Mika Mizobuchi, ’24
The fourth speaker for Tufts ALLIES 2020 Civil-Military Relations Conference (CMRC) was Katherine Monson–a former ALLIES member and the Head of KSAT USA at Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT). She held a presentation about her company and the panel’s topic of discussion, “Commercialization of Space and its Security Implications.”
She briefly went over the details of her company, KSAT Inc. which is headquartered in Norway. It has a global network of ground stations and provides ground communication services. Monson explained how the company operates more than 130 full-motion antennas at 21 sites, supports over 1000 satellites, and provides a communication link between aircraft, vehicles, and others. She then discussed the relationship between the commercialization industry, defense agencies, and civil agencies. She used SpaceX and NASA as a prime example of the interdependent relationship between commercial industries and federal agencies. More specifically, she explained how NASA has partnership agreements to provide financial and technical resources to industries, like SpaceX, that will develop reliable and economical new launch vehicles and spacecraft. Furthermore, she argued that as commercial companies are becoming more active in space, regulations set in place will have the opportunity to create a historical precedent. She added that US regulatory bodies have to keep up to understand how to protect national security interests and the US industry as more companies and countries grow their research and security capabilities.