91. Building Beyond: Preparing the Army for Lift-Off featuring Dr. Olga Bannova

[Editor’s Note: As longtime readers of the Army’s Mad Scientist Laboratory know, our adversaries are deploying capabilities to fight the U.S. Joint Force through multiple layers of stand-off in all domains – space, cyber, air, sea, and land. Per the Defense Intelligence Agency‘s Challenges to Security in Space 2022: Space Reliance in an Era of Competition and Expansion:

“Between 2019 and 2021 the combined operational space fleets of China and Russia have grown by approximately 70 percent. This recent and continuing expansion follows a period of growth (2015–2018) where China and Russia had increased their combined satellite fleets by more than 200 percent. The drive to modernize and increase capabilities for both countries is reflected in nearly all major space categories—satellite communications (SATCOM), remote sensing, navigation-related, and science and technology demonstration. Since early 2019, competitor space operations have also increased in pace and scope worldwide, China’s and Russia’s counterspace developments continue to mature, global space services proliferate, and orbital congestion has increased.”

Preserving our advantage in the space domain is critical — a contemporary U.S. Army maneuver Brigade Combat Team (BCT) has over 2,500 pieces of equipment dependent on space-based assets for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). This number of dependent systems will only increase as emerging technology on Earth demands increased bandwidth, new orbital infrastructure, niche satellite capabilities, and advanced robotics. Dominance in the space domain is vital to Joint Force and U.S. Army operations.

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, we sit down with Dr. Olga Bannova, Director of the Space Architecture Graduate Program, University of Houston, to discuss designing vehicles and habitats for space, how we can use austere environments here on Earth as proving grounds, and what these environments can teach the U.S. Army. — Enjoy!]

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

Dr. Olga Bannova, conducts research and design studies that address a variety of topics, including: planning analyses for a broad range of space vehicles, habitats, and systems; inflatable hydroponics laboratory and logistic modules; special design influences and requirements for different gravity conditions in space; and habitat concepts for extreme environments on Earth. She is a corresponding member of International Academy of Astronautics, IAC Space and Society Symposiums coordinator, senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a Chair of the AIAA Space Architecture Technical Committee, and an elected member of the ASCE’s Executive Committee on Space Engineering and Construction. She recently received 2019 Outstanding Technical Contribution Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Aerospace Division. Dr. Bannova earned her PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in 2016, and Master in Architecture and M.S. in Space Architecture from the University of Houston in 2001 and 2005. She authored Space Architecture Education for Engineers and Architects (Springer, 2016) and Space Architecture: Human Habitats Beyond Planet Earth (DOM Publ...