The Pentagon’s Message to Space Startups: Show Us Something That Works – SatNews Publishers

The Pentagon’s Message to Space Startups: Show Us Something That Works  SatNews Publishers

Three Pentagon offices took the MilSat Symposium stage at Silicon Valley Space Week on Wednesday afternoon. Each gave startups the same advice: bring something that works. Space Development Agency Director GP Sandhoo went first. Too many companies arrive with ideas rather than mature technology, he said, and the small-business research awards many of them live on rarely produce winners. In his “30-some-odd years of having done this, it’s probably single digits, the successes that come out of that,” he said of SBIR and STTR programs. For many small companies, he added, those awards have become a lifeline. He pointed to early aviation and the auto industry. Those industries succeeded in spite of government funding, Sandhoo said.

The successful ones build it, show it and then sell it. SDA’s bar is lower than founders might expect: a “C+, B-” demonstration on one or two satellites can be good enough to buy a plane or a tranche. At the Defense Innovation Unit, 90% of contracts go to non-traditional companies, said Maj. Gen. Steven “Bucky” Butow, senior adviser to DIU’s director. But founders need to know where DIU sits. “You need to know who your customer is, and we’re not your customer,” he said. DIU prototypes and validates. The portfolio acquisition executives buy. To get companies across that gap, DIU’s Bridge program offers