Space Policy Pioneers Podcast - Josh Ingersoll
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Andy: Hello, space policy enthusiasts. Welcome to the Space Policy Pioneers Podcast. My name is Andy Williams and I'm the Director of Science in Space, a niche space policy consultancy firm. On this podcast, we'll talk to leading space policy experts and hear their informative and inspirational career stories to help you, the listener, learn about the different career paths in space policy and the skills you need to be successful.
If you enjoy this podcast, please help us by leaving a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform and sign up for more information and career resources at www. scienceinspace.co.uk. One final note before we begin, all guests are talking in their personal capacity and are not [00:01:00] representing any official position of their former or current employing organization.
This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not legal or investment advice.
Josh, currently you are Senior Manager of Regulatory Affairs at Astranis Space Technologies and you had prior experience at Amazon Kuiper first as a Regulatory Engineer and then as a Constellation Policy Manager. So let's start with: what is a Regulatory Engineer? They seem to be two words that don't really go together.
Josh: Yeah, I get that a lot. “What do you actually do?” My family, my wife, everybody. They're getting better, but it does seem pretty nebulous. Especially in the aerospace industry, we're dealing with very high tech products. A lot of complex technology goes into launching and operating satellites.
Being able to communicate effectively with the regulatory bodies that exist both at the U.S. Level, the international level. You need engineers. You need people that have technical acumen on both sides of the conversation. So, within companies, there's regulatory engineers to be able to speak to the compliance of the products being developed by your employer. And then on the other side of the fence, there are Regulatory engineers or RF engineers or technical personnel at the regulators themselves to speak to the other half of that conversation.
So, it's a half technical, half legal and strategic type work. But it's really important to particularly the telecommunications industry. The spectrum, as it were basically the radio frequencies that we were able to use for different purposes to, you know, have this record this podcast like we're doing now to, you know, do voice calls, send data. That's all uses [00:03:00] spectrum if it's going to be transmitted wirelessly.
And That's the same for satellites. So it's really important. It's a limited amount of spectrum available. And there's it's the lifeblood of the ability for these companies to do business. So there's an established framework of rules that we have to comply with.
And so regulatory engineer is, is sort of two part. They understand the system as it is. They know how to comply with the system or the rules as it were, make sure that their satellites are using the right frequencies and are, you know, within the power limits and they're not interfering with, uh, you know, other satellite operators or terrestrial operators, but at the same time they understand sort of their, their companies wishes for how the world could be how the system could be changed. They also do, heads up work to, to advocate, uh, to change the rules so that they could maybe, you know, have more spectrum or [00:04:00] more priority to accomplish what their business is set out to do, whether that be, you know, providing connectivity for internet of things, devices, or direct to cell services or, you know, aviation wifi. There's a smorgasbord of telecommunications applications, and they all have different spectrum allocations.
And we'll get into this in a little bit later, but it's like a very multidisciplinary role: work hand in hand with the systems engineers and the RF engineers that physically own the hardware on one one side. And then the other side, you're working with the legal team both in and outside of your company to craft and draft our filings, how we want to posture our license applications - sort of convince the regulators that what our company wants to do will serve the public good.
And then sort of the third group that before I got into this, I didn't understand this connection, but it’s [00:05:00] very important is the relationship between the public relations team and the regulatory team at many of these commercial space companies because we are business, we are businesses. So you have to you want to control sort of what the public knows about your company and what you're doing. And when you file for license applications or when submit regulatory filings, often those things do become…
Andy: So a license application, you're talking about a license to broadcast the satellite transmissions to a particular area?
Josh: Yes. Yeah, exactly. So a license to communicate like market access in the US or a license to operate a constellation of satellites or to modify what frequencies and powers you want to use. Every single time you, or at least in the U.S. Every single time you submit an application to do these types of things within the U.S. at the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission - those are public. Anybody can go look them up if they [00:06:00] know where to look. So working with the public relations team within your company is also helpful. You know, one of these, the facets of the role. It's, um, it's really interesting.
Andy: It's, so it's primarily a technical job, but you're really working in a regulatory space and essentially trying to make sure the company is meeting all the requirements and is doing the best business that it can.
