Col. Ryan Hiserote: bottom line, none of our national security space capabilities get off the ground without System Belt 80. I mean, literally, they don't get off the ground. we're really trying to push the boundaries of and driving down costs and risks for the warfighters so we can deliver capability as responsibly and reliably as possible.

Bill Woolf: Colonel Heizer Oat, thanks for joining us today on the Space Power Podcast.

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Thanks, Bill. It's pleasure to be with you today.

Bill Woolf: And sir, you assumed command of System Delta 80 when it formally stood up in October 2025. For listeners who may not be familiar with how Space Systems Command is organized, can you start by explaining what a System Delta is, what System Delta 80 specific mission covers, and why the Space Force created this organizational structure?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, absolutely. That's question we hear a lot because there's a little confusion out there about what these different named Deltas are. But the way I think about it is a system Delta oversees all the aspects of capability development for a specific mission area. know, mine is launch or what we call space access. And it's really the system Deltas like a one stop shop under a single kernel level commander could be a civilian as well. But and really they're purpose built to accelerate capability delivery. by streamlining decision making and also aligning us with the ops community within our mission area. So within system Delta 80, as I mentioned, our mission area is space access. We have four programs under our portfolio. The first one and most well known is the National Security Space Launch Program, also known as NSSL. And I'm actually dual headed as a program manager for that. So that takes up a lot of my time. And that's when you think of the traditional launch missions or larger rockets delivering our most critical payloads to highly complex orbits. That's NSSL. It's the largest program dollar by dollar value in the Space Force. And then we also have the Rocket Systems Launch Program, RSLP. That's our smaller rockets. Those typically delivers test capabilities or prototypes or even targets for programs like the Missile Defense Agency. Then we have the Launch and Test Range LTRS. So when you think of all the instrumentation assets at both the eastern and western ranges, our team develops the next generation of capabilities for those ranges. And then finally a really exciting new area is servicing mobility and logistics led by Colonel Scott Carstetter in Florida there. So really getting after some next generation capabilities for on-orbit assets.

Bill Woolf: Thank you, sir. Your team manages, as you mentioned, the NSSL program. We've been hearing about the NSSL Phase 3, which introduced something called a dual-lane approach with lane 1 and lane 2. Can you walk us through what that structure is and why the Space Force designed it this way?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, my predecessors who developed this approach is really has an innovative idea here. The dual lane approach gets after flexibility while also ensuring mission success for our most critical payload. So lane one, it allows us to foster competition and in a really rapidly growing launch industry by allowing companies to bid on our less complex and higher risk tolerant missions. And so last year, about this time last year, we added Rocket Lab and Stokes Space as providers. And we're hoping to add a few more here in the very near future. So look for announcements on that soon. And then our Lane 2 missions, those are what you might consider our no-fail missions. Really difficult orbits to achieve, highly complex requirements, and very rigorous certification processes. through that right now with Blue Origin for example to onboard them as a lane 2 provider.

Bill Woolf: Thank you for that. The NSSL program made headlines recently when you moved the GPS 3-8 mission from a ULA Vulcan rocket to a SpaceX Falcon 9, but you also moved a future mission from Falcon Heavy back to Vulcan as part of that swap. What does that kind of flexibility look like from your seat? How do you balance the mission assurance with the need to keep multiple providers viable?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, that's a great question and ultimately our team's top priority is delivering at the speed of need and so for this swap example, we had a GPS 3 spacecraft, the last one, number 10, was already in Florida, ready to go. At the time we were having some issues with the Vulcan vehicle and our warfighting customers were really demanding that we get this asset on orbit as quickly as possible so they could take advantage of the next generation capabilities like MCODE that it provides. So our team executed the swap at the beginning of March and then we were able to turn that in about a month and a half and get the spacecraft on orbit on the Falcon 9. So really when you consider traditional launch times are more like two years to get that done in a month and a is really an incredible achievement and it's the fourth time we've done something like this so super proud of the team. for pulling that off here last week. And I would also, you know, I wouldn't like to add that we're still big believers in Vulcan. There's been a lot written about that recently. And, you know, we we prove that by we're swapping them the USSF 70 mission. So they'll get that in 2028. But we still have a lot of faith in that rocket and we're going to get back to flight soon. It's got really incredible capabilities that the nation needs and we need to execute our our launch manifest. But the swaps really are all about showing our flexibility and willingness to leverage all the options we have available to get assets on orbit as quickly as possible. And we're looking at doing some more swaps. We're not ready to kind of announce those yet, but we should be more soon.

