Microsoft director with intelligence background will lead the White Houses space council – The Verge

The White Houses core space policy body will be led by Chirag Parikh, a veteran intelligence official and senior director for Microsofts space-based cloud services, Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Monday. Harris, chair of the National Space Council, tapped the seasoned national security official to lead the councils day-to-day activities as the Biden administration sees global competition mount in space.

Parikhs appointment, coming three months after the White House confirmed Harris would chair its space council, gets the ball rolling for the Biden administrations coordinated priorities in space. Harris aims to put her own personal stamp on the council that could include a heightened focus on cybersecurity for space assets and ways to leverage satellites in Bidens push to fight climate change, senior administration officials said in May.

In 2017, the Trump administration revived the space council, which had been disbanded since 1993, four years after it was formed by George H. W. Bush. Parikh will succeed Trumps space council executive secretary Scott Pace, whose space policy directives sought to craft standards of international behavior in space and retooled an Obama-era space exploration program into a commercial-focused sprint to land humans on the Moon, whats now called the Artemis program.

Parikh served two years as deputy national intelligence officer for science and technology for the US intelligence community, and later led the National Security Councils space policy wing for six years under the Obama administration, when the National Space Council was defunct. Before his appointment to helm Bidens space council operations, he was a senior director for Azure Space, Microsofts cloud platform that links with satellites in space.

Parikhs appointment was welcomed by space analysts, who say his experience leading an array of space-related bureaucracies makes him a good fit for his new role. The space council bundles a number of cabinet-level officials together, from NASA administrator to the director of national intelligence, for quarterly or biannual meetings to discuss civil and international space issues.

He was almost like an interagency coordinator, which is very similar to the role that he will be playing as the executive secretary of the National Space Council, said Victoria Samson, space policy analyst and Washington director for the Secure World Foundation. So hell be bringing years of expertise to do a lot of the same sort of things that hell be doing in his new job.

In the two months before the Biden administration confirmed Harris would helm the space council, it wasnt immediately clear whether the White House would even keep it after the Trump administration. The Obama administration crafted its space policy through the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council under Parikhs space tenure. But the vice presidents commitment to lead the council in May became one of a few rare instances where Bidens White House aligned with Trump-era initiatives.

Biden has embraced NASAs Artemis program, the Trump-branded effort to land humans on the Moon by 2024 and use its surface as a training ground for future missions to Mars. And under Biden, NASA is keeping its preference for commercially focused projects in space, like its Commercial Crew Program which began under Obama and core elements of the Artemis program, which was created under Paces space council.

They certainly have different backgrounds, space policy analyst Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation, said on Pace and Parikhs resumes. It might be the case that Chirag [Parikh] is a little more focused early on in the national security side of space, rather than the civil side, because thats his background ... but the Biden admin as also expressed strong support for the Artemis program, and for Gateway, and for commercial cargo and crew, so I dont expect that to just be ignored.

Continue reading here:

Microsoft director with intelligence background will lead the White Houses space council - The Verge