 Hello, and thank you for joining us today for the third annual Summit for Space Sustainability Hosted by the Secure World Foundation. I am Marina Coran I am a staff writer at the Atlantic where I cover all things space and I'm glad to be here today at the summit in Conversation with Tori Bruno the president and CEO of United Launch Alliance Hi Tori. How are you? Hi Marina? I'm doing great Where are you beaming in from today? Today, I'm coming to you from outside Denver, Colorado. Okay. All right. How's the weather there? It's actually pretty hot here right now Yeah, same here in DC. Well, thanks so much for joining I So the other day I saw that you virtually attended a house hearing on the future of the FAA and Well the FAA in the future of spaceflight and in your written testimony you described earth orbit as a natural resource Which you know is true, but at the same time it's very much in the economic space And I'm wondering how you square those two realities as someone who's in the business of launching things into that arena. Oh Absolutely, what a great question so, you know, it is a natural resource because it's in a way of global commons that we all use to You know observe the earth and understand climate in environment better, but we also do business there We have substantial economic activity in earth orbit Somewhere in the neighborhood of three to you know four hundred billion dollars a year of business is done in space both in communications and in national security and in science and of course climate So the trick is to balance those in a way that does not you know harm that natural resource Doesn't make it an environment where we can't all utilize it to do peaceful things in space While at the same time doing good things for science and for the planet Also at this congressional hearing the other day, you know There was discussion of the FAA recently streamlining its launch and reentry regulations and You said that launch providers who don't comply with new rules should face impactful Consequences, can you elaborate on that? What kind of actions do you see as requiring more stringent enforcement and what kinds of consequences? Do you think that launch providers should face? Oh? Absolutely and really the context for that is this wonderful environment. We're in where there are More providers and new things being done in space and exciting missions like what we referred to in that hearing is the mega Constellations that will be taking the internet to space and bringing new functionality So there's all this wonderful wonderful things that are happening while at the same time. It's much more open commercially So new providers original, you know sort of traditional providers in what we need to be mindful of are really two things public safety the most important thing and preserving that natural resource which Primarily comes in the flavor of being responsible around orbital debris So in terms of the public safety matters the FAA is charged in the commercial arena with making sure the general public Is not harmed or impacted Primarily by rocket launches by going to space and it's important to recognize that You know a rocket is an incredibly complex machine and it has enormous destructive potential We make it look easy, but it really isn't easy and it's not an airplane You know even a big jumbo jet sitting on the runway that might have a hundred thousand gallons of fuel in it You know could be a pretty scary thing if it landed or crashed in the wrong place a rocket as a million pounds of fuel in it And it is much more energetic and while an airplane never really flies, you know much more than 500 miles per hour You know a rocket will break the sound barrier in about two minutes flat So the regulations that FAA Applies in the licensing procedure that it applies to commercial space launch providers Are really all about safety and they have to be taking seriously And so if a new provider or a traditional provider violates their license or does something that is contrary to these safety regulations There should be a deterrent set of penalties that will cause them to think twice and not do it even if They're not necessarily You know bought into the whole process of obeying the regulations and being careful with with public safety And what kind of penalties could those be? Well, the the lot today allows the FAA to end or prohibit a launch And they also allow them to apply fines of a hundred thousand dollars. I Can tell you that on a major space vehicle launch The delay of a day or two can cost a million two million dollars So a hundred thousand dollar fine in comparison to that isn't really a deterrent and You know the interruption of launches is but the financial penalties are really a little bit out of balance with how Expensive it is to actually stand up the launch crew and all of the assets that are involved so I would advocate for you know a set of penalties that are effectively Deturing the behavior of operators who would not otherwise be responsible and I also want to say that You shouldn't have to do that You know he but you do in some cases. I think it will potentially be necessary as this environment expands Yeah I'd like to talk a little bit about the proper and safe disposal of rocket stages Because obviously these pieces of hardware can seriously contribute to space debris What do you think that you LA should be doing differently or better in this realm? Oh what a great question Well, I want to say first that you know There are government guidelines on how to mitigate orbital debris and for commercial providers. These are Largely voluntary we take them very very seriously no matter what the launch is and in terms of upper stages There's really three things that go on, you know the first is Deorbiting the stage whenever it is possible and it is possible when you go to a lower energy orbit like Leo We will deorbit our stage in that needs to be done in a controlled reentry fashion For two reasons one is when you deorbit in an uncontrolled way you could of course Endanger people or