Dan Smoot discussed his career and work as CEO of in a special presentation at the University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder.

Smoot addressed the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences on Tuesday, Jan. 21, answering questions on his life, the future of space-based Earth imaging, and Maxar’s fleet of Earth observation satellites.

The company, based in Westminster, ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ, oversees the most advanced commercial Earth observation constellation, operates in 85+ countries, and employs over 2,200 people.

What’s it like launching a satellite?

Each one of these satellites costs anywhere between $200-300 million. We launched two in May. We launched another two in August. If all goes to plan, we’ll have two more in the February time frame. The new satellites will have a 30 cm resolution, giving us the ability to collect more than 6 million sq km of Earth imagery each day. That includes up to 15 revisits per day of some locations on Earth.

We have a satellite, that’s still in operation and about to get to 100,000 rotations around Earth, which is an amazing accomplishment.

How do you deal with cloud cover when collecting imagery?

Maxar is phenomenal at the planning side. There is a location in Latin America just outside Bogota, Colombia, where you can collect one image a year because of cloud cover. It’s crazy. You have to plan it.

The Korean peninsula is another high cloud cover area. We’ll get a task order and we have to plan it. When we’re supporting an intelligence mission where collecting an image is a “must,” we have a partnership with a company called which specializes in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. SAR allows you to see through clouds, identifying outlines of objects to give you a sense of what’s happening on the ground. We can then fly back over with our imagery and get a clear view. We have data scientists working on that all the time.

If you’re collecting thousands of new images a day, do people go through all of those manually?

We have more than 400,000 government and commercial users around the world, and with the advancements in AI and more importantly large language models, we’re moving into not just collecting imagery but actually producing data on change.

If we’re just delivering imagery at this massive scale, how do they actually know something has happened? We use an algorithm to tell you what changed. If you’ve ever seen an analyst looking through 100 different images, it’s painful. If I can tell you automatically what changed instead, I have a product.

 I’ve done just about every job under the sun. When you think about what you’re going to do next, don’t ever think you need to go one path. Life is about happenstance. "

What was your career path?

I’ve done just about every job under the sun. I was an engineer, then I was a sales guy. I ran a finance organization at one time. You learn everything through your career. When you think about what you’re going to do next, don’t ever think you need to go one path.

Life is about happenstance. I ran into somebody at a Christmas party who was a branch manager at IBM. I started talking about how I loved their logistic controls that helped pneumatic conveyance and she asked me to interview with her. I had no concept or clue that I’d become a systems engineer at IBM.

I got well known pretty quickly as a guy who fixes stuff. I just love fixing things. If somebody throws something really hard at you? Take it. Because you’re going to learn a ton.

Your undergraduate degree is in environmental studies. Does your passion for the environment come into play at Maxar?

We help monitor illegal mining. Illegal deforestation. Human trafficking. We actually worked with the Associated Press to stop slave-based fishing. There were people who had not seen land for almost 10 years out near Singapore. We tracked them. We stopped it.

How much of an issue is orbital debris?

I was at our Mission Operations Center the other day and alert came up: collision. There are 22,000 pieces of debris up there. It looks like the world’s worst air traffic control. What are you going to do? The engineer said we have 24 hours to shift our orbit slightly. By the way, when we say shift, it’s usually about 10,000 km. Operating the satellites is a 24-hour, all-the-time thing.

Aren’t you able to collect images of objects in space, too?

Yes. I thought I was fairly good at math until I understood we’re starting to take imagery of other satellites in orbit. We had someone launch and they couldn’t find their satellite. We knew the coordinates of about where it was. We’re moving 18,000 mph this way; they’re moving 18,000 mph that way. We nailed it. Got the image so clean we could tell they were spinning. We gave that back to the company and they were able to stabilize the satellite.

Trying to capture that moment is hard. It’s one thing taking a picture of the International Space Station, because you know where it is all the time. We don’t know where an adversarial satellite might be going. You have to figure out the calculus of how to do that. Non-Earth imaging is a fast growing business.

How do you deal with countries deploying anti-satellite technology?

GPS-denied environments are an issue. There are certain nations that have the ability to make high-megahertz pulses targeted straight up. Primarily they’re targeting drones, but they also can impact satellites. We have concept of operations (CONOPS) so as were going through those areas, we know how to handle it.

