The Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, will feature several space-related technologies and programs during the 38th Space Symposium at the Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, Colorado, April 17-20,
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AFRL showcases key programs at 2023 Space Symposium
- Published April 10, 2023
- By Justin Hayward
- Air Force Research Laboratory Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFRL) – The
Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, will feature several space-related technologies and programs during the
38th Space Symposium at the Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, Colorado, April 17-20, 2023.
“Our competitors understand that space is critical for U.S. military operations, and they believe the space domain will be pivotal in future conflicts, so they are aggressively pursuing a wide range of capabilities to deny, degrade or destroy U.S. space systems and infrastructure,” said
Dr. Andrew Williams, deputy technology executive officer for Space Science and Technology, or S&T. “We are in a strategic technology competition in the space domain with the PRC and Russia, who are rapidly developing new and greater counterspace capabilities. The Air Force Research Laboratory is executing science and technology efforts across the nation for the U.S. Space Force as one lab supporting two services to develop resilient architectures and increase the cost of aggression.”
Williams will conduct a Q&A session with members of the media April 19, 2023, from 1-1:30 p.m. MT in briefing room A, located in the Columbine Room, on the second floor of Broadmoor Hall, where he will discuss technologies on display at the AFRL exhibit booth.
Williams will also co-host a fireside chat with
Dr. Steven Meier, director, Naval Center for Space Technology, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory or NRL, April 19 from 3:45-4:10 p.m. MT at the Broadmoor International Center. Their discussion will focus on strategic technological competition and the value of collaboration between NRL and AFRL.
AFRL programs
At the Space Symposium, AFRL will highlight a variety of space programs and technologies including Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research Project, or SSPIDR; Hack-A-Sat; Neuromorphic Processing and Sensing; Quantum Microscope; and Tactically Responsive Space Access, or TRSA.
SSPIDR is a series of integrated demonstrations and technology maturation efforts at the AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate to develop space-based solar power collection and transmission capabilities. SSPIDR will demonstrate key technologies that could eliminate the need for costly and dangerous convoys, by providing warfighter energy needs from space.
Since the inception of GPS, it has become a global utility extending beyond military use with air traffic control, banking, farming and cellular networks all depending on uninterrupted GPS coverage.
NTS-3 is the first position, navigation and timing experiment in over 45 years and will demonstrate a more flexible, robust and resilient, satellite navigation architecture.
Hack-A-Sat is a space focused capture-the-flag hacking competition, designed to inspire the world's top cybersecurity talent. Everything, including GPS, financial transactions, air traffic control and beyond, depends on space systems that can be vulnerable to attack. Hack-A-Sat builds a non-traditional community of security researchers, government, industry and academia working together to inform and improve the cyber resilience of ground and in orbit space systems.
Neuromorphic Intelligent Computing Systemsare being developed by AFRL to improve processing power for edge artificial intelligence and machine learning to give operators analytical results, not raw data, to speed wartime decision making. Neuromorphic computing architectures are necessary to achieve advanced and new capabilities in pattern recognition, event reasoning, robust decision making, adaptive learning and autonomous tasking for energy efficient agile Space Force platforms.
The Neuromorphic Camera known as FalconNeuro is an experiment flying on the International Space Station designed and built at the Space Physics and Atmospheric Research Center at the U.S. Air Force Academy. FalconNeuro demonstrates, for the first time, the use of biologically inspired event-based, or neuromorphic cameras for use in space.