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Troy Meink: “It's more cost-effective to buy a smaller rocket for one…”

Featuring: Troy Meink, Secretary of the Air Force | National

Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series

Published October 17, 2024 | Video Starts at 55:24

Now that not, that's not always the driver. If we're Trying to launch one satellite, a small satellite to a very particular orbit. Right. It's more cost-effective to buy a smaller rocket for one satellite to a particular orbit. large rocket and only use a fraction of that rocket. So you really have to look at that. In some cases, when you're launching proliferated architectures, you know, a lot of the satellites are going essentially the same orbit. (55:24–55:36)

CLAIM

Asserts the cost-effectiveness of using smaller rockets for specific satellite launches.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Troy Meink

“We are expanding the constellation we have really probably to the largest constellation really in history.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 05:41-05:49
“Over 12 launches, not all of them from a proliferation perspective, but many of them putting more than 100 payloads on orbit just again in…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 05:55-06:05
“Over the last several years, we've launched five different rockets from five different launch facilities spread across three continents.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 11:12-11:23
“The Electro Optical contract we awarded a couple years ago, which is about $4 billion over 10 years, is an example.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 11:46-11:53
“The primary mission of the National Reconnaissance Office is to help maintain the US Intelligence advantage globally.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 02:11-02:19
“NRO has a broad set of customers, obviously war fighters.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 02:35-02:39
“We've been doing this extensively really since the first Gulf War.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 02:47-02:52
“Our mission is becoming more challenging and more important than ever.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 03:15-03:19
“The NRO has been at the leading edge really for years.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 03:52-03:57
“We are evolving from dozens to really to hundreds of satellites.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 06:29-06:35
“This is to make the collection capability more responsive, timely, while increasing our resiliency.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 06:34-06:41
“In the last 60 years of our existence, we've been dealing with rapidly growing data volumes that we have to process and support…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 07:20-07:29
“China and Russia continue to challenge our nation's advantage. Each has developed and deployed counter space capabilities that are designed…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 08:40-08:53
“Cyber...probably one of the largest growths and expenses within the NRO percentage wise has been in the cyber arena.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 08:57-16:52
“It's obviously very concerning that the Russians may be considering incorporation of nuclear weapons into their basically counter space…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 09:03-09:16
“China is looking to deny our ability to operate in the space, creating a heightened threat environment.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 09:16-09:23
“It's essential for the NRO to continue to modernize ISR capabilities and the supporting ground infrastructure.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 09:42-09:50
“Commercial partnerships have evolved to rank among the NRO's most effective means in meeting some of the customer requirements in achieving…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 10:23-10:33
“The NRO has historically been a key player in those military operations, providing intelligence to support them.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 12:19-12:25
“Data collected in process oftentimes supports both Title 10 and Title 50 customers at the same time.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 12:54-13:00
“One of the most important relationships obviously is with US Space Force.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 13:31-13:36
“Success is directly related to talent and the workforce, particularly with the rapidly evolving technology environment.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 14:09-14:25
“Cyber and some of the threats to our ground infrastructure is probably the biggest and most likely threat we will see.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 17:05-17:13
“The rate of change given the threats we face...requires a rate of change that's really faster than maybe almost since the beginning of the…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 18:40-18:47
“A third of the interim workforce is essentially DoD, most of them being Space Force, Air Force.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 20:42-20:48
“Many of the timelines we're talking about today, the NRO is already supporting.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 23:40-23:45
“Silent Barker is... one of those missions that is critical to both all of space.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 24:53-25:16
“The vehicles are on orbit. It's going to be a critical, critical capability with additional capability coming in the future.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 25:51-25:59
“The NRO was a joint DOD, Title 10, Title 50, IC organization from inception.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 27:47-27:55
“The NRO is a joint organization supporting both the DoD and the IC intelligence side.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 27:58-28:08
“Most of the data we collect is used both by Title 10 and Title 50 because many of the missions heavily overlap.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 28:43-28:50
“The data we collect today and going forward is distributed to everybody.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 28:56-29:00
“There's been a big focus at the DNI ODNI level to lower classification to enable dissemination.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 30:41-31:06
“The NRO is a big champion of [lowering classification levels].”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 31:13-31:16
“We expect to be one of the first users of NSSL Phase 3.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 32:36-32:41
“We've launched on over the last couple years on 10 or five different rockets.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 32:48-33:00
“Decreasing launch costs have been a big enabler in what we've been able to do.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 34:05-34:09
“We had one Maxar, the predecessor to Maxar, that was it. Right. You know, now we have three on contract.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 36:18-36:28
“Now we have, I don't know what the number is right now, but it's, it's, it's well, was well north of five different vendors, probably seven…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 36:53-37:04
“I don't know if we've been had a data scientist in the NRO ten years ago now we have a lot of them.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 38:43-38:49
“We don't have to develop them from scratch. In many cases, we're just adapting them to our environment.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 40:14-40:19
“It's like on the order of 50 applicants, for every interim, we bring in [to] NRO.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 41:18-41:18
“Many of the data scientists we have were ones that we sent back to school.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 41:41-41:46
“The NRO is responsible for procuring pixels.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 45:17-45:21
“NGA really looking at procuring analytics.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 45:28-45:33
“The NRO's been asked both by the DOD and AIC to procure pixels.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 46:17-46:23
“NGA in the end is responsible for managing tasking coming in from across the DOD and the IC.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 46:25-46:33
“The NRO itself does not do procure anything direct Starlink.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 48:29-48:35
“Space domain or space-based sensors are critical in some cases.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 49:28-49:33
“Ground-based sensors and different phenomenologies of ground-based sensors are the best answer in other cases.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 49:33-49:42
“Fusing all that data together from the commercial world and government systems is critical.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 49:45-49:51
“You have to understand what's going on in the environment and it requires all those sensors to do it.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 50:12-50:18
“Different orbits have different exposures to solar storms.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 51:26-51:37
“You really have to look at every piece of digital equipment and do testing to understand the vulnerabilities.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 51:56-52:10
“The rapid advancement in digital electronics that's been fueled by the commercial industry is probably the biggest driver in what we're able…”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 52:27-52:39
“Even solar arrays behave differently in space than they do on the ground.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 52:38-52:43
“Larger rockets are cheaper per pound to orbit.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 55:08-55:15
“We've used Minotaur, not really commercial, but it's smaller rocket.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 56:11-56:15
“We did some obviously with, with Virgin out of the UK didn't go well.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 56:15-56:21
“We do on over processing and we use various techniques to oftentimes to lower the data volume metrics down.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 57:26-57:41
“We do that on the ground as well.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 57:40-57:43
“We are definitely employing all those across the entire spectrum room.”
Dr. Troy Meink | Schriever Spacepower Series | Uploaded October 17, 2024 | 58:13-58:18