We’re also building solutions to these problems, mainly for drones. If you’re flying drones and you don’t have GPS, what happens? It just crash and burns. But what if you have a company that has a highly accurate, precise 3D map of the entire world? You take the 3D map and you can triangulate where that drone is based on the landscape. Do you need GPS anymore? No. It is a capability that Maxar just demonstrated on live drones to show they can fly right through GPS-denied environments.

Smoot visited Smead Aerospace as part of the Future Insights seminar series, hosted by Mark Sirangelo, entrepreneur-in-residence. This series brings aerospace leaders to campus to meet with students and discuss their careers and the future of industry.

Off

The spring 2025 semester is bringing a new faculty member to Smead Aerospace. 

Vishala Arya is joining the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder as an assistant professor in the ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Center for Astrodynamics Research. 

Before this role, she worked at the Mission Design and Navigation Section at JPL, focusing on stochastic trajectory optimization for the Europa Clipper mission and sensor de-noising, data filtering, and center of mass calibrations for the

Arya earned her PhD in spacecraft dynamics and control and her master’s focused on robotics from Texas A&M University, where she developed advanced interplanetary trajectory optimization constructs and autonomous covariance constrained guidance algorithms for spacecraft. Her work introduced novel extensions to classical optimization methods for non-linear systems with inequality constraints, state and control discontinuities and abrupt time triggered events. 

Drawing on her multi-disciplinary experience in space missions, soft robotics, industrial engineering, bioastronautics, and sustainable engineering, her research vision is to conduct comprehensive optimization of space systems. 

She aims to co-optimize trajectory, spacecraft, payload, and logistics under uncertainty with robust optimization algorithms for autonomous, fault-tolerant system design. Her focus includes campaign-level mission design optimization strategies that foster cooperation among multiple satellites or agents and demonstrate group resilience. 

Arya has received numerous honors, including the NASA Honors Award for the GRACE-FO mission, the Breakwell Award, and several fellowships such as the DAAD Scholarship, HEEP, and Outstanding Aerospace Graduate Excellence Fellowships during her undergraduate and graduate studies. 

Off

Tracking drones is difficult, especially at night. Detecting the radio signals used to control them is a promising approach, though it’s no silver bullet. Read from ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ expert Iain Boyd in The Conversation.

Off

Iain Boyd was interviewed for a new piece on NASA's Artemis missions.

Boyd, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is a leading researcher in hypersonic aerothermodynamics.

The article focuses on delays to Artemis driven by an investigation into the main material of the Orion capsule’s heat shield, an epoxy resin called Avcoat that misbehaved during Artemis I.

NASA says the results of the research have pushed back launch of Artemis II to at least 2026.

Off

The Smead Program presents:

Skyward Showcase

Friday, February 7, 2025
@ The Aerospace Building

Join us for this yearly tradition! Formerly known as Researchpalooza, Skyward Showcase provides Smead Aerospace students and faculty the opportunity to give 10-minute talks highlighting current research in a friendly and informal event

Keynote Speaker:
Europa Clipper Navigation Team Chief, NASA JPL & Smead Scholar Alumnus (AeroEngr MS'11, PhD'13)

Prizes for presenters! Free food!

Questions? Sarah.Luettgen@colorado.edu

Off

Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences will host a recognition ceremony for all graduating aerospace students in addition to the college commencement ceremony on Dec. 19, 2024.

Off

is giving University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder aerospace students a insights on space and life as an astronaut.

A veteran of four space flights and a retired Navy pilot, Kelly has spent 520 days in space, including a nearly year-long mission to the International Space Station that included a special longitudinal study on the health effects of long-term spaceflight that compared Scott to his twin brother and fellow astronaut Mark Kelly, who served as a control group on Earth.

On Nov. 15, Scott Kelly spoke to a special gathering of students in the Aerospace Building at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder.

What did you learn from the that was unexpected or unusual?

My telomeres on the space station got better compared to my brothers. Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes, as we get older they get shorter and more frayed, kind of an indication of our physical age. The hypothesis was mine would get smaller compared to his because of the radiation, the stress, the microgravity, but the reality is mine got better compared to his.

