Intelsat General president optimistic about pathfinder program

Kay Sears, the president of Intelsat General, told Inside Defense in an interview last week that she sees "reason for optimism" in the Pentagon's and Capitol Hill's push to consider new ways to purchase commercial satellite services.

The Air Force last year established a five-phased pathfinder program to test and identify new and more affordable ways of buying these services.

"I think these are very promising steps," Sears said, praising the leadership in place at the Air Force and on Capitol Hill.

She noted that the commercial and government worlds are beginning to converge in the space and satellite arena.

"Innovative companies are basically saying space is not just a government domain, space is not going to be a military domain. It's going to be a commercial domain," Sears said. "It's going to be entrepreneurial, and it's going to be a place where companies think they can create new business and new applications."

As a result, "the government is watching this innovation, and they're saying, 'How do we get a piece of that? How do we leverage off that so we don't have to be the ones who are investing?'" she continued.

She said Intelsat is also trying to take advantage of this innovation, investing in antenna technologies and OneWeb, a company that is planning to build a constellation of low earth orbit satellites.

But at the same time, Sears said her company is touting its lengthy experience in the industry.

"A lot of these new space companies -- they're exciting, but they're not experienced," she said.