property But also when you're doing an uncontrolled deorbit the path that you follow is very Variable it's very Indetermined and the area that you affect is vast and so you're you're even whether or not you were eventually to Land on land and perhaps endanger someone you're still affecting the national airspace And you're causing people a lot of concern So it needs to be a deorbit whenever it's a low-energy orbit and it needs to be in a controlled fashion We always deorbit into the remote Debotion of the South Pacific in fact There's a specific place that we all go to when we do that called the point of Nemo or the point of oceanic inaccessibility Very remote no traffic and in fact on any given day the closest humans to that location Are actually in the International Space Station? That's how remote it is So that's the first thing you do and we always do that The second thing is well, what if it's not possible? What if you've flown to a higher energy orbit and you can't get back to the earth such as geosynchronous orbit? well, there is a designated graveyard orbit and In both circumstances, whether you're going to the graveyard or you're deorbiting You have to save enough propellants so that when your mission is done and you've dropped off your spacecraft Which by the way is smaller because you did that You have enough residual propellant to then raise yourself in this case to the graveyard orbit and Which is out of the way of the traffic that is typically out there in the geosynchronous belt And then the last thing is something we pioneered on our delta-2 rocket, which we call passivation And what that means is when you're all done and you're on that final flight path into the deep South Pacific Or you've locked yourself into this higher Energy graveyard orbit that you render the stage inert You blow down all the propellants you vent them you blow down all any stored gases any high-pressure bottles of gases You turn on circuits and you run all the batteries down so that there is no energy Residual on the stage that could later result in a stage failure a stage explosion Before we began that practice that was actually a common occurrence in the early decades of space travel And so that renders your stage inert So it is stable either on its way down to the ocean or there in the graveyard orbit So that's what we do today We're going to continue to do that But the most exciting thing about the future because you asked me well, what are you going to do that's different? well our New upper stage the Centaur 5 that will go on our Vulcan robot, which is the rocket rather which is over my My left shoulder right now Will actually be a reusable stage in space so that its life is even further extended and you need fewer of them and They're actually off continuing to do work instead of being disposed of either in the ocean or in space So what was going through your mind last month when China's long March 5 the rocket Was making its re-entry and I think everyone not just in the space community was was watching that and I asked that Because that rocket nearly matches the capabilities of the Delta IV heavy Well, I'm going to be direct and I'm going to say that a responsible launch provider does not deliberately perform an uncontrolled re-entry of a stage I Mean, there's just no two ways to talk about this that particular rocket is designed to perform Uncontrolled re-entries in that stage is very large. I mean that's essentially a 10 or 12 story tall metallic structure that as you saw in the news will make it all the way down to the surface of the earth you saw the wide swath of Flight path that that it took that was uncertain where it would be within that giant funnel Air traffic was diverted people were concerned about whether or not it would come down on land and potentially an inhabited area That was a terribly irresponsible thing to do and so as we talk about the future of space traffic control We're going to need to have international agreements on what the appropriate standards of behavior are and how we will all abide by them Yeah, yeah and speaking of those international agreements I mean the international space community hasn't agreed on truly expansive principles since the outer space treaty in 1967 as you know and a significant portion of space activity relies on basically everyone playing nice So I'm curious for you. What is the space community doing well right now and what is it doing poorly? What is it doing well in terms of sustainability and safety? Yes, and basically best practices industry norms You know the kinds of things that there are not necessarily very strict regulations for oh Yes, very good Most players Internationally do the sort of types of things I talked about that we do they deorbit stages when that's possible They take them to the internationally recognized designated graveyard orbit before Several years back. I'll say that Success in getting to that Graveyard orbit was actually pretty limited in the commercial industry at least a third of spacecraft that attempted that were Unsuccessful, but today even the international community and especially Europe Has a very high success rate better than 90 percent of taking the spacecraft Short of its actual life being over as a result of running out of fuel and Reserving that fuel essentially shortening the life shortening the revenues to reliably get to that graveyard orbit We also cooperate on where all of that is where they designated graveyard orbit resides We cooperate on tracking of objects in space So all of that is being done well and by and large most of the space-faring countries work very hard to be responsible So that's the goodness. You also ask me. What can we do better? well, we need to include China and newer players who are putting now large amount or large quantities of spacecraft into orbit that In previous years they had not been to that degree In all of these agreements because it's a global commons Your spacecraft does not only stay over your country It orbits the entire earth and everything that we do affects