Bill Woolf: Yes, sir. That's great. And we've had several space systems command leaders on this podcast recently. Colonel Klopstein from system Delta 81 who tests systems. Colonel Ashby from system Delta 88 who buys SATCOM. How does this Delta 80 fit into that broader SSC ecosystem? And how do you work with the operational side of the house? The folks at space launch Delta 30 and 45 or the mission partners like NRO and SDA who depend on your launch services.

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, launch is a team sport, right? And partnerships are absolutely crucial to everything we do. I mean, think rockets are really cool and they look awesome when they take off, but they're kind of pointless if there's not a spacecraft on top of them, So we're constantly talking to the satellite program offices to see, you know, when they're going to be ready to go and make sure they're ready to integrate onto our rockets. And we, frankly, we pick the right rocket to put them on. So that's a process that my team runs. There's a lot that goes into selecting the rocket for each satellite. And so we're talking constantly to all the program offices and the SSC and the Space Development Agency and, of course, We talk to the National Reconnaissance Office, Office of Space Launch, on nearly daily and NASA and really everyone in the launch business. On the ops side, know, we're a little bit different in Systems Delta 80 where most of my counterparts are paired directly with a mission delta or multiple mission deltas. We don't have that by name, but we work directly with the 45th and the 30th Space Launch Deltas. Every day I'm co-located with the 45th launch Delta down in Florida. And in many ways, they act as our mission Deltas on the range side of the business. also in System Delta 80, we do ops as well, right? And I myself, I'm a certified mission director. I was a mission director in the last two GPS launches. And we have very rigorous training and ops program within our Delta 2 for day of launch operations as well.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, that's phenomenal. And system Delta 80 has responsibility for what the Space Force calls servicing, mobility, and logistics. Essentially the ability to refuel, repair, or move satellites that are already in orbit. This is a relatively new mission area. Why is on-orbit servicing becoming a priority, and what does success look like for this capability over the next few years?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, it's really, as I said up front, it's a really exciting area that we see growing rapidly over the next few years. It's all about exploring game changing innovations to provide the service and our partners with new options for maneuvering. You know, we want to be able to extend the life of our on-orbit assets, which can help us reduce the number of launches required and the number of satellites we need to buy. But more importantly, we can unlock new tactics for space controls. space superiority missions and all the missions for the service. So we're no longer constrained by gas tanks. you've heard some of my counterparts talk about like if you have a fighter aircraft, you want to be able to fly it as one, right? You don't want to be limited on your fuel tank. And so this is something that General Whiting, the US Space Command commander has talked at length about many times. And recently he's been talking about the need to develop maneuver warfare strategy for the space domain, just like you've we've had for centuries. in the sea and also of course in the air domain. So this is something that we need to be able to think about in space, but it's something that the technology has held us back. And so we're trying to get after that. We have two demos coming up. Hopefully we'll be launching next year. So the first one is for augmented maneuver. We're working with a company called Starfish Space with their Otter satellite. It's able to dock with a larger satellite provide two years of maneuvering services. So if we have a spacecraft that's out of fuel, we can go up and help them move around. We're looking at... a second auditor as well, so we'll have two of them. And then we're also, we have a demo coming up next year to do on-orbit refueling in the GeoBelt. We're working with a company called Astroscale to deliver a prototype refueler to give us around six months of refueling services. And we're always open to new ideas and new technologies, so there's any companies out there that have other great products or services they want to offer us, please reach out and we'd be happy to take them.

Bill Woolf: Speaking of reaching out, I'm sure there's industry partners that are listening to this. as you said, until you experience a space launch and a rocket launch, you don't know the excitement that surrounds it because it's really freaking exciting. So for folks who want to help out, how do they get a hold of you?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: It is. You can reach out directly to me and our team. SML, Service Mobility and Logistics team, know, reach out directly to that team. They've got a great program with the industry. They meet with them regularly to see what new capabilities are out there. You know, and we've got, as I mentioned, for new rocket companies, we put out a call every single year to onboard new providers. We're working through that selection right now. And so the time has passed for this year to onboard but next fall you can look to see the next on-ramp announcement for the following year.

