1 week Ago By Delaney Otto
GRAND FORKS — The University of North Dakota is on the cusp of an educational partnership agreement with the Space Development Agency, a move the SDA's director believes would allow the two to strengthen ties for educational opportunities. SDA Director Derek Tournear said there’s no ink on paper yet, but he and UND President Andy Armacost both expressed interest in signing on the dotted line. ADVERTISEMENT “These agreements can make magic happen for universities,” Armacost said.
Tournear discussed the partnership, as well as SDA’s other activities in the area, during a visit to UND alongside Sen. Kevin Cramer and Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations for the United States Space Force.
The three had been on a tour at the university, as well as at the Grand Forks Air Force Base, on Monday, April 21. They also will be visiting the Cavalier Space Force Station on Tuesday. Cramer, R-North Dakota, and Tournear spoke alongside Armacost during a media availability after the UND tour.
The educational partnership agreement would, Tournear said, allow UND and SDA to interact in multiple ways. UND faculty would be able to go on sabbatical and work for SDA, bringing their experiences back to the university. Students could have internships at SDA, and SDA personnel could have faculty positions at UND and share their experiences.
It would codify the relationship between UND and SDA and the work UND is doing to build out a satellite operation center that would emulate the center SDA has at Grand Forks Air Force Base, Tournear said. The SDA’s Operations Center-North at GFAFB, which Tournear said in a press release has been completed, has been in the works since last year . The center will be fully operational in time to support the first satellites SDA expects to launch later in the summer, Tournear said.
SDA is working on a new acquisition model, called “spiral development.” The idea, he said, is to put up new tranches — or iterations — of satellites "as rapidly as possible" and "test them out." From there, the goal is to continue to put up more, but with newer capabilities, Tournear said.
Cramer said he’s looked back through the years to when he first started bringing space officials to Grand Forks, such as bringing Tournear to UND and the GFAFB, and now there is an operations center at the base and more space research at the university. It was a big shift that happened quickly, he said. ADVERTISEMENT “My job is really easy,” he said.
“I just introduce my friends to my other friends, and they do things together to make a huge difference, not just for this university, not just for the state of North Dakota. (And) not even just for the United States of America, but for the security of the world.” A security concept for the nation, called “Golden Dome,” also was mentioned.
While Tournear said nothing is set in stone yet, some capabilities SDA is working on as part of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture will be included in it. “Everything we’re developing as part of our Tranche 1, Tranche 2, they’re all going to be flown out of Grand Forks Air Force Base,” Tournear said. “Those capabilities will be utilized in some way as part of the whole Golden Dome architecture.
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