Space Traffic Awareness and Control: Current Systems and Future Requirements

Chris Stott serves as the Executive Chairman of ManSat. Chris cofounded ManSat in 1998 with his father, Bryan, and over the following 20 years grew the company as its President and CEO to become the largest commercial provider of satellite spectrum in the global space industry. Chris also serves as the Chair of IceSat, ManSat’s subsidiary company in Iceland.

In 2000 Chris left his position as Director of International Commercialization and Sales with Lockheed Martin Space Operations to become ManSat’s President. Prior to his work with Lockheed Martin, Chris was an executive with the McDonnell Douglas and the Boeing Company working in International Business Development on the Delta Launch Vehicle program.

Dan cofounded LeoLabs to accelerate the new commercial economy in LEO, protect satellite assets, and preserve the space environment. LeoLabs is the first commercial data source for tracking satellites and mapping LEO. Prior to co-founding LeoLabs Dan was a Program Director at SRI International where he supervised the Allen Telescope Array and developed advanced radar imaging technologies. Dan holds a Ph. D. from U. C. Berkeley in electrical engineering.

Ron joined Astroscale as Managing Director in April 2019 to lead the company’s business operations in the United States.

Ron brings over 25 years of government and industry experience, encompassing systems engineering, program management, sales and marketing, technology/research and development management, and strategy formulation.

Ron started his career as an Intelligence Officer in the United States Air Force, serving as the focal point for Space Situational Awareness capability development at Air Force Space Command’s Space Control Division. He then joined Boeing and worked on various
programs as a Systems Engineering Manager within Boeing Research & Technology and Phantom Works and led business development activities for the Network & Space Systems division throughout the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Astroscale, Ron led
the Defense & Space Asia Pacific sales team at Honeywell Aerospace, helping the company achieve significant sales growth and expansion into new markets.

Over half of Ron’s career has been spent working and living in Japan, and he is an active member of The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation’s U.S.-Japan Space Forum.

Ron earned a Bachelor of Science from The United States Air Force Academy in 1993.

Joel Sercel is a proven space technology pioneer and team leader with technical expertise spans space mission design, space propulsion, satellite design, architectural design, and systems engineering. He runs an agile company where young engineers are inspired and empowered to build, test, break, and bust through technical limits and mature innovations at breakneck speed. He is a six-time winner of the prestigious NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program and has multiple patents issued and pending in the area of space resources and in space transportation technology.

His expertise and leadership have been sought out by world class organizations including NASA, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, the US intelligence community, and the US Air Force. He also speaks extensively on the topics of ethical space settlement. Joel’s PhD is from Caltech in plasma physics and space propulsion. He spent 14 years at NASA JPL where he served in nearly all of the technical roles and conceived the first ion propulsion system used in deep space missions to a comet and asteroids Ceres and Vesta. Sercel served as the founding CTO of Momentus Space before returning to Trans Astra to fulfill his lifelong dream of working to establish a thriving in-space economy that will offer unbound potential for future generations.