The Use of Micro Electronics that Enable SmallSats

Andy has 44 years with NGC/TRW and a total of 46 years working in advanced space programs specializing in, advanced manufacturing, spacecraft design, micro-electronics, nuclear products, space logistics, and astrophysics projects. As a NG Fellow 2, he supports NGC’s key space customers including NASA, AFRL, NRO, DARPA, Army/SMDC, Space RCO, USMC, and the Navy. He is considered one of the prominent advanced manufacturing (AM) experts in the country and has produced over fifty papers in AM, in-space manufacturing, lunar and planetary sciences, hypersonics, and miniaturization of spacecraft components. He brings his innovative approach to problems and has won several Corporate awards for innovation.
Andy is an appointed Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and is on the faculty in the Electrical and Computing Engineering Department, supporting satellite and space research. He is on the Technical Advisory Boards for Virginia Tech, U of Michigan, Cornell, and U of New Mexico. Andy Kwas graduated from the University of Michigan in 1978 with two degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Applied Mechanics, and received a Masters degree in 1980 from the University of Missouri Science and Technology in Astrophysics.

Paul brings over 40 years of aerospace & defense industry experience to the Avalanche Technology team. He has held leadership engineering, sales, business development and management roles at semiconductor foundries (SkyWater & Cypress) to aerospace-targeted component solutions at Actel, Achronix, and Avalanche to board level products at Cobham & Mercury Systems all the way to system level satellite payload development at Hughes, NGC, and Boeing. As General Manager within Avalanche Technology, known as the leader of next generation Perpendicular STT-MRAM technology, accepted as the frontrunner to replace traditional Flash and SRAM for unified memory architectures in space-based systems, Paul applies this deep subject matter expertise and customer-focused acumen to provide scalable platform storage & configuration solutions, overcoming decades old bottlenecks. He holds BS degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from UCSB and California State University Long Beach, respectively.

Ralph Grundler is Director of BD at Aitech Systems the leading supplier of rad-hard and rugged embedded electronic systems. An experienced professional, Ralph has a long history in the development and marketing of semiconductors, IP, SoCs, FPGAs, computers and embedded systems. Before joining Aitech Systems, he worked at Flex Logix, the leading supplier of rad-hard eFPGA technology and Synopsys, where he did marketing for interface IP subsystems working with Space ASIC developers and IP prototyping hardware as well as business development for the Japanese market. He has done many video and live presentations on a wide variety of technical subjects. He has 30 years of computer and semiconductor industry experience.

Andrew Haslehurst is the Chief Technology Officer at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) with over 20 years’ experience on satellite programmes from low earth orbit to geostationary and beyond.

He received his first class honours in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hertfordshire then entered the graduate programme at Airbus Defence and Space working on the Beagle 2 Mars programme before joining SSTL to develop their mechanisms capabilities.

Throughout his time at SSTL Andrew has worked in a variety of technical leadership roles across engineering from power, propulsion to optical / RF payloads and beyond.  Working with the teams on project delivery and developing new products this has seen Andrew leading the next steps in the development for the innovative Carbonite mission series developing the technologies for the large deployable SAR for CarbSAR and the innovative MWIR payload for Darkcarb.

Alvaro Sanchez is Integrasys CEO, Marquess of Antella (Noble Title 1649), Alvaro is Software and Industrial engineer by European University and a master’s degree in business by ESIC Business School. On 2022 he was considered one of the “20 under 35” young space and satellite professionals by the SSPI.
Alvaro during the last 10 years has worked at Integrasys as Management, Sales Executive roles where he was very successful growing the sales, revenue, profit, and responsibilities within the company; and previous to that he was working at CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research as an RF Engineer, measuring timing in a Nanosecond Synchronization for measuring the Neutrino Speed. Adding to his professional repertoire, in 2021 Alvaro collaborated with IE University to achieve his lifelong goal of helping others. He was professor of “Introduction to Business Management” at the Artificial Intelligence Degree. Recently he is focused on the company expansion, with the latest opening, INTEGRASYS Ukraine.

Bert Vermeire has been the Voyager Space Technology Systems and formerly Space Micro Chief Technology Officer for the past 13 years, where he has guided the development of computing and communications products. These have flown on numerous NASA, DOD and commercial missions. Prior to joining Space Micro, he was a research professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of Arizona State University. Bert holds a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven.