Charles Lyons-Burt
Tony Frazier got into the satellite imagery business in 2010 when he joined GeoEye as a senior vice president, but he’s been a proven quantity within the consulting and government contracting industries for over three decades. He began his career at Bain & Company and has rocketed upward ever since through senior technology and leadership roles at IBM, Cisco and Maxar.
In recognition of his immeasurable impact on the GovCon space, Frazier has been awarded the storied Wash100 Award a staggering six times, most recently in 2023 while he was still with Maxar. Since we last spoke to him, Frazier, who is also a board member at Auria Space and Iridium, was appointed CEO of LeoLabs, a mid-sized provider of orbital intelligence. This intel is gathered via tracking, detection and characterization of space threats.
In his latest Spotlight interview, Frazier discussed the company’s various capabilities, how they’re crucial in a time of increasing congestion in low Earth orbit and how the company is utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning, among other topics.
At Potomac Officers Club’s much-anticipated 2025 GovCon International and Global Defense Summit on Oct. 16, Space Force Chief Science Officer Dr. Stacie Williams will join other experts on a panel entitled “Designing Secure, Interoperable IT for Coalition Space Operations.” Don’t miss this thrilling industry-government collaboration opportunity!
ExecutiveBiz: Tell our audience about the unique offerings LeoLabs provides.
Tony Frazier: LeoLabs delivers the living map of objects and activity in space to safeguard our way of life on Earth. We provide persistent orbital intelligence to military space commands, civil government agencies and commercial operators, enabling them to confidently detect, track, characterize and respond to threats in space.
This intelligence is powered by our Global Radar Network, which tracks nearly 25,000 objects in low Earth orbit to form the largest commercial catalog of its kind. We use artificial intelligence and machine learning-driven analytics and deep in-house astrodynamics expertise to not only track where things are but also assess what they’re doing.
In late 2024, our first Seeker-class ultra-high frequency radar came online in Arizona, and a second is planned to be deployed in INDOPACOM. In April we unveiled Scout, a new radar class designed for mobility, modularity and rapid deployment. We’re continuing to proliferate these radars globally to fill critical coverage gaps. We’re also expanding our business model to include sensor-as-a-service offerings.
Our persistent orbital intelligence gives decision-makers the clarity and confidence they need in an increasingly congested and contested space domain.
EBiz: What do you think are the most pressing national security space threats we face today?
Frazier: The threats we’re seeing today are more complex and advanced than anything we’ve encountered historically. Most concerning is the rapid mobilization of U.S. adversaries, especially China, in LEO. Launches from China are accelerating, and Chinese satellites are increasingly capable of tracking and targeting U.S. military forces and disrupting and degrading U.S. space capabilities.
In the last year, LeoLabs observed what we believe are tests of these capabilities to varying degrees. We recently tracked a series of advanced rendezvous and proximity operations, or RPOs, among five experimental Chinese satellites that were similar to “dogfighting” in aerial warfare. As far as we know, this was the most extensive and aggressive series of RPOs conducted by any nation. These kinds of maneuvers, even experimental ones, pose risks to space assets due to their uncooperative and unpredictable nature.
Russia also poses threats in space—its Cosmos 2553 satellite is widely believed to be equipped with a nuclear “dummy” warhead as part of a program to develop a space-based nuclear weapon. In late 2024, we detected that Cosmos 2553 was tumbling out of control and likely nonoperational. That incident is a great example of how we’re addressing threats by delivering immediate, reliable data and AI-driven analysis on orbital activity.
Adversarial threats exist within the broader context of exponential growth in LEO. Our models estimate as many as 100,000 satellites will be in orbit by 2039. That’s nearly 10 times the number of satellites operating today. We also anticipate another record setting year for launches in 2026. That level of congestion is unprecedented. It both increases the risk of disastrous collisions and creates space for nefarious activity to occur undetected. That’s why our team is dedicated to tracking and analyzing all objects and activity in LEO.
EBiz: How does LeoLabs apply AI and machine learning throughout your technology stack to deliver value for customers?
Frazier: AI and ML are integral to many aspects of LeoLabs’ mission, especially as a critical tool to analyze our vast and growing orbital data catalog of 25,000 space objects.
AI/ML helps us optimize scheduling for our radar network, which enables us to track space objects 40 percent more frequently and with greater accuracy. From there, AI/ML is applied throughout our analytic process, to include detecting and characterizing maneuvers in near real time, identifying patterns of life and flagging anomalies.
With AI/ML, we help customers sift through the tens of thousands of objects and millions of daily activities on orbit to highlight those that are especially unusual and potentially threatening. We conduct daily analysis of every object in our catalog and assign each an “interest score.” Variations in an object’s activity are highlighted for deeper analysis. We also apply AI/ML to identify new objects from launches or breakup events. This includes determining unknown satellite characteristics, like size or maneuverability. This advanced analysis is essential for operators as they need to protect their assets amid a rapid increase in space traffic and activity.
EBiz: Is LeoLabs’ technology applicable to the proposed Golden Dome homeland missile defense system?
Frazier: We certainly see potential missile defense applications for our next-generation radar technology. Similar to how the U.S. Space Surveillance Network radars were originally developed for missile defense and later evolved to support space domain awareness, or SDA, our next-gen radars are built for SDA but could be adapted to meet missile defense requirements.
Our recent TACFI award from SpaceWERX enables software upgrades to our Scout-class of radars that will allow it to autonomously switch between tracking, search and launch modes. This will provide intelligence on space anomalies, uncorrelated objects, fractional orbital bombardment systems, upper stage rocket bodies during launch, hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missiles and re-entries.