one another and we need to have more comprehensive agreements on standards of self, you know safe behavior Because it's just like being on the highway when you're out on the road driving around if you stop to think about How dangerous this would be if we all didn't stay in our lanes and we all didn't agree on on the on the Rules of the road and how we'll all behave. Well, it's even worse in space The velocities are unimaginably fast and if you get an offender bender You don't both pull over to the side of the road and stop you stay on the highway for months for years for the outer orbits even for thousands of years so These standards need to be more defined more comprehensive and we all have to agree Yeah, and that's a great analogy, but I think you've described what driving is like in New Jersey where I'm from Sounds just like that So speaking of China NASA administrator Bill Nelson just congratulated China on its launch of crew to its space station Do you think the the United States should should become more involved with them in the way that they haven't been before obviously because of policy Rules in place, you know, especially as China becomes and other countries and private companies become way more active in earth orbit than ever before What should the country be doing our country? Yeah, absolutely, you know space has been Traditionally a place where even countries that were competing with one another Such as the United States in the Soviet Union could go and have peaceful cooperation With one another and build understanding and build trust so absolutely And I also congratulate China on a tremendous accomplishment in what is planned to be a very long duration mission for their astronauts That is absolutely wonderful and I join the administrator in hoping For future, you know peaceful cooperation in space. Absolutely So you LA is preparing for an Atlas 5 launch soon that will put a satellite into orbit for the space force Recently you decided to delay that launch because of some technical concerns So I'm wondering if you can give an update on the investigation into the issue and when you might expect to fly Yeah, absolutely, so you are referring to an observation we had on our upper stage engine the RL 10 and You know, you would want to view this sort of in the context of our record You know, we are now at 144 launches a hundred percent mission success We specialize in the most difficult complex most critical missions And we have a whole mission success culture that's built around that So when we look at the cybers Geo 5 mission where that you saw that observation the engine performed beautifully We hit an absolute bullseye in the insertion of that satellite But we also saw something we didn't understand and didn't expect to happen This was the first flight of an extension onto the nozzle of the RL 10 And so the the job of that nozzle is to expand the gases coming out of the engine's combustion chamber All the way down as close to the outside conditions as possible, which in this case is vacuum So by having a longer extension we get more expansion We get just a little bit more performance out of what is already an eye-wateringly high performing engine But that extension that we bolted on was made out of carbon was ringing And you can see it in the live feed video if you watch it This sort of ball shape happening that's large enough in amplitude to be visible to the eye It occurred at about 23 Hertz and on the back end of a rocket There is so much energy happening that anything in that frequency range of something like that that can oscillate will be Will be stimulated and it will oscillate as we saw So what we're doing right now is really taking the time to fully understand that is this something that Is harmless and we can live with is it something that we want to eliminate by stiffening that extension of the nozzle And do we know what frequency to stiffen it to do are we sure we fully understand everything? That's happening on the back end of the rocket. That's what we're doing We're getting a very good progress on our on our analysis We think we're on a pretty good path to understanding this and putting together a relatively straightforward fix We don't need that nozzle extension for several more flights. It's a new thing for the types of missions We normally fly so it'll we will find exactly the right place to insert that corrective action And in the meantime, we'll be flying the older configuration of RL 10 Mm-hmm. Do you have a timeline in mind for when you'd like that correction to be in place? I'd be preparing for lunch well We do and I'm not going to give you a specific mission because it's not firmed up yet So I don't actually know which mission we'll put it on but our Forecast or our projection is it'll be several missions down so it may or may not happen this year In fact, it may likely happen next year When we actually need it and we'll have been fully satisfied that we understand it and if we've decided to make the modification I talked about whether it'll be stiffer or some other corrective action But it'll be several it'll be several missions down before we do whatever it is that we do Thanks for that update. I Want to also go back to your congressional testimony from the other day You know the rapid you said that the rapid increase in the number of satellites in earth orbit over the years could among other complications render the affected orbits unusable for decades and This possibility comes up a lot in my own conversations with orbital Debris experts and I'm wondering if this in your opinion is a short-term future or a long-term future Do you think that in your lifetime at the pace that we are going? There will be certain orbits that actually become unusable Well, my hope is that that doesn't happen However in terms of context in timing You know, it's important. I think to appreciate what's happened We've been talking about orbital debris in needing to manage it in needing to be responsible In potentially needing to remove debris and people even talk about sort of