At first we were confused about it, when your results are completely opposite of your hypothesis it’s a really stunning result. A few months after I got back NASA realized there was a telomeres experiment on the Japanese module of the space station, it was on these little worms, and their telomeres got better too. They learned later that radiation can excite your telomeres and cause them to get practically younger. But, after I was back they went back to normal.

The only lingering effects I have from my longer time in space is my vision. My brother needs reading glasses, but I can’t see without distance correction and that seems attributable to the time I spent in space.

What’s it like having a brother who was also an astronaut?

My brother applied the time before we got selected and he got rejected. So I think I pulled him across the finish line. If you consider he’s only flown in space for 50 days, versus my 500, that’s why he became a U.S. Senator, just to try to one up me.

What is your advice to someone who wants to be an astronaut?

It is a tough job to get, but that I’m standing here talking to you means it’s possible, because I wasn’t a great student when I was younger.

What I always tell people that want to have this kind of job, first you have to choose something that is technically qualifying. The second thing I say is choose the thing you want to study. Don’t become a fighter pilot in the Navy because I talked to you and that’s what I did. Do the thing you love because if you do stuff you like, you’ll do better at it, you’re going to enjoy your work and if you don’t get picked at least you’re doing something you value.

Generally the people who don’t have a military background or an operational background, let’s say you’re a scientist, the way they stand out from their peers is to do things, like hobbies, that are more operationally oriented, stuff that can put you under stress where there’s risk involved like mountaineering, scuba diving, learning to fly. Probably 100% of astronauts that didn’t have a kind of operational background had something else in their lives beyond their work to show they can perform well in these kind of stressful team oriented environments.

What inspired you to become an astronaut?

My first year of college I couldn’t pay attention. I didn’t know how to study. I never really did well, but I  stumbled into the book store and saw The Right Stuff on the shelf and I read it and was like, I feel like I can relate to these guys, that I had very much in common with them with one exception: that I was a bad student. If I can fix this, maybe I can graduate from college someday with an engineering degree. If I can learn how to study and pay attention, maybe I can get a commission in the United States Navy and learn how to fly airplanes.

If you think an 18 year old kid reads a book and decides to become an astronaut is a giant leap, really in retrospect, it was a bunch of small, sometimes hard, but small manageable steps. One just built upon the other.

I used the book The Right Stuff almost like a recipe or cookbook, I kind of said I’m going to do what these guys did, it worked for them. It turned out it worked for me.

As technology progresses, do you believe it will become possible for the average person to go to space?

Spaceflight will have all different kinds of experiences. William Shatner going up in a suborbital Blue Origin at 90 years old, people are very capable of doing that.

Living on the space station for a week is a different thing. There’s a lot of things that are very uncomfortable about it. Between the fluid shifts, trying to sleep, using the restroom, eating, just functioning in that environment, it’s not for everyone.

What did you miss while in space and what do you miss now that you’re back?

I missed my wife. Mostly you miss people and the weather. You can’t step outside and get any fresh air, the air there is generally pretty stale.

Now what do I miss? The people that I worked with. I miss working at NASA. It was one of the greatest places to work in my career. I don’t mean riding the rocket or floating around in zero gravity or looking out at the Earth. What I mean is doing something that is really complicated, challenging, hard, and something that if you mess it up, can have really significant consequences, from losing your life to messing up someone’s life work of their science.

How does the spacewalk training in the differ from actual space walks?

There are a lot of differences. You’re not in zero gravity. In the pool if you turn upside down, you’re not floating, your shoulders are basically resting on the bearings of the suit. Gravity still affects you.

The pool makes it easier to slow down if you’re moving, but it makes it harder to get moving. Whereas in space it’s the complete opposite because you have all this mass.

I would say the pool is probably physically harder, but what makes a spacewalk in space more challenging is the day is so long. The emotional aspect also makes it very draining. In the pool if you mess up, they just float you up to the surface. In the space station if you can’t get yourself back in the hatch, it’s a serious problem.

How did being in space for so long change your perspective about our planet?

There’s so much you learn about managing resources, conservation. You’re on the space station, and we use energy from the sun for electricity, we have to recycle our water, our ability to get garbage off the space station is very limited. Just living there you’re kind of forced to live with this resource management, recycling mindset.

Then when you look out the window you see how fragile our planet looks. One of the first few days on my first mission I said to one of my crewmates, “What’s that film over the surface?” He said, “That’s the atmosphere.” It looked like a contact lens over somebody’s eye, so thin and fragile.

