Guy Schumann, CEO and founder of RSS-Hydro, discusses the concept of dual-used space technology and the opportunities and challenges that come with them.
In the space sector, dual-use technology is a technology for both civilian and military use. These technologies designed for one purpose may adapt to another. Examples include satellite navigation systems, satellite imagery, and communications satellites. Allowing technology to be double-use opens up many opportunities, but also comes with a variety of challenges developers must consider.
RSS-Hydro is built on extensive research and development in the fields of Earth Observation (EO) and climate modeling, developing satellites and modeling technologies designed to help authorities and organizations mitigate and manage climate challenges such as floods and fires. Although its application is being developed for private use, the company is considering the possibility of future dual use of some of its products and services. As more and more organizations and space agencies are looking to open missions for dual use, RSS-Hydro has built their recent civic use services, Cedars and Floodpin, with dual use in mind as a future possibility.
The Innovation Platform spoke with Guy Schumann, CEO and founder of RSS-Hydro to explore more about dual-used technologies and the benefits and challenges associated with them.
Can you explain in detail what dual-used space technology is and the possibilities that RSS-Hydro products and services have for dual applications?
I think “double use” could mean different perspectives, but generally it refers to applications developed for civilian use that could also be used for defensive purposes.
Moving into the defence space brings additional considerations to the businesses behind these technologies. They may need to sign a strict contract to meet defense rules. Be aware of the extent to which you can act on projects for defense or dual use, including security, data access, machines, team members, and more. One example is several public satellite missions developed by the military for civilian use, such as the joint development of the Italian military and the Italian government, the cosmosim of the Italian Space Agency. These satellites are controlled under the military, although for civil use. The Canadian Space Agency has a similar satellite mission, the RadarSat-2. It is used for civil protection under military control. These data can be obtained for research and science, but there may be some location limitations due to the military management aspect. For example, Cosmo-skymed provides easy access to information about volcanoes, landslides, floods, and more. However, the military always takes priority in determining where the acquisition will take place.
RSS-Hydro’s projects, Cedars, and its accompanying Floodpin services sit in this area of dual availability. Currently, these contracts are 100% civil, but projects like Cedar are very attractive from that angle, as the European Space Agency (ESA) is likely to move to a future dual-use mission. Cedars is designed to provide a framework for extremely rapid detection and alerting with an “all-in-space” solution. All-in-space means that you don’t have to transfer data to the Earth for processing it and send it as an alert. Instead, everything can be done from space. This saves a lot of time and significantly reduces the amount of information sent. Instead of a lot of data, you can send very lightweight information to the planet, warning of disasters.
RSS-Hydro focuses on flood detection and warnings, while Floodpin is the service angle of Cedars solutions. Essentially, what we send is pins of information for a particular location. In the future, we hope that we can detect and alert flooding to devices on the ground very quickly before it happens. The information doesn’t have to be that accurate, but the warning to authorities is that floods will hit their location in the coming hours.
For me, the biggest concern for getting flood pins to work is that it needs to work not only is our solution, but also the actions that those receiving that data need to take. We want to use our services and projects as a way to educate the European Space Agency and make people realize that we are building something, but we also need to take action afterwards.
How important is double-use technology in the space sector to ensure national security and economic competitiveness?
If you take our work as an example, we focus on floods, fires and disasters that come primarily from nature but are often exacerbated by humans. We live in a very economically important place, but given the current climate crisis and climate signal, it could be a very vulnerable field. If there are large floods that make the area extremely vulnerable, such as the recent floods in Texas, then it becomes a national security issue. The risks arising from floods, fires, earthquakes and related disasters are as much a threat to national security as conflicts. For example, the aftereffects of a hurricane are very similar to those seen following conflict. Communication breakdowns, people who need to be rescued, and even deaths. It is very difficult to take care of such a situation as it requires many people to be evacuated. Additionally, if you don’t have an internet connection or have little connectivity, the technology must work.
It is also a matter of economic viability. How quickly can you recover? What are the disruptions in business during a flood event? What does your company do? Is there sufficient economic stability during the recovery? If we can better detect and warn what is needed in the event of a flood, and build awareness, we can minimize these economic impacts and ensure national security is preserved.
What are the important opportunities that stem from dual use techniques in the field of earth observation?
Earth observations are currently the source of data firefighting. Building services from missions is extremely difficult, as you need to first know what the satellites that store these data in the ground are getting before you create an application from data. Doing this with dual-use technology reveals that you need to use some of the technologies that are normally seen in defense. Most of the technologies currently widely available are attributed to defense. For example, GPS was one of the first technologies originally developed by the US military and made public. The Internet was also first developed as a defense mechanism for having a highly reliable international network, and, as we know, was made publicly available to the public as a public protocol before becoming the Internet.
Now you can argue that there are very good technological advances in the private sector as you are very interested in these technologies, as you can compete with those developed in defense. Earth observation technology is one of these.
The fact that it can handle applications like flood pin services on satellites makes it very attractive to defense as well. I believe that double use is a new era of Earth observation. We now need to decide whether we want to fully commit to dual use, but we consider dual use to be a very important player in the Earth Observation Market.
What are the main challenges surrounding double use technology? And what can companies do to deal with these?
Many challenges come from the concept of sovereignty. For defense, most countries want to have their own satellite missions with their own applications that others should not view or necessarily obtain.
At RSS-Hydro, we develop with sovereignty in mind. We will develop an IT framework that can dockerize applications and separate them from the outside. This means, for example, all countries can apply flood pins on their own. They provide sensitive national data and can be used to build on services.
Sovereignty is one thing, but the company must be careful and may need to restructure a bit to meet the additional restrictions. As I explained before, not everyone can work on a project. You need to ensure that your privacy and intellectual property (IP) is respected. Opening an application for double use is much more difficult. For defense, you are developing for a very specific need for a very specific customer, and that comes with many limitations. For example, if you have an open source server or open source software, you may need to change it. This may not be easy for small companies as it is very expensive.
How can RSS-Hydro be able to use its technology for both commercial and military purposes without compromising security and defense?
Very often, this clear distinction is also determined by the contract. For example, we need to be very careful about IPs that are included in those used for dual purposes, and we may not be able to make it so openly and freely available to anyone. But with that in mind, we developed some of our products and services. For example, if flood pin service becomes dual use, specific versions can be developed using specific inputs and outputs that follow key performance metrics in the defense department. At the same time, we can still apply water pins commercially.
When building for commercials, the advantage over the military is that you can build one application and provide many applications. If you’re lucky, you can make a lot of money on it. When developing a military application, you need to develop it that is unique to one entity. Additionally, more funds are becoming available for dual-use technologies.
Natural disasters such as floods are a major threat to national security. Therefore, I think the fact that we are developing applications for disaster mitigation means that we are already developing applications to protect society and civil security. As a company, we cement the fact that we protect civil society. When protecting military infrastructure, it’s about protecting people, not military assets.
For me, the biggest question right now at our company is, “How sustainable is double use?” If we are to challenge double use completely, we probably need to prepare this towards having another means of developing a better solution. Pivoting completely can be harmful to your business. More funds are available for dual-use technology now, but this could cease in around five years. Still, you need to be prepared to sell your solution more commercially.
This article will also be featured in the 23rd edition of Quarterly Publication.
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