Dr. Mark Skinner joined The Aerospace Corporation in 2017 as a Senior Project Leader for Space Traffic Management, in Crystal City, VA, in support of the development of civil and commercial space traffic management. Prior to joining The Aerospace Corporation, Skinner was with the Boeing Company, heading up the commercial space situational awareness group, conducting research into observational and analysis techniques to advance the state of the art in space surveillance, and in developing infrared sensing and characterization techniques of resident space objects.
Skinner is internationally recognized as a researcher in space object characterization and commercial space situational awareness and specializes in the techniques of non-resolved object characterization (NROC) and non-imaging space object identification (NISOI) and has extended this research into both the infrared and time domain arenas. His current research focus is on solving pressing problems related to STM, including the tracking and identification of small objects, and mitigating the problems related to early-orbit tracking and identification of CubeSats and nanosats.
For eight years, he supported the US delegation to the UN COPUOS Working Group on the Long Term Sustainable use of outer space in the successful development of guidelines and best practices, as an expert on space debris and space situational awareness.
Education
Skinner received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, and a Bachelor of Science in the Humanities and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a Doctor of Philosophy in experimental astrophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Masters of Business Administration from the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.
Affiliations
Skinner is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Institute of Space Law, the International Astronautical Association, and the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety. He also serves on the Technical Advisory Committee of the Space Environment Research Centre.