The Orbiter It’s All About You
CONTENTS 3
It’s All About You
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Meet a Future Leader’s Latest Achievement
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How SSPI Brings the Satellite Message to Thousands of Students
Become a Better Manager of New Hires to the Industry
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New Book Explores Industry’s Response to Fast Market Change
Chapter Competition for Young Engineers Yields LeadingEdge Designs
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Are You a Future Leader? It’s Up to You
Learning How Top Companies Manage their Most Talented People
How Have You Changed the World Lately?
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It’s Not ALL About You – Or Is It?
Upcoming Events 2017 SSPI Golf Tournament, July 20, Littleton, CO, USA. Click here for more information. SSPI 2017 Future Leaders Dinner, October 17, New York, NY, USA. Click here for more information. Learn more about upcoming events at www.SSPI.org
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It’s All About You By Robert Bell, Executive Director Despite what they told you when you became an adult, it really is all about you. But here’s the thing. The “you” it was all about when you were a child is not the same as the “you” of today. This year’s “you” is a much bigger deal. “You” has expanded to encompass the network of colleagues and friends you have built during your career and your life. It contains the people, older than you, who advised you and guided your steps. It also includes the people who will follow you, the ones who you are now advising and guiding. If you have lived at all, with each passing year, “you” have increasingly become “us.” That is why SSPI is all about you. Through SSPI, you are engaging undergraduate and graduate students in the US, UK and Canada in research projects that expose them to the satellite industry. They may be building cubesats in a class, but they have no idea our multi-billion-dollar industry exists or needs their talents. Or maybe you are organizing a job fair for local students to find talent your organization needs now. You are nominating others – or maybe even you! – for a Promise or Mentor Award. It recognizes the outstanding work of people The author at NAB 2017 age 35 and under, and the senior advisors who help nurture their careers. You are hosting webinars on talent management and beginning work on our 2017 workforce study, which highlights how bestpractice companies in our business attract, onboard and retain high-quality people. You are changing how young people, policymakers and customers see the satellite industry by sharing our Better Satellite World stories and videos. Thanks to you, we have new content on in-flight services and the battle against polio, and moving stories from our latest members of the Satellite Hall of Fame. We can do all this work because of you. And we can’t do it without you. So as you read this issue of The Orbiter, don’t forget to take out that smartphone, switch it to selfie-mode, and celebrate the big deal that is you!
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Are You a Future Leader? It’s Up to You By Tamara Bond-Williams, Membership Director Pssst! I want to let you in on a secret. Seriously. Come closer. Ready? Here it is: YOU can take charge of your own career. Okay - not that big of a secret, really. We’ve known this for a long time. There are are even books about it! But every industry is different, so to take charge in your industry, you have to look for the opportunities your industry provides. In the satellite industry, one such opportunity I’m going to SmallSat! is the SSPI Future Leaders Dinner. Each year, three amazing professionals ages 35 and under are recognized with the Promise Award, which says to industry, “My supervisory team believes in me and thinks I have what it takes to be a leader in this industry.” This year we’ve opened the door for YOU to take the lead. YOU can reach out to your supervisor, direct reports (if you have any), external partners, peers and mentors, and ask for their feedback in support of your own While I’m busy giving advice, I’m happy to some, too! Many of you have told me nomination for this prestigious award. The feedback take that SSPI needs to check out the SmallSat you get will help spur your future development - there’s conference in Logan, Utah. This year, the stars have aligned, and - I’m going! just no downside to participating in the process! I’m asking you to take a chance on yourself. Step I’d love to meet you there. If you’ll be at out on faith and participate. You’ll get invaluable SmallSat and have time to chat about SSPI, our mission, and our plans to expand feedback. You’ll get helpful guidance for career path the Rocky Mountain Chapter’s presence planning. You’ll find and cultivate mentors: a necessary in the area, drop me a line! Write to tbondcomponent to future success. You’ll build relationships williams@sspi.org. You can call me as well: 212-809-5199 x103. in the industry beyond just the workday relationships you already have. And you just might find yourself on stage on October 17th, thanking everyone for their help on your journey. SO . . . not much of a secret, true! But I hope it’s a well-received nudge in the right direction. The 2017 SSPI Future Leaders Dinner will be held on October 17, 2017. To learn more about the self nominating process, visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2017PromiseCandidateForm.
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Meet a Future Leader’s Latest Achievement Introducing Josey, the newest member of 2016 Promise Award winner Erin Feller’s family! Josey was born in May.