Josh: Yeah you're the person in the room that understands more of the nitty gritty of how the systems work. Whether that be the payload design, the radio, the telecommunications payload design or the propulsion system on the satellite or how the orbital dynamics work of the space system, you are the person in the room that has to represent that knowledge base or know who on the technical teams you can reach back for to get that expertise and then sort of flow that information and requirements forward to the legal and the PR [00:07:00] subject matter experts.
Andy: Okay. So on, on that note, I mean, you're talking about specific functions at a company. So could you briefly describe what your current company Astranis actually does?
Josh: It's actually, it's really cool. We'll talk near the end of the program about sort of my why. But Astranis is a new space company that's operating micro-GEO spacecraft. For many people that are actively paying attention to the commercial space industry, this may be a bit of a rehash, but over the past 15 years, the small sat revolution, as it's come to be called, is the process of spacecraft getting more capable and smaller, as the technology has matured.
So you have higher energy density batteries, you have smaller, more powerful computers. So it's allowed companies like SpaceX and Planet to create smaller and smaller [00:08:00] spacecraft that have the same amount of capabilities as the older, larger spacecraft. And so what Astranis is able to do is to leverage that new, hardware supply chain that has been developed over the past 15 years to provide telecommunication services from geostationary orbit, not from LEO, like some of the other new constellations, but from geostationary orbit to specific geographic regions across the world.
So instead of like, the traditional GEO operators like Viasat that or Intelsat where they have satellites the size of, you know, school buses that are able to cover a third of the entire globe with their antennas, Astranis is much more focused on individual customers. Um, our spacecraft are an order of magnitude smaller. But they're able to put all of their energy into a specific region of the globe. So we can provide coverage for specifically, the state of Alaska, which is what [00:09:00] our first satellite that launched a few months ago is their main customer is in Alaska. Or in the future we've announced deals to launch a satellite specifically to cover the country of the Philippines, which has never had its own dedicated telecommunications satellite before.
New technology enables a new business case to sort of bridge the digital divide and provide capabilities for people on earth that have never been available before.
Andy: Right, and it is amazing what is happening in the satellite industry now. There's just been so much change. And you mentioned the growth of the LEO constellations which is one of the main areas. So a person that's starting out in the space policy career, would know that one of the big topics is to do with that, the growth of essentially space traffic that's ongoing. Okay. It's not so much of an issue for GEO but certainly in low earth orbit, there's these policy issues concerning space sustainability and orbital [00:10:00] crowding and space debris. But the early career person actually won't hear so much about the issue of spectrum as it's quite a specialized area.
So you've already spoken a little bit about the importance of spectrum. In terms of its fundamentals of allowing satellites to broadcast, but what's the broader the broader regulatory picture here. So you've got in your job profile that you deal with regulatory strategy. What is that and who are the external stakeholders that you're actually dealing with?
Josh: Oh, this is so cool. And honestly, you hit the nail on the head because my first transition from like a systems engineering role to a regulatory engineer, when I moved to project Kuiper at Amazon my, my first interview with my, you know, who would go on to become my manager, was him just making sure I wasn't pulling his leg. Like I actually was interested in regulatory engineering and spectrum management because it is such [00:11:00] a niche topic. Yeah it's a whole very detailed and ever changing world that is a small community within itself that you don't really hear much about it from the outside. You'll get like screenshots of FCC filings that show up on Twitter sometimes, but, the real nitty gritty doesn't really, it's not exciting like some other aspects of the space industry. But for me, it's absolutely fascinating because it's a give and take between industry players, regulators, and like you said, external influencers. So there's an ever changing landscape of regulations. So, At the FCC, one thing we're going through right now is the sort of deployment of 5G internet, which is using spectrum that, historically has also been allocated for satellite telecommunications.
So I'm gonna get nerdy here for a second, but the [00:12:00] band between 27.5 and 28.35 gigahertz. So the uplink section of the KA band, is used by satellites to transmit from their earth stations up to their you know, wherever they're operating their satellites. But that spectrum is also very useful and is allocated for terrestrial 5G.
So, working with in the U.S. Working with people like Verizon or T Mobile or AT&T. These aren't space people, but they're still using the same spectrum that we are. So it's interesting to figure out situations where I'm going to blows with other space companies over coordination, which is the process of making sure we don't interfere with each other, but then, you know, hop off that call and then the next call, get on with the same people and talk about how we can cooperate to make sure that, you know, satellites as a whole can have a the as much spectrum or protections as we can.