Related News

Want more first-person accounts of space? Sarah Gillis, who flew on the Polaris Dawn mission, spoke at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder the week of Nov. 10, 2024.

Life in space from a ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder alumna who has been there

You don’t see political borders, at least during the daytime. It gives you a sense that we’re all floating through space on our big spaceship: planet Earth, and we need to take care of those resources very similar to how we had to deal with it on the space station.

When are we going to Mars?

I hope it happens in my lifetime. I think it could. The rocket science is pretty much figured out. I’ll quote my brother from years ago, “Going to Mars is not about rocket science, it’s about political science,” which is good, because he’s a politician, maybe he’ll help with that.

What was it like servicing the Hubble Space Telescope?

Seeing Hubble is cool.

It’s like the size of a school bus and you always generally see the side of it in pictures that looks really shiny and nice looking. The sun pointing side is always away from you. When you see the other side, it’s burned to a crisp. One side is all nice and shiny and that’s the side that’s facing the Earth, and the other side is burnt up and has holes in it like the space station does.

Just to realize this thing is seeing practically to the beginning of time is pretty cool. The fact that it’s still doing incredible science is pretty amazing. Hopefully Jared Isaacman is going to go up there and re-boost it someday. We’ll see.

Off

Four University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder aerospace graduate students have been named

Domenique Freund, Austin Smith, Gary Sutliff, and Hai-shuo Wang have each earned the grants, which provide up to $50,000 annually for three years to cover tuition, expenses, and student-designed research projects.

FINESST proposals must address goals relevant to NASA's science mission directorate divisions -- heliophysics, earth science, planetary science, or astrophysics. 

Find out more about each of our awardees and their research below:

Domenique Freund

2nd Year PhD Student

Advisors: Lauren Blum and Zoltan Sternovsky
Lab:

My research focuses on the dynamics of energetic particle populations within the magnetospheres of Earth and Jupiter. Specifically, it aims to investigate particle losses through atmospheric precipitation, analyzing spatial and temporal variations on both planets. On Earth, I primarily examine relativistic electrons and their role in rapid depletion events. In contrast, my work on Jupiter covers electrons, protons, and heavier ions, addressing a broad understanding of particle dynamics. Understanding these variations requires analyzing magnetic field strengths and the influence of factors such as solar storms, the geomagnetic state, and Jupiter’s moons. By comparing precipitation patterns and overall energy input into the atmospheres of Earth and Jupiter, this research helps to not only understand atmospheric dynamics but also uncovers similarities and differences between different magnetospheres.

Austin Smith

2nd Year PhD Student

Advisor: Zoltan Sternovsky
Lab:

My research aims to further our understanding of dust populations in the solar system using spacecraft (SC) instrumentation. As dust particles impact SC with high velocities, they ionize and their constituents expand outward in a plasma plume that is not fully characterized. This work is focused on improving the mass resolution and sensitivity of time-of-flight mass spectrometers (dust analyzers) by designing ion optics that mitigate resolution-limiting plasma effects. Additionally, research into other performance limiting effects will be pursued and characterized in order to mitigate limitations on future dust analyzer instruments. 

Gary Sutliff

4th Year Phd Student

Advisor: Xinzhao Chu
Lab:

My research focuses on developing new tools for studying the upper atmosphere, near-space environment, and coupling between the thermosphere and ionosphere. The research grant focuses on the development of a new calcium and calcium ion Doppler lidar system, simulating calcium ion spectroscopy and the performance of the new lidar system, and developing data processing techniques to extend the range of Doppler lidars. The proposed system is expected to allow for measuring neutral temperatures and winds to over 200 km and ion temperature and winds to over 300 km, and observe the energy coupling between them. Additionally, it is theorized that one of the formation mechanisms of the natural metal layers in the thermosphere is due to the recombination of metal ions, and this system could lead to direct observations of that process.

Hai-shuo Wang

3rd year PhD student

Advisor: Dan Scheeres
Lab:

My research focuses on the upcoming close encounter of the asteroid (99942) Apophis with Earth in 2029, when Apophis will pass closer than geostationary satellites. The strong tidal forces exerted by Earth could alter the asteroid’s shape, particularly as radar observations suggest it is likely a contact binary with a loosely bound structure compared to a monolithic body. To explore this, I aim to simulate the potential shape changes using high-fidelity contact dynamics models.

