-glove space services to the Department of Defense with a proven competitive rate card. Laura Winter speaks with Rocket Lab Founder and CEO...

What is “resiliency” technologically? You regularly hear the word in talking points about defense and space strategy, but space supremacy is driven by technology. This week’s episode, coming out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is about the development of two very different resiliency technologies, the companies, and a space business incubator, backed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. Laura Winter...

What can we learn from the start of President Xi Jin-Ping’s third term at the helm of the Chinese Communist Party? What we know is that he has frozen out the old guard and elevated leaders from China’s space and aerospace sectors to the highest party and government positions. To unpack just what the era of Xi has in store for the space domain and international security, Laura Winter speaks with Ma...

Russian Sanctions Target U.S. Space & Milley’s “Various Technical Means” This week’s podcast is all about the Bear and space. Laura Winter speaks with former U.S. Defense Attaché to Russia, Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock USAF (Ret.) about Russia’s move to place personal sanctions on a number of commercial space sector leaders. But first, just how did the Biden Administration and NATO determine that a...