Andy: So there's a sort of competition between individual [00:13:00] companies, but then an overall need to coordinate just to ensure that the overall business landscape works for everyone.
Josh: exactly. And it leads to some very interesting relationships because like I said, it's a, it's a small community. So, you could grab lunch with somebody and then a couple hours later, write a scathing comment on their recent filing. So it's important to maintain the difference between personal and professional relationships in this field.
But yeah, no it's, and like I said, I'll actually go into a little bit more detail about what that coordination process looks like because it's the conversations between companies that are very important because we want to make sure that we are following the system as is, like if you if you launch your system or you file for this spectrum rights at this GEO slot or for this constellation at a certain time and you're building it out and then somebody else comes along and wants to use the same spectrum, you [00:14:00] need to make sure that you're coordinating with each other, making sure that you know, either avoid transmitting to the same spots on the earth at the same time using the same frequencies, or you work out with them like, hey, we'll use this polarization in this area, which is just a kind of like sunglasses, the way that the R.F. wave propagates. Whereas you could use the other polarization in this location. You wanna make sure you're both able to achieve your business goal, but at the same time, if you're the person that has priority, you're the person who staked out the claim first in the line that you're able to, protect that claim, right?
Andy: So, just to understand, sorry, this this process of coordination between companies, that's actually part of the regulatory process, right? The Federal Communications Commission asks the companies to do this?
Josh: for the market access to the U. S. [00:15:00] or to basically transmit into the U.S. and serve U.S. customers– It's different between different countries as well– So, there might be different coordination requirements in Canada versus the U.K. versus Germany. But it's important that when you're trying to service a certain market that you abide by the rules and don't burn any bridges, but at the same time, make sure that you're protecting your business case.
So it's important. Then that's another reason that regulatory engineers are so important because they're the people in the room that understand like, hey, if we give up this margin in this negotiation process with this other entity, are we cutting into our ability to close our link and actually, you know, service our customers or are we future proofing this coordination?
Like we're talking about, what the systems look like now, but if the technology progresses and we're launching our generation two satellites or generation three satellites, how does this coordination agreement that we're signing now affect those future [00:16:00] opportunities as well?
Andy: So you have to be aware of the business strategy as well then in this job.
Josh: Yes. Yeah, like I said, and we'll talk about it in a bit - but if the difference between a subsystem engineer and a systems engineer is, sort of consciousness of how the other systems interact together, what those interfaces look like between mechanical and thermal and power and RF the jump from a systems engineer to this regulatory or business case is another step up where you understand how the technical interacts with the regulatory, which interacts with the business, which interacts with the political. It's, it's a lot.
Andy: Okay. Thanks. Yeah. So let's get really specific and, for the space policy enthusiasts or the future regulatory engineers that might be listening, what does a typical day look like for you? What do you do when you switch on your computer in your mobile office or walk into your actual office, what tasks are you doing?
Josh: It's [00:17:00] honestly, this is the reason that I love my job so much is because it is so different every day. For the past 20 minutes of listening, I've gone over just about everything as far as aspects of a space system and that plays a part in my everyday life.
I will say though, if you're interested in going in this specific direction there's one program that everybody uses, like, and it's used because everybody uses it, which is a program called Visualyse. And if you go on to like job descriptions for regulatory engineers or spectrum manager and it's always going to pop up as one of the technical skills that they are looking for.
And it's a program that has free demos and tutorials available online. But it's a simulation program that does all of these radio frequency interference calculations. So like satellite A on the GEO arc is right next to satellite B and they're both transmitting to an Earth station that's at the same location on Earth. What does that interference look like? If they're at specific, like at the same frequency, [00:18:00] It's a software program that will do all those calculations. So it's it's a lot less of like hard coding language, like, you know, python or C++ and it's a lot more of sort of simulation building. So you need to be able to model these systems. So I highly recommend Visualyse.
Andy: okay, excellent. Is that something that you would be taught that in a undergraduate or graduate engineering program? Or is it something that you really have to pick up on the job?
