Designing space systems for the AI era.

Jason Roberson: Yeah, it used to be government-led, huge manufacturing. And recently, we did more industrialization and commercial scaling. But, you know, when we look back at the beginning or even in the '90s, it was more like 90% was government. Well, we've really flipped that. And now presently, we're going through digitalization. And I think I said this last time that, you know, your new space companies that are starting up, they're born digital. And they really get attention from the major players, you know, to see how quickly people can move in a digital world.

Maria Varmazis: Welcome! I'm Maria Varmazis, and you're listening to T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing. In this show, we examine the evolution of cybersecurity in the global and orbital infrastructure that powers, protects, and connects our lives. Hello, and thank you for joining me. Today's show is an interview with Jason Roberson of Dassault Systèmes, where he walks me through how satellite design and manufacturing are evolving, while we see record-breaking space launches and activity year after year. And that maintenance bit is especially relevant for our cybersecurity focus, as satellite maintenance is still mostly done remote via software. Yeah, makes sense, right? It's kind of air-gapped up there on orbit. So what does everyone's favorite phrase "secure by design" actually mean in the space context, where security is often addressed after everything's just about already built? And as we talked about in last week's show, as the space supply chain becomes increasingly international and dependent on cloud connectivity, how will satellite makers navigate all of this securely? Good questions. Let's ask Jason. Jason, it is so good to see you again. Thank you so much for coming back on T-Minus.

Jason Roberson: Yeah, thanks for the invite. It's always a pleasure to see you guys.

Maria Varmazis: It's been a little while since we last chatted, so if you don't mind reintroducing yourself to the audience, tell me a bit about yourself.

Jason Roberson: Well, thank you for that. Yes, so I've spent 25 years with the Air Force in the space program. Whenever I finished that in 2021, I did some consulting for a while, and then found my way to Dassault Systèmes in December of 2021 and have been on an adventure with them since. Totally jumped in with what we bring to many industries on virtual twins and digitalization, and it's just been a great adventure with Dassault that continues to -- continues to march forward.

Maria Varmazis: So, for our chat today, I wanted to dive into sort of, I guess, the latest satellite design and maintenance, but picking your brain a little bit as we talk about building and security concerns, and making sure that, you know, secure by design is part of that process, especially now that our show is focusing much more on space cyber. I guess I wanted to just pick your brain a little bit on how that all makes sense to you and what your thoughts are on that. So I don't know -- not a killer opening question, but I'm just curious what that sparks for you.

Jason Roberson: Yeah, it's -- well, you know, design has been a challenge since, you know, we first started doing this, you know, 60-something years ago. And I would say maintenance is still a challenge for -- you know, we don't really have a full in-space maintenance capability. It's all remotely done with software now, which has a whole cyber aspect to it as that moves forward. But the population growth in space, of kit space is impressive. The Space Foundation's report that came out for 2024 showed a -- over 60% increase in the amount of vehicles launched between '24 and '25. So those all had to be manufactured. So we're seeing this huge boom in manufacturing. So we'll probably focus -- I'm seeing a little more on the design and manufacturing aspect because, you know, the maintenance piece isn't quite mature enough yet. But it wasn't just the US market. They highlighted 120 organizations across 37 countries, and that's just outside of SpaceX, you know, when people think about who's throwing things into space and booming, well, people think of SpaceX. So that's outside of SpaceX. And the drivers are large LEO constellations. There's still the bespoke systems like, you know, James Webb telescope and moon landers, and then there's a lot of smaller batch custom systems that are coming from startups and smaller companies and even large companies building, you know, custom mission sets. But the way we design has changed, and the way we manufacture has changed. You know, it used to be government-led, huge manufacturing, and recently, we did more industrialization and commercial scaling. And -- oh, and by the way, on those statistics from Space Foundation, 90% of that was commercial. You know, when we look back at the beginning or even in the '90s, it was more like 90% was government. Well, we've really flipped that. And now presently, we're going through digitalization. And I think I said this last time that, you know, your new space companies that are starting up, they're born digital. So I think they have a huge advantage in the market to move fast. And they really get attention from the major players, your OEMs, like, you know, Northrops and Lockheeds and even SpaceX, noticing how quickly people can move in a digital world. So then, of course, AI is huge. I think last time we spoke, AI was a topic, but it wasn't a forefront topic. It wasn't just at all of our fingertips. So there are capabilities that have existed for design, you know, since CAD was invented, computer-aided drafting was invented, but now you put the AI layer into that and create a digital thread across your whole product lifecycle. So really, you can go from the "drawing board" to in-space operations and end of mission all in the virtual world and see your whole mission play out before you have to do the huge investment in building kit. We even have virtual reality-assisted design and manufacturing. So even once you're in the process of doing that manufacturing and really design it for manufacturing and design it for maintenance. So I think at Commercial Space Week, when I walked by your booth, I saw the Orbit Fab CEO was talking to you.

