8C Chamber Profile: Emergent Space Technologies

There is something deeply inspiring and deeply American about the notion of starting a business from the ground up, literally in a garage, supported only by vision, brains and drive. That’s how amazon.com – now a global brand – got its start. And, it could also quite literally be the way Space 2.0 evolves.

Emergent employees in a lab at Goddard Space Flight Center

Emergent Space Technologies, a  founding  member of the 8th Continent Chamber of Commerce, is positioned to be a big player in space’s entrepreneurial evolution. In fact, the company’s founder and president George Davis was only last month named one of  50 GNSS Leaders to Watch by GPS World.

According to Brendan O’Connor, Emergent’s Chief Technology Officer, the company’s ability to combine high-end software engineering with high-end aerospace engineering sets them apart. “Our domain expertise and experience, combined with our knowledge of current and emerging technology, make Emergent the small business team of choice in the aerospace industry,” he said. “We bring modern information technology to the aerospace industry and specifically high-end, cost-effective solutions to guidance, navigation and control problems.”

Recently Emergent teamed with The University of Texas at Austin to develop a picosat capable of performing an automated rendezvous and docking mission.
“Picosats are a great illustration of Space 2.0,” he said. “They are a way of democratizing space. At Emergent we’ve engineered picosats to be quick and inexpensive. What used to take years now, because of our software, can take as little as 12 months from concept to launch.

“What Space 2.0 ultimately does is shrink the space industry down and makes it entrepreneurial. It’s not that farfetched to think that someday soon someone in a garage could make and launch their own satellite.”

Founded eight years ago and located in Greenbelt, Md., Emergent provides consulting and engineering services to the civil, commercial and military space industry around its core competencies of spacecraft guidance, navigation and control, satellite ground systems, space mission automation and picosats. The team, as the Web site notes, has an unparalleled breadth and depth of aerospace and information system engineering experience and thrives on developing synergistic solutions to challenging problems that benefit humans here on Earth and as they explore the vast frontiers beyond.

The company’s current clients include such noted partners as NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Texas at Austin, and Lockheed Martin. Emergent has worked on the Orion spacecraft and is currently working the final steps to obtain its CMMI Level 3 certification.

“What we do that no one else does is come up with unique engineering solutions and the software to implement them,” O’Connor explained.

O’Connor remarked that as an 8C Chamber member, Emergent plans to take part in a variety of networking opportunities and calls it “a timely and great idea that needed to happen.”