BOULDER, Colo. and ATLANTA, Ga., Aug. 17, 2021 — Kayhan Space announced today that Kevin O’Connell, former Director of Office of Space Commerce at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Founder and CEO of Space Rising LLC, will join its board of advisors. Kayhan Space’s mission is to make spaceflight safer with its autonomous collision avoidance system. Kayhan’s autonomy and integrations remove human errors and delays from the critical path of response to catastrophic collision events. This system helps ensure mission safety for satellite operators as space becomes more congested.

Dr. Siamak Hesar, Kayhan Space Co-Founder and CEO, commented, “We are delighted and incredibly fortunate to welcome Kevin to the Kayhan Space team. Kevin is a noted space industry visionary. He brings decades of experience and expertise in space commercialization and is exceptionally qualified to help lead us through our next stage of growth.”

Improved awareness of the space environment and new tools like autonomy will be key to ensuring that space remains safe and sustainable for the anticipated scientific and commercial benefits of the space economy.

Kevin O’Connell is a leading expert in the space industry, the global space economy, U.S. national security, and international intelligence. Mr. O’Connell focused on space commercialization and technological competitiveness and how to advance them in global markets for nearly four decades and will bring this knowledge to Kayhan Space’s Board of Advisors.

Mr. O’Connell said, “I have been extremely impressed with the way that Kayhan Space has established itself as a key player in the growing commercial space ecosystem. Improved awareness of the space environment and new tools like autonomy will be key to ensuring that space remains safe and sustainable for the anticipated scientific and commercial benefits of the space economy. I look forward to working with the Kayhan team and the board to leverage the company’s solid foundation and accelerate awareness of the company’s space technology in both the commercial and government sectors.”

About Kayhan Space

Kayhan Space is a Techstars portfolio company with expertise in autonomous satellite collision assessment and avoidance, satellite navigation and tracking, and satellite operations. We provide trust and transparency to satellite operators with actionable and timely collision assessment alerts and avoidance courses of action. Our vision is to build trusted and resilient autonomous systems for the space industry. Our team consists of spaceflight experts with many years of experience in satellite operations supporting NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) missions, combined with engineers with extensive experience in product development and high-performance computing. The Kayhan team brings together the perfect set of skills that is needed to take on the challenging problems within the space industry and solve them.