National Spaceport Simulation Center launches

By Shane Klestinski, Associate Editor

 

World Innovation Network (WIN) officially launched the National Spaceport Simulation Center (SPACE-SIM), as part of WIN’s Space ASTROpreneurial Accelerator (SPACE-BASE) outside the gates of Kennedy Space Center near Titusville, Florida, Jan. 31.

 

According to Robert S. Katz, WIN’s CEO and executive director, WIN is establishing SPACE-SIM with the mission of creating a community focal point where industry, academia and researchers can meet with government to solve challenges relating to spaceport operations to advance and transform those functions to something that resembles airport operations. WIN is partnering with Valiant Air Command on the SPACE-SIM project, which makes its home in an aircraft hangar/multipurpose meeting facility, of which, its testbed will be the centerpiece.

 

Katz explained that its location directly on a spaceport runway provides an experimentation center and a working area where airplanes and rockets can “fly” into the simulation center. Students and researchers can also interact with physical assets, such as rockets, engines or aircraft, simultaneously with an immersive testbed platform that is 42-feet wide and 10-feet tall. While the facility is still under construction, Katz described the launch event as a “pre-ribbon cutting” for the simulation center to present it to the space community, announce its partnership with the National Center for Simulation (NCS), and invite additional collaborators to be part of its launch configuration.

 

Neal Finkelstein, Ph.D.,  chief operating officer for NCS, attended the launch and emphasized the event’s significance in what it represented to multiple lines of business in Florida, empowered by the growing space industry’s impact.

 

“The SPACE-SIM project is a dynamic call to action,” Finkelstein said. “Stakeholders should consider this an invitation to join us in a groundbreaking endeavor and be a part of the exciting future of spaceport operations.”

 

While previously unimagined innovations and the promise of futuristic technology have always characterized space exploration in popular consciousness, tomorrow’s spaceport operations will still require a degree of evolution from its current state, according to Katz.

 

“Right now, if you went over to Cape Canaveral or NASA before launch, on the front end you’d see launchpads and towers, but behind that there’s a whole system of electronics, computers, sensors and scheduling – everything that goes into being able to operate that spaceport,” Katz said. “[However, that operation] hasn’t changed since the shuttle age, or even before.”

 

Katz said that the important thing about how an airport works, is its interoperability in a “plug and play” sense.

 

“You can get on multiple commercial airlines that can use multiple airports and launch out of multiple gates,” Katz said. “You don’t realize that at different airports, various gates and terminals can be managed under completely different management structures, but they all follow the same rules and the same interfaces, so it looks seamless.”

 

Katz cited Newark Airport as an example. One airline owns one particular terminal, the Port Authority owns another terminal, and a collaboration of international airlines owns another – but customers just “walk in and out because it’s all interoperable.”

 

Launch operators and payload providers all seek a higher launch cadence, according to Katz, but they also want the redundancy that would allow easy switching from one spaceport to another, if necessary. He noted that efficiency and redundancy are especially important for Florida due to the possibility of weather impeding operations. Such factors not only affect economic concerns, but defense interests and military operations as well.

 

“It’s really important for Florida’s growth as well as national security because we want to be able to get payloads launched anytime, anywhere, and however we want,” Katz said. “We need the agility to support the Space Force and Guardians’ mission of assured access to space, which SPACE-SIM does.”

 

He noted that Cape Canaveral operates nearly all civilian launches through the Space Force. There may be commercial payloads launching, but the operators of those launches are almost always Space Force, as those payloads can still be important to national security, whether they consist of a weather satellite or an observing satellite that delivers imagery for Google Maps.

 

According to Katz, the center supports – and will be the first implementation of – the “Spaceport of the Future” initiative. He said 12 companies have won Direct to Phase II, Small Business Innovation Research awards, and the next step is to give those companies a physical platform to create the focal point for industry, government, researchers and academia to all come together.

 

“Simultaneously, [SPACE-SIM] also becomes a way to encourage the youth to grab on, come along for the ride, and to inspire them to be the next generation of space explorers,” Katz said. “That’s the other critical mission.”

 

He explained that space exploration can be “a lot of talk” from a child’s perspective, but making the concept more engaging and interactive can help.

 

“[Space] is naturally an immersive environment, and if it’s something they can feel, see, touch, and experiment with, it becomes something that will inspire them to participate in the community and have space-related careers,” Katz said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean STEM. Just like in the gaming world, we need people who are creative, storytellers, communication people, visual people, branding people, policy people – all kinds of people. There’s a place in space for every face.”

 

SPACE-SIM is located outside the gates of any military facility, which can allow for 24-hour, open access for students, international partners and others community members, in a manner that Katz compared to the Central Florida Tech Grove.

 

“Anyone can come and run experiments and events, or participate in integrations and contribute to the initiative,” Katz said. “While it’s not on Cape Canaveral/Patrick Space Force Base, it’s in the commercial spaceport, which is pretty unbelievable. It’s right on the runway of a commercial spaceport. It has all the advantages of having the proximity of the largest spaceport in the world [Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral] yet it’s completely open for… all these communities to come together, especially to support Guardians and their training requirements – while also creating an inspiration point for the youth throughout the entire area.”

 

Katz said that SPACE-SIM’s launch also serves, in part, to connect Florida’s space community with its modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) community in a cross-community collaborative model.

 

“Until recently, space has not been one of the challenge areas the MS&T community has looked at because their plates have been full with aviation, medicine, wargaming and other simulation needs,” Katz said. “[We’d like to now] bring that amazing simulation capacity and capability to the needs of the space sector.”

 

He went on to describe SPACE-SIM in the future as “the glue to synthesize, strategize and synchronize the space and MS&T communities primarily,” but also semiconductors, sensors, smart-cities, cyber and other communities because the problem sets involved in space exploration are so complex.

 

“This is, first and foremost, all about having assured access to space,” Katz said. “However, we’re doing this in a manner that leverages the potential collaboration ‘superpowers’ of all these complementary communities. What [the MS&T community] has created in terms of collaboration with government, industry and academia is mind-boggling, and we don’t want to change it. We want to partner and connect to it.”