Mr. A.C. Charania, President

Mr. A.C. Charania is President of SpaceWorks Commercial. He is a strategic thinker and technical analyst in the areas of outer space transportation and infrastructure design, space commercialization and economic modeling, planetary defense engineering and policy, and general far-term technology impact assessment and prioritization. Mr. Charania has been an advocate and involved with analysis of commercial space markets, venture-driven space initiatives, and international space activities.

In his previous role as Senior Futurist at SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI), he helped grow the firm to a staff of over 10 qualified engineers and scientists who implement various industry and government contracts on aerospace engineering topics. He personally proposed and implemented numerous technical projects at SEI, including capturing the company’s largest contract (a $2M, multi-year advanced systems analysis contract from NASA Headquarters). He has presented to multiple audiences on various technical topics. He assisted in overall company sales, marketing, and branding. He possesses experience in organizing small teams to accomplish objectives using resources efficiently. Examples of projects he has led at SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI) include a NASA-funded study to examine the economic development of space using agent-based modeling (including the role of emerging companies in various new markets such as sub-orbital space tourism and International Space Station support), a planetary defense concept using swarms of robotic spacecraft to alter the course of an earth-bound asteroid (the "MADMEN" concept), and a planetary telecommunication network on Mars based upon reflecting signals off of meteor trails in the atmosphere. He has been a NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts (NIAC) fellow for such previous work. In addition to these specific projects, Mr. Charania has performed economic and operations/safety analysis of multiple launch vehicle concepts studies ranging from heavy-lift launch vehicles to military space planes. He has also been involved in analyses and studies related to NASA's implementation of the President's Vision for Space Exploration.

In his previous position at Futron Corporation, he worked on economic modeling of Space Solar Power (SSP) architecture. In his previous role at Accenture's (formerly Andersen Consulting) Telecommunications Industry Group he formulated strategies to address future concepts of the "network" as applied to comprehensive strategic technology assessments of the terrestrial telecommunications marketplace; examining both markets (long distance, local access, Internet, Intranet, and E-Commerce) and technologies (ATM, AIN, ISDN, and xDSL).

Mr. Charania holds an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (with a concentration in systems design and optimization), a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a B.A. in Economics/Mathematics from Emory University. He is currently a Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), member of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), member of the Space Power Association/Sunsat Energy Council, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF). He has been a previous member of the AIAA Economics Technical Committee (TC).

Mr. Dominic DePasquale, Director, Washington D.C. Operations

Mr. Dominic DePasquale currently serves as the Director of Washington D.C. Operations for SpaceWorks Commercial, a division of SEI focused on emerging commercial space industries. In that role, he supports several SpaceWorks Commercial projects and initiatives to develop and promote commercial space ventures. He serves as the deputy directory of the FastForward Study Group, an industry/government/academe working group focused on pre-competitive assessment of future high-speed point-to-point (PTP) flight. He is also the firm’s primary liaison to Astrobotic Technologies as they attempt to create commercial services on the moon (and also to win the Google Lunar X-Prize).

Mr. DePasquale’s past experience demonstrates significant leadership in economic analysis, business modeling, conceptual design, operations analysis, optimization, risk, and reliability of space systems architectures and concepts. He recently led integrated affordability analysis of the Lunar Surface Systems Project and greater Constellation Program as Integration Lead of NASA’s Strategic Analysis Cost Team, contributed to cost assessment for the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans (Augustine) Committee, and led program metrics assessment of multiple reusable Two-Stage-To-Orbit concepts for the NASA / Air Force Joint Systems Study. Other applications he has examined include space tourism/adventures, commercial space transportation concepts, and various other commercial markets. In addition, Mr. DePasquale has led or significantly contributed to the development of several engineering analysis tools and integrated environments. He developed an agent-based simulation tool for examination of dynamic space markets, and conceived and prototyped SEI's commercially available TraGE-X and Remix software tools.

