The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy launched a national strategy that seeks to facilitate collaboration between government agencies and the private sector to advance the development of in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities, SpaceNews reported Wednesday.
The strategy outlines six goals to promote ISAM capability development: advancing research and development related to ISAM; prioritizing the expansion of scalable infrastructure; accelerating the emerging ISAM commercial industry; promoting international collaboration and cooperation; fostering environmental sustainability; and inspiring the future space workforce.
Each of the strategic goals comes with recommended actions. The expansion of a scalable ISAM infrastructure, for instance, calls for the U.S. government to identify and address gaps in ground-based research facilities to back ISAM development and determine commercial space capabilities to implement for use in ground and space demonstration programs.
Ezinne Uzo-Okoro, assistant director for space policy at OSTP, cited the need for a plan to implement the national ISAM strategy.
“We are looking forward to putting together an implementation plan,” said Uzo-Okoro. “We don’t want a strategy that’s released and forgotten about a week later. We want implementation actions that show we are serious about maturing these capabilities and moving the sector forward.”
The ISAM interagency working group of the White House’s National Science and Technology Council developed the strategy.
