COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo -- New government and industry partnerships can help commercial satellite operators to survive and thrive over economically bumpy times.

Ways to transform government-industry partnerships were addressed here at the 19^th National Space Symposium.

In the satellite industry, its not all bad news, despite a sluggish global economy in 2002, said Richard DalBello, president of the Satellite Industry Association (SIA). The satellite industry continues to make significant progress, he said.

SIA statistics released this week show the commercial satellite industry generated $86.8 billion in revenue in 2002 -- an increase of 10 percent over 2001 industry revenues.

Satellite industry revenues were driven primarily by Direct-To-Home services, which accounted for $42.5 billion, roughly 49 percent of the entire industrys revenues.

For its part, the Bush Administration is working on a set of space-related directives, said Bretton Alexander, Senior Policy Analyst for the White House of Science and Technology Policy.

"We have taken pains to include industry input into the policy process," Alexander said. The overall health partnerships of industry and government ebb and flow over time, he admitted.

Alexander noted that the White House -- perhaps within the next few weeks -- plans to issue a government directive that will greatly influence the commercial remote sensing industry.

Shuttle/space plane

In the space transportation arena, another directive will help sort out major access to space issues, Alexander said.

That directive was 95 percent complete prior to the Columbia tragedy. The accident put work on the space transportation policy on hold, Alexander added.

When released, the White House directive will deal with several key issues. One hot-button issue is the balance between space shuttle upgrades to keep the orbiters flying into the 2015-2020 time frame contrasted to new work -- and new money -- for building NASAs new Orbital Space Plane.

Satellite services

William Ballhaus, Senior Vice President of System Engineering for Boeing Satellite Systems, highlighted dramatic restructuring of the commercial satellite industry to provide new types of services.

Ballhaus said he expects the commercial satellite industry to be on the rebound. More advanced digital signal processing, phased arrays, as well as optical communications technology will further stimulate new markets, he said.

Mission success is clearly top priority, and suppliers for commercial or government satellites must strive to deliver products on time and work as promised, Ballhaus said.

Michael Butler, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer for Inmarsat Ltd., said that government should involve commercial operators much earlier in planning for new satellite systems.

"It takes two to dance," Butler said.

Similar in view was Susan Miller, President of Intelsats Government Solutions Corporation.

Miller also underscored the need for stronger partnerships between industry and government. Furthermore, due to high up-front costs to implement satellite systems and services, greater risk sharing between the two is critical, she said.

For the medium to long term, theres no more dating, Miller said. While marriage may not be required, "lets at least live together," she said.

While the commercial remote sensing business of looking down on Earth is still struggling, things are looking up.

Thats the attitude of Herbert Satterlee, President and Chief Executive Officer for DigitalGlobe.

Satterlee said that their web site is now getting a million hits an hour due to the current Iraqi conflict.

"We still believe the commercial market has tremendous potentialit just takes time," Satterlee said. One way to help stabilize the private remote sensing business is for each -- the government and industry -- to better appreciate each others perspectives.

"We dont understand the government businessand I dont think they understand the commercial business," Satterlee said. "We need to walk in each others shoes for a while," he concluded.