Josh: It's so and then this is a plug for a specific. There's an undergrad spectrum policy lab - it's one of the only ones in the world - that's hosted at Olin College of Engineering in New England, and they have a class that includes Visualyse. But beyond that, most typical undergrad aerospace engineering courses will cover the equations and the math behind what Visualyse does, but it's definitely something you're going to have to seek out on your own in most cases.
Andy: Okay. So that is a pro tip for anyone [00:19:00] listening who wants to get in this. To get ahead, go and look at this Visualyse software. There's a strong technical component to this role. And you have Bachelor in Science and a Master's of science in aeronautical engineering, but you've also done an MA in science and technology policy and also an MBA, which I think was at the same time, right?
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy: yeah. So, are those additional degrees necessary for your current role? The reason why I'm asking this is that often when I'm mentoring or coaching space policy people, I'm often asked by technically focused people about getting into policy roles and they think and they ask should I do an additional degree like a master's degree in policy or a law degree.
Josh: It's, um, and honestly I get the same questions a lot. And one thing that I've told people is that it's harder to move from non-technical into [00:20:00] technical as it is the other way around. So for me, particularly, I went back to school just during the height of the pandemic. When I had a bunch more time on my hands, I reached out to my mentors and Was able to find an opportunity where it wasn't going to cost me a ton out of pocket to go back to school.
I knew I wanted to move in the policy direction. And, George Washington University has a phenomenal space policy program. So I started up that program started to learn some of the buzzwords specifically in my first semester. There was a great lecture on spectrum management. And when I interviewed at Amazon for a regulatory engineering role, I knew enough to talk the talk through the interview and leaned on my technical background to, eventually land the job and learn during my 9 to 5 what a regulatory engineer has to do.
So it was a lot more on the job training after I got just a primer. So I wouldn't say that the whole degree was absolutely necessary. At [00:21:00] that point, I had made the career pivot that I wanted to and wanted and just ended up seeing the program through in the following year and a half.
I wouldn't say it's required, but it definitely accelerated my knowledge because I was able to find overlap between like, Hey, I've got this question at work, right? And I have this paper that I have to write for my M.A. program, like a hop on a call with both my manager and my professor and try to find some common ground on what I could write about or what topic I could go study.
So it's Yeah, definitely not 100 percent necessary, but if you have a solid technical core, it can take you a long way. It's more so just figuring out who are the main players in the arena currently. So you're, if you're listening to this, you're, you know, moving in the right direction.
And figuring out what their are trying to What problems they're solving and how you can apply your technical background to those problems. I would say it's not a hundred percent necessary. But it definitely, if you end up finding a situation where you have the [00:22:00] time and the financial resources it can be worth it.
Andy: yeah, I think that's pretty consistent with my experience. So in general, you're more. More easily able to pick up the sort of policy and regulatory details from a technical background than going the other way. Now, I think there's some exceptions like I think certain legal aspects. I mean, you really have to have a law degree to know the details, but, uh, yeah, I think a lot of kind of general policy roles or general management roles, you don't necessarily need to have another degree. But of course, I think there's other advantages, right, of doing a master's in that you. You have to go through a year of commitment and this kind of accelerates your own sort of personal motivation and commitment and it puts you in an environment with lots of different people, a kind of supercharged networking. As well. So there's some pros and cons.
Josh: exactly.
Andy: So [00:23:00] where could this type of career path that you're on take you in the future? So what are some typical career moves that spectrum management role could take?
Josh: So there's a bunch of different flavors and my previous director at project Kuiper gave me a bit of great advice on this. And she advocated that every person in the commercial space industry should work for one of three different roles within their lifetime. They should work for, as a civil servant for the government on the regulatory side, uh, they should work at a startup. And they should work for a large organization, like one of the primes that they have the capital to go out and change the regulatory landscape.
So she caveated that advice by saying, don't go to the startup until I'm gone. But I obviously did not not abide by that. So I apologize, Julie. But yeah, so there's a bunch of different flavors of job you can work. Like I said at a [00:24:00] large firm, like a Lockheed or a or a Northrop or a Boeing there's roles at startups, let's see Lynk Global. There's a few other, telecommunications startups out there. And then, on the public side there's a ton of different agencies within and this is a little bit us focused here with these examples. But the FCC just stood up its own Space Bureau that is going to be handling a lot of these issues.