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New Book Explores Industry’s Response to Fast Market Change Published this June by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., Recent Successful Satellite Systems: Visions of the Future was edited by 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee, D. K. Sachdev, President, Spacetel Consultancy and Adjunct Professor, George Mason University. Other members of the Satellite Hall of Fame are contributors to the book, including Mark Dankberg, Chairman and CEO, ViaSat, Inc. and Bob Zitter, Media Technology Advisor and former HBO CTO. SSPI’s 2013 Mentor of the Year, Clayton Mowry is a contributor as well. Click here to learn more about the Satellite Hall of Fame and its members. Recent Successful Satellite Systems: Visions of the Future presents recent progress and future prognosis for a wide spectrum of satellite services, systems, and industries, including launch vehicles. Through twenty chapters, experienced leaders provide unique insights into how satellites are responding to the fast-changing demands of modern commercial and government systems through significantly higher capabilities and in a cost-effective manner. The conclusion brings together a collective vision for the future and asserts that the industry is poised to offer systems with even more innovative capabilities and services with a degree of flexibility never realized before. Click here to learn more. D. K. Sachdev was inducted into the Satellite Hall of Fame in 2009 for a professional career devoted to innovation in satellite, first with an Indian manufacturer of earth stations, then with Intelsat and Worldspace, and finally as a professor of engineering at George Mason University. Click here to learn more.
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Chapter Competition for Young Engineers Yields Leading-Edge Designs By Brendan Murray. SSPI and its regional chapters take seriously their mission to bring in and foster opportunities for the next generation of satellite professionals. One way this is done through partnerships and programs that provide guidance and opportunities for those considering a career in the satellite and aerospace industries. This is also done through scholarships and other financial incentives for them to advance in these fields of study. The SSPI Mid-Atlantic Regional Chapter (SSPI-MA) specifically pursues these goals through its annual Engineering Student Prize Competition each Spring. On April 29th, SSPI-MA was proud to host the 7th such competition, which showcased the hard work, creativity, and vision of the next generation of satellite and aerospace professionals. Students nominated by the University of Maryland and George Washington University presented five engineering projects (done for academic credit) to a panel of satellite industry professionals. It once again proved to be a fascinating showcase for those seeking University of Maryland’s Jacob McCullum presenting to the not just to join the satellite industry but to panel of judges actively advance it. While such specialized expertise could potentially yield very dense academic presentations, each speaker took care to explain the importance of their research in understandable terms for the judges and the entire audience, some of whom were not as well-versed in aerospace engineering as others. In his presentation Utilizing GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) to Accelerate Satellite Conjunction Assessment, University of Maryland’s Eric Frizzell explained how his research can reduce response time and improve the accuracy of conjunction assessments (intersection of two orbits at one time within one kilometer) for orbiting objects. This could represent a potentially tremendous improvement in orbital collision avoidance efforts. GWU’s Shankar Kulumani presented his research in Low-Thrust Trajectory Design near Asteroid 4769 Castalia, explaining how deep-space asteroid missions The Orbiter It’s All About You
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(for scientific research, mining, or Earthcollision mitigation) can more accurately navigate within the complex orbital environments that these asteroids present. And Maryland’s Jacob McCullum described how the human elbow served as “bioinspiration” for space mission technology with his presentation Design and Control of a Lightweight Biomimetic Robotic Arm with CubeSat Applications. George Washington University’s Samantha A. Hurley describes Her research on a thruster system for cubesats The event was hosted at Iridium’s Operations Center in Leesburg, Virginia, the 40,000 square foot facility that routes traffic and manages the operation of the LEO operator’s 66-satellite network. Guests were treated to a tour and description of the facility’s capabilities as it prepares to manage the switchover to the new Iridium NEXT network, which is expected to be fully deployed by mid2018. SSPI-MA also hosted an industry recruitment meet-and-greet at the event, where representatives from companies such as O3B, UltiSat, and Kforce met with students and guests to match the right candidates with the right opportunities. A panel of judges from the satellite industry took in the presentations, asked questions, and gave valuable feedback to the students. After conferring and sharing Thomas Leps fields questions from the judges their impressions and scores, these judges had extremely high praise for each of the students, and awarded $1,000 each in scholarship prize money to winners in specific categories: • Most Innovative – Shankar Kulumani (GWU) – Low-Thrust Trajectory Design near Asteroid 4769 Castalia 8
The Orbiter It’s All About You
• Best Application of Scientific Method – Thomas Leps (UMD) – Simulating MR Gripper in LIGGGHTS SSDEM • Best Presentation – Samantha A. Hurley (GWU) – Linear Actuated MicroCathode Arc Thruster System for CubeSats The blending of forward-thinking demonstrations, up-close observation of Iridium’s state of the art network, financial support for new entrants in the aerospace industries, and career-advancing employment opportunities made this year’s Engineering Student Prize Competition truly remarkable. SSPI-MA is looking forward to next year’s showcase, and is especially looking forward to what the future holds for these visionary competitors, as well as those who come after them.