Off

Iain Boyd discusses Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system in a feature article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Boyd, a professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, is a national security expert and also the director of the ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder Center for National Security Initiatives.

The article outlines components of the Iron Dome system and how it has functioned over the last year during attacks from Hamas and Iran.

Off

Smead Aerospace recognized three students with graduate assistantships named for alumni and longtime faculty. 

The Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences held a ceremony Sept. 24, celebrating the student honorees and commemorating each namesake for the assistantships. 

Prof. George H. Born Graduate Assistantship

Recipient: Tommy Clark, 1st Year PhD Student
Advisor: Dan Scheeres

Tommy Clark's research is focused on data-driven methods and machine learning in astrodynamics. He hopes to use machine learning to better understand the space of trajectories in the three-body problem.

This assistantship is named in honor of George Born (1939-2016), who joined ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder aerospace in 1985 and established ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Center for Astrodynamics Research (CCAR), which he built into an internationally recognized organization, known for contributions to spacecraft guidance, control, and navigation; and remote sensing of the oceans and atmosphere with radar and lidar technology.

"Professor Born's assistantship is a great honor. He was a pioneer in the field and left an important legacy at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ and beyond. The assistantship has provided me the time and freedom to explore this research." - Clark

Photo: Thomas Clark and Carol Born.

Dr. Lisa Hardaway Graduate Assistantship

Recipient: Anant Telikicherla, 1st Year PhD Student
Advisor: Bob Marshall and

Anant Telikicherla's research is in the field of Heliophysics, with an emphasis on miniaturized small-satellite instruments that aim to address unresolved questions in the field. He aspires to conduct interdisciplinary research that integrates engineering optimization of space instruments with observational data analysis to investigate underlying space physics phenomena. 

Lisa Hardaway (1966-2017) (AeroEngr PhD'00) was an industry trailblazer and active ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder aerospace alumna. She spent 20-years at Ball Aerospace, playing critical roles on projects that advanced our knowledge of the universe – including New Horizons mission which took the first ever close up photos of Pluto.

"Receiving this assistantship motivates me to pursue cutting-edge space research. As an aspiring instrument scientist, I consider Dr. Lisa Hardaway, who led the development of multiple space instruments, including the RALPH instrument on NASA’s New Horizons mission, an exemplary role model." - Telikicherla

Photo: Telikicherla with the Hardaway family and friends and members of the New Horizons Team. (L-R) James Hardaway (AeroEngr BS'89 ArchEngr BS'89, CivEngr MS'91), Anant Telikicherla, Jaella Hardaway, Jeanette Domber (AeroEngr MS’99, PhD’04), Alan Stern (AeroEngr PhD'89), Elijah Lowe, and Cathy Olkin.

Captain William H. DuBois Graduate Assistantship

Recipient: Angela Wang, 1st Year PhD Student
Advisor: Jade Morton

Angela Wang's research is centered on the receiver signal processing part of remote sensing. With Prof. Jade Morton, Wang is working on processing signals of opportunity from low earth orbiting weather satellites to study ionospheric effects. In the years to come, she hopes to extend this work to more satellites and to study the troposphere as well.

Capt. William "Pyro" DuBois (AeroEngr BS'08) attended ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder aerospace on an Air Force Scholarship. Following graduation, he completed F-16 training and was twice named the top fighter pilot in his class. He served in the 77th Fighter Squadron, and on Dec 1, 2014, his wingman’s F-16 developed mechanical issues. True to his character and leadership, Will was escorting his wingman safely back to base, when his own jet went down. 

"I feel humbled to receive an award honoring Captain William Dubois. He was a person who seemed to live life to the fullest and it motivates me to do so here at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder both in and out of school. The assistantship's funding allows me to explore research topics of my interest for this year. Furthermore, it has given me extra flexibility to explore ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ and my hobbies. I am so thankful for the assistantship and I will continue to make it worthwhile." - Wang

Photo: Angela Wang (center) with William DuBois' parents, Ham and Donna.

Your contributions help provide ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder aerospace graduate assistantships. 
Find out more about these and other opportunities to support tomorrow’s engineering workforce and the future of aerospace.

Off