So there's opportunities to use your technical acumen to provide the regulator with a ton of insight as to how these systems are operating and how they possibly could be regulated or self regulate in the future. And then beyond that on the more policy focused side, the office of space commerce in D.C. Nasa's office of technology, policy and strategy. And then at the White House, the office of science and technology policy. So it's fun acronyms are great. O. T. P. S. And O. S. T. P. But there's, a ton of opportunities on the government side.
And then the third sort of opportunity that is not as [00:25:00] transparent to those that aren't already working in the industry is there's a lot of opportunities at Law firms to be the technical resources or subject matter experts within these firms that work with all of these different players. Hogan Lovells, uh, DLA Piper among a few others in the DC area hire engineers to supply their lawyers with the same type of, you know, technical insight.
And then, that's only jobs at the specific crossroads between regulatory policy and technical engineering work. One of the cool things about this type of role is if you really find that either one, one half or the other of the job is what you really are motivated by and you want to Shift your focus towards that. There's a ton of examples in my sort of professional circles of people doing just that.
So you can, you know, go back to being an RF engineer or you could, push to be more, regulatory strategy or, you know, policy analysts so there's, you [00:26:00] can, there's a slider, basically this role is right near the middle and you're able to push it in either direction.
Andy: Yes, that's a really nice sketch of some of the different options there. And yeah, I think this is a question that people ask that, okay, they want to get into a policy role, and they assume that the natural path is to go and work straight for the civil service. But in reality, and I think what you've just touched on is that in regulation and policy, it's absolutely critical that it's informed by proper technical and engineering details. So if you have solid experience of working in an industry really at the cutting edge of those technical details, then you're often in a much better position than the civil servants to be able to work on a specific regulatory topic. So I think that [00:27:00] going through industry is also a really excellent choice for any space policy enthusiast.
Josh: Yeah, a hundred percent.
Andy: So for the space policy or spectrum policy enthusiast listening what are some of the specific, let's say formal or informal steps that they could take to get into your field?
Josh: cool. And I'm going to be running through a bunch of different opportunities and programs here. And so if you're listening now take this time to get out your notes app or pen and paper, or, just pause as frequently as you need to. But formally, like I said, there's a few, there's a sprinkling of different programs across a bunch of different institutions.
And I'm speaking to my experience here. So again, this tends to be a bit US centric. But like I said, the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in DC, a phenomenal program. Of all of the opportunities I'll talk about it's probably the most condensed as far as that supercharged networking that you mentioned earlier. The [00:28:00] alumni of that program are all over the industry, and they interact a ton with the current students.
And then beyond that, if you're trying to balance the debate between going to graduate school for a technical field or a policy field, if you are like me and end up doing both, there's a optimized way to do that through the technology policy program through M.I.T. where you get a master's in tech policy as well as a master's in aerospace engineering at the same time. And many of the classes there are that exact like crossroads. It's a technical homework, technical lectures, but talking about the policy implications of the projects you're working on.
And then, a few smaller labs, like I mentioned earlier the Olin College of Engineering has a full undergraduate spectrum lab. They're producing some of the best the most qualified undergraduate students in the country for this specific topic having worked with a ton of them and seeing them present papers at SmallSat which is a conference over the summer, or just coming across them[00:29:00] in a bunch of different venues. They are that program is probably the quickest way to, to get your feet wet in this field.
And then beyond that Dr. Mario Borowitz Borowitz, a big mentor of mine started up a space policy lab within Georgia Tech and that was actually my first interaction with what even. Space policy is. And always have to give her a plug as far as the work that she's doing down in Atlanta. And then, like I mentioned earlier Visualyse tutorials are free online. The demo version of the program is free. And beyond that, like it's any sort of programming that you're doing a during university, definitely pay attention to it.
Pick up Python if you can. MatLab. And bonus points. If you're able to take a couple classes within you know, the applications of those languages in cloud computing or AI integrations, that's where a lot of the hard tech innovation is coming from. And in my day to day. How to [00:30:00] take these sort of simulations, these regulatory equations and limits and scale, scale them up by running them on in cloud compute or having machine learning take the wheel a little bit and make some of these decisions or provide recommendations based off precedent.