Companies such as UltiSat were present to promote career opportunities in the satellite industry
Shankar Kulumani discusses low-thrust trajectory design to aid in asteroid mining
Brendan Murray is the Publicity Chair for SSPI’s Mid-Atlantic Chapter.
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How SSPI Brings the Satellite Message to Thousands of Students SSPI runs research team competitions with branches of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). Targeting undergrads and grad students, the competitions introduce them to the key elements of satellite tech and a $200+ industry that needs their talents. Both the SEDS USA and UKSEDS organizations have released project specifications for this year’s competitions, and seven SSPI mentors have volunteered their time to assist SEDS USA students with their projects.
2017 Competition: Connecting the Space Economy
Commercial satellite operators are already thinking about designs for communications satellites that not only point their antennas down at Earth but upward to support future communication requirements of the Space Economy. As asteroid mining, lunar mining and transport, in-orbit manufacturing and in-orbit assembly move from science fiction to the beginnings of development, what communication capability will be needed to support operations in Earth orbit and far beyond? How much can existing technology contribute and what technology advances may be required? What will it cost to create a basic network capability and see it deployed? Click here to learn more.
2017 Competition: Small Sats – The Next Generation
Small satellites are at an inflection point in their journey from educational and hobbyist projects to commercial success. Earth observation has been the first commercial success for companies including Planet Labs, Digital Globe and Skybox. The next opportunity is for communications services from LEO, whether it is maritime and asset tracking (Spire) or Internet (OneWeb and others). But nearly every aspect of small satellite technology for communications remains unproven as of today. Given the small physical size of the platforms, it is unclear how they can be powered, how their flight can be controlled, how signals will be handed off between satellites and how they will deliver the power to close the communications link with small antennas on the ground. For university projects, it is enough to get a smallsat into orbit and have it perform its experimental function; for a communications business, the bar is considerably higher. Click here to learn more.
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Become a Better Manager of New Hires to the Industry SSPI’s free webinar series, begun in September 2016, explores talent recruitment and management issues in the satellite industry. The third webinar, Hiring Practices of New Space Companies, is coming this September. If you weren’t able to make the first two webinars, you can catch up with archives of them here or on SSPI’s site.
The First Hundred Days: Turning New Hires into “Keepers”
The first 100 days in a new job have an outsized ability to set expectations and steer an employee’s future. What experiences should make up that 100 days? In this webinar, you heard from Scott Drach, VP, Human Resources for Defense, Space & Security (BDS), Boeing and Douglas Maxfield, Senior Partner, Korn Ferry.
Disruptors in the Talent Market
As new and disruptive companies enter the satellite and space business, they are having a big impact on business as usual. In this webinar, you heard from Clarke Havener, Sector Leader for Satellites and Space, Korn Ferry.