wild scenarios like the Kessler syndrome where you have a cascade of debris And no one has really done a lot about that issue because it's always been tomorrow's problem It's always been several years in the future That's changed We have our first mega constellation in low earth orbit now in the physical density of that shell of spacecraft is much higher than anything we have ever experienced in the past and today we now have to be concerned with space traffic management and In understanding the implications of access to orbit through a shell like that and being very proactive about orbital debris management mitigation We absolutely are going to benefit from this new technology these mega constellations that will take the internet and other services to space We want to have that it is a manageable problem, but it is no longer tomorrow's problem It is here this minute today as you and I are speaking and Can it be Managed this at this moment. What do you think that this space community should be doing differently and industry and especially the FAA in terms of regulating mega constellations. Yeah, I absolutely believe it can be managed There's a handful of things that that need to be done You know the first thing we need to do is to manage the density of the shells We can handle what we have now, but now that we know that There's a need for large numbers of spacecraft in a relatively small volume We're going to have to decide what is acceptable and in set standards and manage to that and potentially regulate that Or provide guidance for that out of FAA So that's the first thing the second thing is we need Precision nearly real-time tracking so that that density is something that doesn't affect our access to space So today when you launch to space for example Or when you decide later that you will drop a satellite off to occupy a specific orbit the space force does Modeling an analysis of the likelihood of having a collision in space And they track objects using a radar system that can see anything. That's about 10 centimeters or four inches or larger And they track all of those objects as continuously as possible And then you don't exactly know where each object is at any instant time There's a certain amount of inaccuracy to that tracking and so you add that additional volume around the object is some Volume you need to avoid so that you're certain you won't have a collision and then we map all of that When we want to go to space one day, you know one afternoon we plot trajectories And then we run to the space force who then does modeling and says okay, that's great You're not going to hit anything or it's not great You know your window is fine But you need to avoid with small portion of time here and this small portion over there Given the number of objects we're talking about the precision needs to shrink those volumes down and The understanding of where they are needs to be almost real time There's a delay right now as they observe and track and understand where it is In order to have continued access like we do today So that's the second thing and then the next big thing we need to do is we need to treat these just like any other spacecraft we need to reserve enough fuel on the spacecraft Shortening its life Effectively in order to do a control dre entry of that spacecraft when it is finished with its mission And just last question for you before you wrap up What do you see is the biggest challenge or what are you most worried about when it comes to this industry your job? ULA in the next couple of years What keeps you up at night? On the one hand, I'm very excited about the end this industry I'm gonna start with the positive This is a great time to be involved in space the industrial base has gone wide There's so many more players and there's new innovations and there's new missions And there's the potential to go back to the moon and even develop this the self-sustaining CIS lunar economy. I like to talk about which you know will take mining and heavy industry Eventually off the earth, which is just a wonderful opportunity for sustainability. So there's all of that and that's all great news Now on the other side Well, we now have have other nations who have brought weapons to space So this isn't another problem we worry about in the future like orbital debris management was kind of always Really a challenge for the future. The same was true with that You know space has always been a peaceful high ground Where we want to go and do commerce and do science and have peaceful international Collaboration and in the militarization of it in terms of anti-satellite weaponry and And in capabilities like that. We're not something that was occurring today Well, I can tell you it is occurring today now and and so it is So much more important that we have these international standards of behavior and that we can do the things We need to do as a nation and as a leader of other nations To maintain the peace in space and to deter especially terrestrial conflicts from extending to space to this global Commons that we all enjoy there and as we talked about in the traffic analogy Once it is damaged it potentially stays damaged for a very very long time. So that issue keeps me awake at night Well, I think that's a good place to end Tori, thank you so much for chatting with me today Thank you to the secure world foundation for having both of us here And thank you of course to everyone watching and joining us today at the summit for space sustainability My pleasure Wow, so thank you so much to Marina and to Tori for that amazingly candid and useful conversation. We're always excited when the commercial industry Really gets engaged on space sustainability. So thank you again for the rest of our audience We are about to go to our break. So we will be away until 1115 When we come back We're gonna have another great panel for you this time on what should be the prime directive of the space force Followed by our brand new keynote with Bavia Law from NASA. So please rejoin us again in just about 30 minutes Thank you