Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
Grand Forks, N.D. – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), spoke at the 16th annual Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Summit at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks discussing the synergies between UAS and satellites, the importance of innovation, and the future of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education.
“The United States needs to be in a position to move at the speed of China. Just in the last year, their speed has accelerated. The unique UAS ecosystem which has been developed here in northeastern North Dakota, northwestern Minnesota, and Grand Forks specifically, to include the test site at Grand Sky, the University of North Dakota, and all the other players need to keep up with that speed. And they have,” said Senator Cramer.
Senator Cramer then introduced SpaceX Senior VP Tim Hughes for a fireside chat. During the fireside chat they discussed the shared interests between the commercial space and UAS industries, governmental regulation of those efforts, and reusable space launch technologies.
“In terms of relative efforts to UAS, there is a lot of similarity here,” said Mr. Hughes. “What we’re talking about here with our proliferated [low earth orbit] constellation is a constellation that is readily machined and deployed, so [there are] similarities to UAS. They are low cost, resilient, and highly connected often with overlap in mission sets, but in terms of the desired operational system that has parallels to UAS.”
They also watched the successful SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launch Crew 5 – two American astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and a cosmonaut – to the International Space Station. The launch is the first of three Falcon 9 missions SpaceX has planned in two days.
Following the UAS Summit, Senator Cramer met with the University of North Dakota (UND) President Dr. Andrew Armacost, faculty, and students.
The day wrapped with a tour of the Grand Sky Business and Aviation Park. Senator Cramer and Mr. Hughes observed the airfield operations and the capabilities of the facility and its tenant organizations before meeting with the site managers to discuss future growth and partnership opportunities at Grand Sky Business and Aviation Park.