When professors Jordi Puig-Suari of California Polytechnic State University and Bob Twiggs of Stanford University invented the cubesat a little more than a decade ago, they never imagined that the tiny satellites would be adopted by universities, companies and government agencies around the world. They simply wanted to design a spacecraft with capabilities similar to Sputnik that graduate students could design, build, test and operate. For size, the professors settled on a 10-centimeter cube because it was large enough to accommodate a basic communications payload, solar panels and a battery.
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Debra Werner
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Posted inNews
Lt. Gen. Ellen M. Pawlikowski, Commander, U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center
The challenges that face Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, who took the helm at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) in June, are significantly different from those of her predecessors. Since 2007, the Air Force has completed development, construction and the initial launch of the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) communications system, Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geostationary missile warning system and Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) secure communications system. Now, instead of focusing primarily on developing new, state-of-the-art spacecraft, Pawlikowski and SMC’s 5,000 employees are seeking ways to reduce the cost of building and flying the remaining satellites in those constellations.
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Henry Vanderbilt, Founder, Space Access Society
Although he is a descendant of one of the 19th century’s richest men — shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt — Detroit native Henry Vanderbilt did not have a trust fund to fall back on when he dropped out of the University of Massachusetts in the mid-1970s. Instead, he performed a variety of jobs, including driving a cab, grinding brake shoes, developing optical missile-tracking technology, building surgical lasers, overseeing computer programs for the space advocacy group the L5 Society, and writing computer gaming software.
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Khaki Mckee, Program Manager, XCOR Aerospace Inc.
Approximately one year from now, XCOR Aerospace plans to begin conducting test flights of the Lynx Suborbital Spacecraft from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, where the company is based. The Lynx, powered by four liquid oxygen and kerosene-fueled engines, is designed to take off and land horizontally as it carries tourists and research payloads to the edge of space.
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Richard Lober, Vice President and General Manager, Defense and Intelligence Systems, Hughes Network Systems LLC
Only a small portion of the work performed by Hughes Network Systems of Germantown, Md., serves defense and intelligence agencies. The vast majority of the company’s business is focused on providing satellite broadband services to business and consumer markets around the world.
Posted inCivil
Bigelow Aerospace Cuts Work Force Almost by Half
WASHINGTON and LONG BEACH, Calif. — Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing inflatable space habitats for commercial use, laid off some 40 of its 90 employees Sept. 29, a company official confirmed.
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Mark Valerio, Vice President and General Manager, Surveillance And Navigation Systems, Lockheed Martin Space Systems
With no new military satellite programs on the horizon, one of the primary goals for leaders of Lockheed Martin Space Systems is to find ways to trim costs. That effort goes far beyond Lockheed itself, which has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs, and extends to the subcontractors and suppliers who provide components for the U.S. Air Force’s Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) missile warning satellites and GPS 3 navigation satellites.
Posted inLaunch
Profile: Frank Cepollina, Deputy Associate Director, Space Servicing Capabilities Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
At times, Frank Cepollina imagines what it would be like to retire from NASA, return to Northern California where he was raised, and relax. For now, however, Cepollina, one of the world’s leading experts on refueling and repairing satellites in orbit, has far too much work to do.
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Brig. Gen. (select) Roger Teague, Director, Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Infrared Space Systems Directorate
When a U.S. Air Force C-5 cargo plane took off March 2 from Moffett Field, Calif., bound for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., carrying the first dedicated missile warning spacecraft in the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), Brig. Gen. (select) Roger Teague was aboard as well.
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Bobby Braun, Chief Technologist, NASA
Technology development efforts not tied to specific missions tend to be vulnerable to the budget ax, especially when funding gets tight. Cash shortfalls are nothing new for NASA, of course, but with Congress now mandating development of a heavy-lift rocket that is not currently in the agency’s spending plan, things could get even tougher in the years ahead.