Bill Woolf: speaking of on orbit servicing and that becoming a priority. I remember I was at a space power conference a couple of years ago talking to the key providers and I asked them about on orbit refueling. Are there standardizations that are going to be led out by the space force such that there's going to be standardized docking interfaces for refueling and being able to dock to existing assets?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's something that that's been talked about. Standards for revealing has been talked about for a few years and there's a couple options out there. To my knowledge, the service is not down selected to a single option. We're kind of industry prove out through testing what would be the best approach, know, going kind of best athlete approach. And so we've got some demos coming up and that may help us decide, you know, what would be the best standard to get after.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, thank you for that. I'm sure everyone's wanting to hear more about, you know, the Space Force kind of defining, hey, here's how we're going to do this in the service, which is obviously going to trickle over to commercial. And then the future operating environment that General Saltzman recently put out talks about, hey, we're also going to leverage a lot of commercial capabilities. So your strategy of listening to commercial, how they evolve makes a lot of sense.

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Absolutely. Yeah, when you take a look at the commercial space strategy, was defined in there that the commercial industry partners are going to lead the way in this area. So we're really looking to them to see how they get after this really, really hard problem.

Bill Woolf: And sir, as you look ahead, what is the most important thing you want the Space Force Association community to understand about System Delta 80's role in maintaining U.S. strategic advantage in space?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, what I would say, Bill, is bottom line, none of our national security space capabilities get off the ground without System Belt 80. I mean, literally, they don't get off the ground. And we take that responsibility incredibly serious. And our team exists to provide responsive and reliable space access. That's what we do every single day. And we're incredibly proud of our mission and the incredible heritage in the launch business as a whole. And we're really trying to push the boundaries of and driving down costs and risks for the warfighters so we can deliver capability as responsibly and reliably as possible.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, thank you for that. You know, I was talking to Colonel Zerbinsky a couple of weeks ago about inland space launch and the concept around inland space launch and how exciting that could be. you know, back in the day, having an airport in your city was dangerous. You know, how close are we to having a spaceport in every city or in every state across the U.S. as we face a problem set, almost a traffic jam, and getting capabilities into orbit. What are your thoughts, even from a futurist perspective?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, that would definitely be a futurist perspective. I think as we see, you know, the Falcon vehicle has gotten incredibly reliable. And as if that vehicle or others coming down the pike, we hear projections that things like Starship are going to fly maybe even a thousand times a year. I think once we have, we start talking about rates like that, we can start to see reliability numbers that would allow you to go to more of a... an airport style approach inland because right now, you know, there are other countries out there that do inland and they don't have a problem dropping stages on their own territory or other territories. That's something that our nation has chosen not to do for many great reasons. But I do think, you know, very far on the future we could see inland launch in places around the country once we have the reliability. But we're certainly not there yet. We have plenty of capability at our eastern and western ranges at the Cape and Vandenberg and other locations like Wallops and even Kodiak in Alaska that we do some of our smaller missions at. So it's something that the team is looking at, something that could happen down the ramp.

Bill Woolf: Yeah, thank you for that, sir. For folks who may not know, could you just provide a background, your background, you know, how you got to where you're at in your career, what you kind of went through, probably transitioning from the Air Force into the Space Force? Could you talk just a little bit about that?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, absolutely. I spent about 16 years in the Air Force, bounced around all over the country doing some command and control software and got a couple degrees courtesy of Uncle Sam. I spent some time in the propulsion directorate in the Air Force Research Lab and had a chance to do an internship with one of our launch providers. from the industry side of things and then spent three years down in the 45th Space Wing and the launch squadron down there and that's really where it cut my teeth in the launch business. Went away from there for a few years, did tour with Missile Defense Agency working with the ground-based interceptor program, so a different type of launch vehicle. Was able to build one of their new missile fields up in Alaska, so that was a really amazing experience and then had to go through my Pentagon time and spent some time building the budget for the service and learning a lot about the entire service and direction we're going. And then I kind of got my dream job here back in Florida, back in launch, and just loving what we're doing together as a team every day.

Bill Woolf: Yes sir, talking about ground-based interceptors, did you watch Stick of Dynamite?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: no, no I did not.

