2024 SATELLITE Conference

Doug Stetson, Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer of FreeFall Aerospace, will attend the 2024 SATELLITE Conference this year in Washington DC.

Connect with Doug to set up a meeting.

About Doug Stetson:

Doug Stetson is the Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of FreeFall Aerospace, a small business dedicated to advancing and developing innovative antenna technology for satellite communications and 5G internet applications. Before founding FreeFall in 2016, Doug spent nearly 30 years at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in various technical and management positions, including several assignments at NASA Headquarters. At JPL, he led systems engineering and mission design for many high-profile missions to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. He was responsible for the development of new planetary mission concepts and programs. Doug led the development of many mission and technology “roadmaps” for the national science community and NASA, and established new initiatives for mission and system innovation and cost assessment. During his three tours at NASA Headquarters, Doug served as the deputy manager of the NASA Advanced Planning and Integration Office, coordinated development of the Agency’s 2003 Strategic Plan, and served as acting chief of Planetary Advanced Studies in the early 1990’s. After leaving JPL in 2008, Doug established the Space Science and Exploration Consulting Group and was project manager for the LightSail mission, a privately-funded Cubesat that successfully deployed and tested a solar sail in Earth orbit. Doug holds a B.S. in Physics and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University.

He is the recipient of a number of local and national awards, including the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal and the JPL Award for Excellence in Leadership.

The SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition was launched in 1981 to connect and unite the satellite industry as we headed toward new frontiers. Over the past 43 years, SATELLITE has served the satellite and space communities and broadened the scope of content to encompass professionals in commercial markets benefiting from satellite technology and applications, such as broadcasting, media & entertainment, government/military, aviation, maritime, automotive, financial, healthcare, telecommunications and more.

SATELLITE continues to be one of the largest business gatherings, innovation platforms, and media events of the year. Here are just some of the many industry developments announced at SATELLITE:

• Google spinoff, Aalyria, shares its vision for Spacetime, an agile platform designed for optimizing networks (2023).
• Amazon Project Kuiper unveils new user terminals and announces launch plans for 3,000 satellites into LEO during keynote address (2023).
• OneWeb announces they will partner with SpaceX to resume satellite launches after it suspended activity from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan due to geopolitical turmoil caused by the invasion of Ukraine (2022).
• Elon Musk appears to announce commercial satellite launch service on Falcon 9 (2009) and remote/rural broadband service on Starlink (2020).
• Jeff Bezos appears to reveal Blue Origin’s first commercial satellite launch customer (2017) and its first lunar lander, Blue Moon (2019).
• Former O3b visionary and founder of Isotropic Systems Jon Finney reveals the industry’s smallest multi-band, all-in-one terminal (2018).
• NGC (formerly Orbital ATK) reveals the first commercial in-orbit servicing contract with Intelsat for its MEV-2 (2018).
• SES becomes the first global satellite operator to sign a launch contract with SpaceX, a major endorsement for the new launcher, and the first operator to sign for a reusable launch (2012 & 2016).
• Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides and Virgin Founder Richard Branson announced plans to service the commercial satellite industry with a reusable, suborbital launcher (2015).
• Silicon Valley investors, joined by executives from Google, Planet, and Spire, proclaim the start of a golden age for “New Space” companies and entrepreneurs (2014).
• Antenna manufacturers ThinKom, Kymeta, Ball, and Phasor reveal phased-array or beam-forming antenna systems (2012-2020).
• Boeing revealed the industry’s first all-electric communications satellite bus 702SP (2011).
• Hughes reveals Jupiter-1 and Jupiter-2 satellites and issues manufacturing contracts (2008 & 2013).
• Iridium reveals its 2nd generation NEXT Constellation (2010).

SATELLITE’s sister products include the CyberSatGov and CyberLEO events and the Via Satellite suite of products including the Daily News Feed, Monthly Edition, On Orbit Podcast, and The Future Space Economy Webcast Series.