So formally, that's a lot of tools to add to your belt, but on more of the informal side the biggest organization and the, you know, sort of lowest barrier to entry if you're interested in learning more about this topic or starting to collaborate with other young people on these topics of, space traffic management human space flight regulations, basically everything across the spectrum of space policy, the Space Generation Advisory Council is a phenomenal organization. It's known as SGAC SpaceGeneration.org. I have tons of friends that went to engineering for undergrad, but during their free time, they volunteered in the tech policy group through SGAC [00:31:00]
And that allowed them to get in touch with who the regulators are, who are the company is really doing heads up work and technology policy advocacy. So can't recommend working with SGAC enough.
And then beyond that one of the pieces of advice that I give to a lot of mentees is you spend the first 21 years of your education is getting caught up on everything that has been done before by academics prior to you and you're sort of missing that industry specific knowledge when you try to, make the jump into the workforce. Keeping up to date with just get on social media, figure out who's being vocal, who's providing a lot of thought leadership in the areas that you're interested in you know.
Polaris by Payload. Payload is a newer space news company and they have a specific space policy newsletter called Polaris: great 5-10 minute read every morning. Highly recommend.
And beyond that, if you're [00:32:00] looking for, what labs are working on, what I'm interested in, what companies are working on, what I'm interested in, Google Scholar is your best friend. Academics get catch a lot of flack for stuffing their titles with too many buzzwords, but those buzzwords make it really easy to figure out who's studying what. And you can pinpoint like, oh, this person Dr. Jah just published this paper and he has a Twitter account. And then you're able to keep up to date with what. Who he is following or who he's talking to and get acclimated that way.
Andy: Yeah, so that those are some really excellent points there, Josh, thanks for spelling that out so clearly. And yeah, I think the use of social media as a way to immerse yourself into a sector. I mean, this is something that is, it's never been easier to do. So if I reflect when I first graduated, which was, you know, now 2002, it basically didn't exist. So the only way you could learn was to read magazines or find people to talk to. But now, you can just sit at home and learn really about all the [00:33:00] details to a great extent of what's going on in many companies. Do you have any tips for early career people in terms of engaging on LinkedIn, for example?
Josh: Yeah. I mean, one of the best things that I feel like, especially students and young professionals don't do enough is just put yourself out there. If you see an alumni, that's a alumni of your school that has basically your dream job or what you think might be your dream job. Definitely send them a message and be like, Hey, I'm a current student would love to learn more about your day to day. And those types of conversations are how you calibrate what you might be interested in doing or you might end up making friends or mentors for a lifetime out of these types of conversations.
I would say, you know, just put yourself out there. Feel free to reach out to people that you could possibly learn from. And definitely leverage the opportunities that you may have as a student or young professional. A lot of conferences provide discounts for those [00:34:00] people of those demographics. So make the most of it.
Andy: Yeah, absolutely. Excellent advice. So we're coming to the end of our time. Let's end with a deep question. So, we're all just working on a little tiny part of the overall space economy. You know, just one single company, like one single role. But what do you see as the big picture? What's your strategic direction or, you know, the sector's strategic direction?
Josh: Sure. I often run into people that quote unquote have the space bug like they've known they've always wanted to work in this industry. They've just found it. It's spoken to them like nothing else has. And I definitely belong to that category of people as well. But my nuance to that space bug is specifically the telecommunications aspects of it.
I grew up in a very small town in upstate New York. More cows than people. No stoplights. Where, everybody in town [00:35:00] only had one internet provider. And if the internet went out, the internet went out. If the internet was slow, the internet was slow. You didn't have any choice. And that was exacerbated by the pandemic when they had to bring in mobile wifi transmitters on school buses and students had to sit in the parking lot just to access classes.
So I think the pandemic has really shown us how important internet connectivity is to our modern day education system. And so being able to use technology that inspires me to my core, such as, space systems to close that digital divide and impact communities like the one that I grew up in is just very, very Important to me.
And if you look back on my, you know, my different experiences that I've had, working for one web and project Kuiper and now Astranis, that goal of closing the digital divide through the application of space assets is, my bottom line. And so I'm very happy [00:36:00] to work in a role where I can shape policy and enable new business cases to achieve that overall goal.
Andy: Thanks, Josh. That was an amazingly inspirational answer and yeah, really big “why” of why you're here. So thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you so much for sharing your time. I think it's going to be really useful to all the early career and space policy enthusiasts that are listening. So thank you very much.
Josh: Thank you so much for having me, Andy.
