Comments on: Tweaking the proposed export control reforms for hosted payloads and suborbital vehicles

By: Malmesbury

Malmesbury — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 10:20:36 +0000

In ITARWorld, the nightmare is the Loral scenario – info on how to fix something ends up helping someone’s military program. Allegedly.

So everything has to go through expensive lawyers.

This is why “Distribution of pressure over model of the upper wing and aileron of a Fokker D-VII airplane, Fairbanks”, A J, NACA, 1927 is no longer on the NTRS server. A lawyer would have to write a brief on why this wouldn’t help the Chinese build better biplane fighters….

By: Stephen C. Smith

Stephen C. Smith — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:29:35 +0000

I have to wonder if this is an attempt by OldSpace to strangle NewSpace in the crib.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:33:46 +0000

NEOSsat has no U.S. components. It’s a Canadian/Indian/German mission, I believe. So U.S. State Department regulations are irrelevant to it. Canada has it’s own controlled technology lists and export controls, however. It would be interesting to understand how those regulations and the constraints engendered by them compare to those of ITAR.

By: Coastal Ron

Coastal Ron — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:37:44 +0000

E.P, Grondine said:

“I did not know about any ITAR issue with info on the F9 engine shutdown.”

When Gwynne Shotwell was asked about the details concerning the engine shutdown at a NASA public briefing, she said that SpaceX had to be careful what it could say because of ITAR.

By: E.P, Grondine

E.P, Grondine — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:23:54 +0000

Hi Hiram –

I did not know about any ITAR issue with info on the F9 engine shutdown.

The heat shielding on manned spacecraft may have uses as heat shielding for ballistic payloads, so I can see the problems there.

What I have been following is the effects on the sale and use of PHO detecting small sats. Due to its search method and algorithms Canada’s NEOSsat will likely not be sold, so while it is not an immediate issue, the same does not hold for other PHO detection small sats.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:46:41 +0000

The impact of ITAR on NewSpace was something I hadn’t completely considered. Putting crewed spacecraft on the munitions list could seriously impact their business plans, and leave NASA as the only game in town for purchase of their products. I do recall that even public issuance of the Payload Users Guides for the suborbital vehicles was being held up by ITAR. I think that Bigelow spent over $1M on ITAR compliance. The recent issue with the Falcon 9 engine shutdown was kept under wraps for several weeks in order to comply with ITAR regulations.

Of course, these same regulations can put more business in the U.S. launch industry. It’s going to be that much harder to buy Long March launches from the Chinese if you have to hand over sensitive technology to them to bolt on top of the rocket. That could be a benefit to commercial space enterprises.