As the push continues to return to the Moon companies are looking for ways to reduce the cost and increase the accessibility of the cis-lunar economy. Smallsats are what drove the New Space revolution, and they are what will drive mankind’s return to the Moon. Join us and our panel of experts to hear all about their missions to the Moon and their visions for the future.
Dan White
Dan White is Executive Vice President of Americas Business Region at Swedish Space Corp (SSC). He is responsible for sustaining and developing the customer base within the region that includes all of North and South American markets. Before joining SSC, Mr. White served as the President of COMDEV USA, a subsidiary of COMDEV International. Mr. White has over 30 years in Engineering, Program Management, and Executive leadership positions within the aerospace industry. He held the position of Vice President of Engineering at DataPath supporting the development of advanced technology ground systems for defense-related systems.
Dr. Pamela Clark
Richard French
Richard French is Director of Business Development and Strategy for Rocket Lab’s Space Systems Division. He spent over a decade at JPL, where he led development of the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator program, managed technology partnerships with industry, and spent two years on detail to NASA HQ as a Staff Technologist in STMD, leading development of the Tipping Point and Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity. His earlier career includes a lead mechanical systems engineering role on the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, helping to land the Curiosity Rover on Mars as a member of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) entry, descent, and landing systems engineering team, and supporting design of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) forebody headshield. He holds a M.Eng. in space systems engineering and a B.S.E. in aerospace engineering, both from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Ben Malphrus
Dr. Ben Malphrus is Professor of Space Science at Morehead State University where he also directs the Space Science Center. He has served as PI on several nanosatellite missions including Lunar IceCube, KySat-1, CXBN 1 and 2, and TechSat-1. Dr. Malphrus has served as the project lead on over $30 million R&D grant funding and led the design of a $16 million R&D center for space sciences that opened in Kentucky in 2010. He is currently PI on Lunar IceCube, a NASA mission to the Moon to investigate the transport physics of lunar volatiles including water ice. Lunar IceCube will launch on the maiden voyage (Artemis 1) of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). Dr. Malphrus is co-editor of the recently released CubeSat Handbook, a resource for smallsat developers. In the late 1990s, he developed a theory of galaxy formation that has gained wide acceptance among the astronomical community.
Flavia Tata Nardini
Flavia Tata Nardini began her career at the European Space Agency as a Propulsion Test Engineer. She then joined TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research to work on advanced space propulsion projects. In 2015, Flavia co-founded Fleet, a connectivity company set to maximise the resource efficiency of human civilisation through low cost, low power remote massive IoT. Fleet launched four of over 100 planned nanosatellites in 2018, enabling the next industrial revolution with a ubiquitous connectivity platform.