Maria Varmazis: Yes! Yes. Yeah.

Jason Roberson: And, you know, they've got a great -- and they and others are looking at in-space refueling. But a lot of the current systems in space aren't configured for that. They weren't designed for maintenance. They're designed to get software updates, but they're not designed to get more fuel or to get, you know, bolt-ons to have more capability. So I think we're seeing an evolution in that thinking for sure. And then so -- there's so much going on. Yeah.

Maria Varmazis: Yeah. No, Jason, you're absolutely right. When we last chatted, the idea of AI being part of the process was kind of a "That'll be cool when that happens" sort of thing. And I remember a lot of the conversations were like, "We're keeping an eye on it," but we're on the cusp of that happening. And here we are, just a few years later, and the speed at which that has changed is just mind-boggling to me. But I mean, just some of what you were describing, you kind of blew my mind a little bit about the idea of where AI can come in in this process. So tell me more about that.

Jason Roberson: Yeah. Well, it's -- you know, you have your AI in your design process. You can have what we call virtual companions at Dassault Systèmes, so it's -- we have our virtual companion named Leo, who's the engineer. And then we have one called Aura, who's the business expert. And you basically ask them questions or say, "Hey, I'm trying to design this," with Leo, and, you know, he's like a coworker that will help you design this, and even say, "Oh, I see where you're going." This is not just a language model. It is an agentic AI. So it looks at what you're doing, and it anticipates what you're doing. And we're seeing more of that across the industry. But we have definitely, at the core of our capabilities are integrating artificial intelligence. And whenever you bring -- you've got your design, right? And you're bringing it forward to manufacturing. I mentioned design for manufacturing, design for maintenance. And designing for maintenance is a lot more applicable in the areas that we can touch, you know, like, aircraft. And that's applicable to the space industry because you have, like, Dawn Aerospace that's looking at, you know, launching things from a drone that goes up. You've got Virgin Galactic who actually goes to space and comes back. And then, you know, crewed systems can be maintained. There's maintenance involved there because they go up and come back. So there's an aspect there, but, you know, we think of the robots in the future, but there's also a term that I just learned, I think, last year called cobots. So cobots -- yeah, so they're reshaping the factory. So they're really your companion. They're an extension, you know, being a, you know, 25-plus years ingrained of air operations. And me, from a military aspect, I thought, "Okay. I'm thinking about an autonomous wingman or a, you know, a piloted aircraft, but then with a dozen co-pilots that are autonomous that you control." So, in a factory floor, it's very similar. And there's been a boom in robot demand across manufacturing as well. There's been a increase from the -- International Federation of Robotics had a report, and they mentioned the growth significantly increasing. And that it was the highest demand in recent years, going from -- in 10 years, they were -- it more than doubled in the last 10 years, and they had 221,000 units installed from 2014 to -- in 2014, and then in 2024, there were 542,000 robot units installed in factories. And what I found very interesting in that, because space is a global competitive area, that the Asia and Australia market had about 75% of that. So they were really dominating where they were installing robots and cobots into the manufacturing process. And all this is, you know, you can have some AI on-premise when we talk about, you know, the cyber aspect of it. So AI has to -- does computation, as I mentioned, your virtual companion. You tell it what you're working on, and you go home for the evening, you come back the next day, and -- you know, I like to say it's almost like Iron Man or Tony Stark with J.A.R.V.I.S. designing his different Iron Man suits. You know, we're not quite to that point yet, but that's really where AI can take us. But it requires connectivity to these data centers to do this mass processing. And then you've got to be connected to the cloud, and so whenever you get into -- if you're not on-premise and you're not in a closed environment, you do have a cyber aspect that has to be thought about. And we get so excited about these things sometimes. We're just moving forward with these super cool capabilities. You really need a, you know, cybersecurity-minded person to give it a -- give it a look and give that perspective on it as well

Maria Varmazis: Of course! Something to mull over, cybersecurity-minded people, as we go to a quick break. Be right back. [ Music ] We're back now with my interview with Jason Roberson of Dassault Systèmes, jumping back in on the topic of how we secure new capabilities in advanced spacecraft manufacturing and design. And I just -- when you were -- sorry, you were talking about cobots, and I just was thinking of R2-D2. I don't know if that's --

Jason Roberson: Yeah, for sure.

Maria Varmazis: I was just like, "Oh! Are we going to that? Because that's awesome!"

Jason Roberson: So, yeah, R2 is one of my favorites. He's awesome. But, you know, being a GenX or I am, of course, I think of Mr. Data from "Star Trek."

Maria Varmazis: Oh, yeah! I mean, yeah.

Jason Roberson: Who's got a lot more -- a lot more physical capabilities, I guess. But he, yeah, so -- but yeah, it's amazing.

Maria Varmazis: That's the future I've always dreamed of. So I'm just -- I'm just amped as heck to hear that we're taking steps towards that. Sorry, that was completely off topic, but I just had to say that. So going back to the cybersecurity aspect, because we were talking about, you know, design for maintenance, for example, and I'm wondering in sort of the paradigms here, secure by design, where that fits in with all this. Because I mean, all of these incredibly fast-moving components and all the greater amounts of automation going on, things are moving much more quickly. And as you mentioned, we've got to secure that. So tell me about where, you know, secure by design fits in with all this.

Jason Roberson: Well, it has to be -- one of the challenges that I saw in the defense acquisition process was the -- a secure system was often thought about after built. So that was kind of, "Okay. Now let's go back and plug this in now that we've got a system." So I think the secure by design has to be by design, not, "Okay. We received it. It's been thrown over the wall to us. We're going to put it in operations, but now we get passive security requirements." And then each nation has requirements for, you know, defense work on the cloud. You know, we have ITAR and FedRAMP in the US. Other countries have those -- so there are regulations there saying, if you're going to operate in this environment -- in this cloud environment, you have to meet certain standards for it to be controlled, to be secure. And it can be really challenging for the industry because space is international. You know, I don't -- it would be tough to find a wholly designed, built, and operated system that did not touch at least one partner or ally. And every player is international, you know. Even you'll see startups with -- you know, we had the Farnborough Airshow last week, you see startups that one of the local startups here on -- well, they've moved along a bit, but on Space Coast, I saw them. They were at Farnborough. I was like, "Oh! Didn't even know you guys were going to be here," but they're already looking at expanding into international markets. So, yeah, there are regulatory challenges as well as the ones and zeros challenges, and it really takes, you know -- and there has been discussion before about you don't have to be just an aerospace engineer or a rocket scientist to be in the space market. There's really space law. There's space -- there's even psychology aspects in the space market -- space industry. So there's a lot in play. So I'm not a cyber expert, but I'm cyber aware, which I think we all have to be in the space industry from the design aspect. And then, even your virtual companions have to have those parameters for, "This is what I need to operate within," in the digital layer as well.

Maria Varmazis: I really appreciate that, Jason, and hearing your expertise in terms of -- especially the satellite design side of things, I appreciate that you're not a cyber expert on this, because I think what a lot of cyber folks really need to understand is that broader landscape of what's going on, and also what these different systems are doing. Like, that systematic view is so critical because that helps us understand what better needs defending, frankly.

Jason Roberson: Well, thanks. Appreciate that.

Maria Varmazis: Oh, appreciate you, Jason. And I know we're coming up on time, so if there's anything you want to leave our audience with, it's over to you.

Jason Roberson: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. So I think the future success and leading capabilities in space won't be defined by who builds the most hardware, who can just manufacture the most. I think it's going to be who can innovate and collaborate to evolve how we overcome that "space is hard" challenge in this AI-collab -- I'll call it a AI collaborative phase, where leveraging knowledge and know-how that we've built over the last 60 years and combining that with the capabilities we get in the virtual world in order to improve what we're doing in the real world. So there's so much potential to bring -- to have it right first time by leveraging the virtual world so that we can increase the acceleration of the space industry.

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