Ty Lee joined Maxar in 2014 and is currently the systems engineering lead for NASA’s power and propulsion element (PPE) program, a foundational component of NASA’s Gateway. Ty has worked on numerous NASA projects and studies beyond PPE including Next Mars Orbiter, Psyche, Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission and human landing system.  He has extensive experience in electric propulsion engineering as well as systems engineering at Maxar, improving and advancing Maxar’s spacecraft product lines. He received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, San Diego in 2012, and an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 2014.

Akhil Rao is an environmental economist, focusing on the economics of orbit use and computational methods. He is currently developing models that integrate satellite industry economics with orbital mechanics, which will enable better debris environment forecasts and more comprehensive policy assessments. He teaches courses in statistics and environmental economics at Middlebury College. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Chelsea “Foxanne” Gohd is a senior writer at Space.com, where she writes articles and creates, scripts and hosts videos about science topics ranging from climate change to exoplanet exploration and human spaceflight. She is also an analog astronaut, having completed an analog Mars mission, Sensoria M2, at HI-SEAS in 2020.

Carolyn Belle engages in space industry growth and diversification, with expertise in the market dynamics of on-orbit servicing, emerging satellite applications, and the creation of diversified space architectures. Carolyn currently works with commercial and government satellite operators to pursue new approaches to on-orbit operations in her role at Astroscale U.S., where she serves as the Director of Advanced Systems. She previously led KSAT’s standardized ground network development in the U.S. and, as a consultant and industry analyst, advised companies throughout the value chain on key opportunities & strategic direction. She started her career in astrobiology research before focusing her passion for space on building the business environment and underlying infrastructure necessary to facilitate dynamic industry expansion.

Bailey Burns is an Aerospace Engineer at Paragon Space working on life support for the future of humans in space, including the next HLS lunar lander proposal with Dynetics. She is also a graduate student studying Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines. Her focus is on lunar regolith and dust mitigation on the lunar surface. Bailey has also participated in HI-SEAS as an analog astronaut studying lava tubes in a two-week simulated moon base mission, complete with lots of dehydrated food. Bailey hopes to use her platform to show everyone can bring their own skillset to the new space age, and have fun while doing it, which she does as an official Rubik’s cube ambassador.

Dr. Tobias Niederwieser is a research associate at BioServe Space Technologies within the University of Colorado Boulder where he helps to design, build, and test payloads for scientific research in the space environment. Key projects that have flown on 5 different missions on platforms such as NASA (International Space Station), SpaceX (Dragon, Falcon 9), Northrop Grumman (Cygnus, Antares), and ULA (Atlas V) include: AEM-E – a life support system for the launch of 40 mice onboard the Cygnus spacecraft for 10 days towards the ISS, SABL – three smart life science incubators operating continuously onboard the ISS for the last five years supporting 12+ high-impact science experiments per year, and PLASM – an automated experiment apparatus currently under development for a yeast radiation study onboard Orion during the Artemis-1 test flight around the Moon.

Vice Adm. Ross Myers is a native of Garden City, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting, the University of Kansas with a Master of Business Administration, and the National War College with a Master of Science in National Security Strategy.

Brad Bolstad is president of Space Superiority and Geospatial at L3Harris Technologies. His responsibilities cover space programs across the DoD, NASA, NOAA, IC, commercial and international markets. Prior to joining L3Harris, Bolstad worked in industry for more than a dozen years and was responsible for missile warning and missile defense, space protection and space domain mission assurance, and next-gen military systems