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Learning How Top Companies Manage their Most Talented People SSPI’s New Century Workforce Study is the only multi-company, multinational study of the satellite industry’s most vital resource: its workforce. The study combines indepth interviews with human resources executives and the results of a global online survey of industry employees. The 2017 Workforce Study, Raising Your Game at Attracting and Managing Talent, is now in development, focusing on the following: In SSPI’s 2015 workforce study, Are We Winning the War for Talent? – • Sixty percent of respondent companies reported having no internship or workstudy programs. • Seventy percent reported having no formal on-the-job orientation and training programs. Those numbers should be shocking for a technology business whose success depends almost entirely on the quality and innovativeness of its workforce. It also reflects the legacy of the industry, which has traditionally hired from a small pool of qualified candidates recruited from the military, broadcasting – or from each other – who needed relatively little orientation or training to be productive. Today the pace of innovation in satellite is turning that tradition into a competitive disadvantage the same time companies have more competition than they have ever faced before. Companies accustomed to a sedate pace of evolution are having to make drastic changes in their business models, business practices and technology. This is also forcing a change in how they find, recruit and engage talented people to drive the future of their businesses. Fortunately, the 30-40% of companies that have formal attraction, onboarding and training programs offer valuable models to follow. In this report, SSPI takes an in-depth look at how the workforce leaders in our business go about it. We report on strategies and tactics that do not require big-company budgets to succeed but can be implemented at a reasonable cost by companies of almost any size. Only by filling the gap between the leaders and everybody else will the entire industry reach its potential as successful innovators in their markets. Interviews for this year’s Workforce Study will begin shortly. Click here to learn more about the New Century Workforce Study. 12
The Orbiter It’s All About You
How Have You Changed the World Lately? Satellite professionals know the immense contributions our technology makes to human welfare, commerce, government, security and safety. But those contributions go unnoticed all too often. And that is exactly what the Better Satellite World campaign has been working to change. Here are just a few recent examples of how you and your fellow satellite professionals have changed the world:
How Industry Legends Make a Better World
The Final Battle to End Polio
In 1988, a meeting of the World Health Assembly set a mind-boggling goal: to eradicate the ancient scourge of polio.
Hear excerpts that tell stories of achievement not just in business but in service to humanity.
How Satellite Brings You a Better Flight
Satellite technology is getting ready to make your next airplane flight a whole lot better. Affordable air travel is good. Not so good are long, boring flights packed too tight with too little to do. Infuriating delays that ripple through the overburdened system like a bad case of the flu. And occasionally, the terrifying moment when a flight disappears, never to be seen again. The world’s airlines and air traffic managers have a solution to all these problems – and the solution is satellite. Read More
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It’s Not ALL About You – Or Is It?
By Lou Zacharilla, Director of Development American TV viewers and SSPI members may remember this classic one minute of classic comedy:
As George says at the end, “Apparently the word’s out.” And it is. About SSPI’s new sponsorship program and how it has been completely redesigned for 2018 so that any company can take advantage of it and create its own set of benefits and brand support programs. This time, nothing is in stone. We want you to make deals that you can afford, that help extend your marketing and – most important – make our industry better. SSPI has the media access, visibility, events and brand to leverage. You can build a package that can be leveraged to your heart’s content. Be greedy, be gluttonous and be selfish. These are the virtues we encourage. • Greedy to make a great industry more visible, greater and talented. • Gluttonous so that we can provide better food, better venues and better opportunities for networking in places like New York, London and throughout our universes of international chapters. • Selfish so that you can get your free individual memberships for your organization while you get the edge by putting your company’s name, products, services and reputation on the launch engine of the industry’s most potent, viral and successful media campaign ever: Better Satellite World. www.bettersatelliteworld.com So it really is all about YOU. And it is so simple make it all about you…
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You can concentrate your investment in one of the four areas that support SSPI’s mission.
Next Generation
Staging competitions and sharing information with university students to excite them about careers in satellite.
Leaders Quest
Identifying and honoring present and future leaders as models for the industry to follow.
New Century Workforce
Engaging talent management executives in the satellite company executives in improving hiring and retention practices and winning the industry’s fair share of the world’s best and brightest.
Better Satellite World
Promoting the immense contributions of satellite to commerce, education, communication and human welfare.
You then tie your company’s investment to the one that is most important to the company’s own core mission as it relates to the future of the industry, your workforce needs and the leadership you need to remain profitable. You also may tie it, as dozens of companies do, to the communication we need to reinforce the high value of satellites in helping to make the world better. We have packages that fit every corporate budget and we can help you put one together that gives you the maximum benefits and reach. It has never been easier to plug-in to the successful programs of SSPI.
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Advertising Opportunities are available! As you know, SSPI has transformed its monthly news vehicle, The Orbiter, into a beautiful, pageturning digital magazine you can read from your desktop, tablet or phone, or as a handy print-out to carry with you on travel trips. The Orbiter brings Society news, coverage of the Better Satellite World campaign, and the annual Workforce Study to more than 6,000 members and industry contacts. Advertise With Us We invite companies to advertise in the new Orbiter. Full-page and half-page ads are available Some SSPI sponsorships include one or more ads with the sponsorship – but now you can purchase an ad directly! Download the media kit or email Tamara Bond-Williams for more information.
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Copyright 2017 by the Society of Satellite Professionals International