Bill Woolf: Well, I was frustrated because the Space Force wasn't represented in there at all, and I think they should have been. To include the U.S. Space Command, would have been great, you know, to the point. It's like, come on, why aren't you including the Space Force in probably the most important mission that we're talking about?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Okay. Yeah, I'll have to check that one out. Sorry, I didn't see that one. Okay.

Bill Woolf: No, sir, you don't have time for that kind of stuff. You're creating national security capabilities with Space Launch. So we understand your calendar is completely full. Sir, is there anything else you want to tell the community just about the importance of Space Launch? What's exciting happening in the Space Launch community and what folks can look out for in the future?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, I think it's just, it's an incredible time to be here. You know, I had about a 10 year gap between when I was in the launch business and coming back and the whole place has changed. I living and working at the Cape every day, it's just, it's amazing. You know, we, think we had 109 launches last year and nearly as many out in Vandenberg and those numbers were just unheard of when I was here before. And, and those numbers are going to continue to climb and we've got some incredible new vehicles that we're bringing online. both coasts with things like the New Glenn vehicle and Starship coming. Really, really excited to be a part of it and having just watched Artemis recently and just being able to kind of be a fly on the wall for that mission and working with our NASA partners. There's really never been a more exciting time to be in the space, maybe since the Apollo days. And I'm just really humbled. be a small part of it.

Bill Woolf: Speaking of infrastructure or the launch capability that's continuing to build out, what are the plans for increased or revitalized infrastructure out at the Cape or at Vandenberg?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, infrastructure is definitely an area that we need to get after to get to these rates that we're seeing. Things like the commodities for fuel, like methane for some of these bigger rockets. Looking at our partners at the Space Launch Deltas are looking at programs for new roads, new pads, expanding ports. all kinds of things that we see as bottlenecks to get to those rates. And another big one we're trying to get after is payload processing facilities. We have projects on both coasts to expand that to give us more processing bays. But we're gonna need more to get to the rates that we need. Congress has been very helpful in giving us some additional funding to get after these projects. But it's something that we're going to have to. And this is led by the Space Launch Delta's 45th and 30th. But I'm there advocating for them side by side because we can't do our mission if they don't have the infrastructure and the range ready to support our missions.

Bill Woolf: Sir, have you been down to Starbase, Texas?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: You know, I've been trying for a couple years and I've had a couple trips canceled at the last minute, so I'm trying really hard to get down there. I know they've got a launch coming up, I think, in May for Starship number 12. So really excited to see that. you know, they're talking about bringing Starship up to Launch Complex 39 on the Cape this year. And so can't wait to watch that.

Bill Woolf: And sir, can you talk a little bit about the process by which a launch vehicle gets certified? from you, you see a demonstration and you go, hey, that's a cool launch capability. And then they go through a process and depending on various steps in the process, they either get approval, FAA approval, and you probably either recommend approval or not. So could you walk through that process just a little bit?

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Yeah, so, so... Going back to our dual lane approach, so for lane one you don't actually have to be certified, you just need to be able to prove that you have a capable vehicle. So we need at least one launch out of a provider for that and then we can bring you on and let you compete for missions for lane one. So it's much simpler from that side of things. For lane two, for our really rigorous missions, we're not looking to on-ramp anyone else onto our current phase of the acquisition, but a few years down the road as we talk about what we'll call phase four for NSSL, we may be adjusting that. for right now, for our three incumbents on lane two, so for example, Blue Origin's going through the process right now. And what that kind of looks like is we have literally teams of rocket scientists and engineers that... for us here in Space Systems Command that go through every facet of the launch vehicle to make sure that it's going to be reliable to our standards here at Space Systems Command for our missions so that ultimately when we do award a vehicle... and we're ready for day launch, we can be sure, absolutely certain that it's going to deliver the capability that we need. And so it just takes time, know, traditionally this certification process takes years and we're just kind of, you know, digging through it right now with Blue and, you know, getting through some of the final certifications for our most complex missions for SpaceX and Vulcan. We're still kind of working on a few of those reference orbits we call them. But yeah, it's just a very long and rigorous process.

Bill Woolf: Sir, phenomenal. Colonel Heiseroth, thank you for walking us through System Delta 80's mission. Greatly appreciate your time. We know how busy you are. And until next time, Semper Supra.

Col. Ryan Hiserote: Thanks Bill, it's been a pleasure.