Andy: We hope you've been inspired by our journey through Space Policy Careers on the Space Policy Pioneers podcast. If you are passionate about carving your path in the cosmos, don't miss out. Head over to www.scienceinspace.co uk to explore our exclusive space policy career coaching services and supercharge your career today.[00:37:00]
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[00:38:00]
Podcast Show notes
Title: Spectrum Management and Regulatory Engineering with Josh Ingersoll.
Bio: Our guest today is Josh Ingersoll. Josh currently serves as a Senior Manager of Regulatory Affairs at Astranis in Washington, DC. He is a self-described space nerd with a passion for two things: space system operations and walking the fine line between technical design and business/policy strategy.
Episode Summary: In this episode of the Space Policy Pioneers Podcast, host Andy Williams speaks with Josh Ingersoll, a Senior Manager of Regulatory Affairs at Astranis Space Technologies. The discussion focuses on the role of a regulatory engineer and a spectrum management expert in the space industry. Josh also shares insights about necessary skills and relevant tools like Visualize software, the interaction between engineers and regulatory bodies, regulatory strategy, and the importance of technical knowledge in policy roles. He further discusses possible career paths, including opportunities in the public, private and law sectors.
Disclaimer: All guests are talking in their personal capacity and are not representing any official position of their former or current employing organization.
Episode guide
00:05 Introduction to the Space Policy Pioneers Podcast
01:34 Understanding the Role of a Regulatory Engineer
02:40 The Importance of Spectrum in the Aerospace Industry
03:18 The Role of Regulatory Engineers in Satellite Communications
04:52 The Intersection of Regulatory Engineering and Public Relations
05:24 Understanding License Applications in Satellite Communications
06:09 The Role of Regulatory Engineers in Company Strategy
07:15 The Work of Astranis Space Technologies
10:10 The Impact of Spectrum on the Satellite Industry
10:22 The Role of Regulatory Strategy in Spectrum Management
16:40 The Day-to-Day Life of a Regulatory Engineer
17:13 The Importance of Technical Skills in Regulatory Engineering
19:08 The Role of Education in a Regulatory Engineering Career
22:58 Career Paths in Spectrum Management
27:22 The Importance of Networking in the Space Industry
34:10 The Big Picture: The Future of the Space Economy
Links and Resources
Visualyse software: https://www.transfinite.com
https://www.transfinite.com/content/downloadsvisualyse.
Spectrum Policy Lab: Olin College https://www.osstp.org
George Washington university space policy institute: https://spi.elliott.gwu.edu
Georgia tech space lab: https://www.cstar.gatech.edu
Mariel Borowitz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marielborowitz?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
MIT Technology policy program: https://tpp.mit.edu
Space Generation Advisory Council https://spacegeneration.org
Polaris news letter https://payloadspace.com
Space Companies
Astranis: https://www.astranis.com
Amazon Kuiper: https://www.aboutamazon.com/what-we-do/devices-services/project-kuiper
Kuiper Jobs: https://amazon.jobs/content/en/teams/devices-services/project-kuiper
ViaSat: https://www.viasat.com/
Boeing: https://www.boeing.com/
Northrop Grumman: https://www.northropgrumman.com/
Link Global: https://lynk.world/
SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/
Planet: https://www.planet.com/
Law firms servicing the space sector
Hogan Lovells https://www.hoganlovells.com/
DLA Piper: https://www.dlapiper.com/
US Government bodies involved in space policy
FCC space bureau: https://www.fcc.gov/space
NASA office of science and technology policy https://www.nasa.gov/otps/otps-about-us/
Office of Space Commerce https://www.space.commerce.gov
White House Office of science and technology policy https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/
Not mentioned by Josh, but for completeness
National Space Council: https://www.whitehouse.gov/spacecouncil/
Space Force: https://www.spaceforce.mil/
NOAA: https://www.noaa.gov/
Additional Resources:
Overview of US space regulatory landscape: https://spacelaws.com/articles/space-licensing-in-the-united-states/
European Space Policy Institute report https://www.espi.or.at/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ESPI-Space-Spectrum-Policy-Report-1-1.pdf
ITU guidebook: https://www.itu.int/hub/2023/10/itus-handbook-on-small-satellites-advancing-the-global-satellite-industry/