Mr. DePasquale also has two years of experience working for Futron Corporation, where he contributed to Probabilistic Risk Assessment of the International Space Station (ISS), and served as Junior Systems Safety Engineer for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory New Horizons spacecraft.

Mr. DePasquale holds both an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.B.A. from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He completed his undergraduate study at the University of Maryland, College Park where he received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering. He is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He is privileged to have worked with several highly functional teams, and received the NASA Space Flight Awareness Team Award in 2002 and the NASA Cost Estimating Team of the Year Award in 2008.

Affiliates

Mr. Derek Webber, Affiliate

Mr. Derek Webber is an affiliate and technical advisor to SpaceWorks Commercial, a division of SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI). Mr. Webber is currently Director of Spaceport Associates, a space tourism consultancy based in Washington, D.C. Over the last several years, he has directed three landmark studies in commercial space business planning: the ASCENT Study of Space Markets, for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the Futron/Zogby Study of Space Tourism Demand, and the Adventurers' Survey which he completed jointly with Incredible Adventures.

Mr. Webber's career began as a launch vehicle and satellite engineer in what is now EADS/Astrium Space Systems. He worked on thermal control system design for a number of satellites, including the Skynet satellite, and on kinetic heating analyses for launch vehicles, including post-flight analyses of telemetry from the Europa vehicle firings from the Woomera range. He became Head of Procurement at Inmarsat, (responsible for contracting over a billion dollars worth of communications satellites, their launch vehicles and ground segment), and Managing Director of Tachyon Europe (providing satellite broadband and Internet access across the continent). Mr. Webber operated a consulting and training company based in San Diego with clients including Comsat Corporation and the then Hughes Space and Satellite Systems. Consulting assignments included PDR, CDR Design Review Board membership, international negotiation skills training, and systems engineering tasks.

Mr. Webber holds a B.Sc. Honors Degree in Physics and Mathematics from Newcastle University (UK), and postgraduate qualifications in Space Science (from University College London, UK) and Management (from the University of Westminster, UK). He is a Senior Member of AIAA, and a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. Mr. Webber has been a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the International Space University, and at the US International University in San Diego, where he provided courses on international management. Mr. Webber is an active member of the Reusable Launch Vehicles Working Group and the Launch Operations Support Working Group of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-AST COMSTAC Committee.

Associates

Mr. Amaresh Kollipara, Associate

Mr. Amaresh Kollipara is an associate to SpaceWorks Commercial, a division of SpaceWorks Engineering, Inc. (SEI). Mr. Kollipara is a Founder and CEO [USA] of Earth2Orbit, LLC, which is a global provider of satellite launch services. Earth2Orbit is working with the Indian Space Research Organization to provide commercial launch services to a variety of satellite clients. Amaresh is fascinated by the science of space exploration and believes that involvement from the entrepreneurial sector, via emerging applications such as nanosatellite based services and microgravity based R&D, is an essential enabler for continued exploration. In addition to his role at Earth2Orbit, Amaresh serves as a management consultant and financial advisor to a new generation of space entrepreneurs by helping them develop viable businesses and navigate the world of venture finance. As part of this role, Amaresh serves as the Team Lead of Commercial Operations for Orbital Outfitters, a company devoted to providing spacesuits and services to government and commercial clients. Amaresh's vision to provide management guidance to space entrepreneurs led him to co-produce the first and second annual Space Venturing Forum, an entrepreneurial event hosted by the National Space Society. Amaresh often speaks at conferences on topics related to the business and economics of the commercial space industry.

In addition, Amaresh enjoyed a successful career with the Strategy group of Accenture, where he managed key strategy offerings and developed recommendations for Global 500 clients such as Cisco, HP, and Siemens. He specialized in creating business cases, operational plans, Internet strategies, and M&A assessments. He has been influential in pricing multi-million dollar private equity deals as well as in assisting clients to strategically allocate large-scale investments. Amaresh's diverse background also includes roles as a biotechnology researcher, planetarium presenter, and physics teacher. His professional experience extends to international locations such as Argentina, England, India, Japan and Mexico. Amaresh holds an MBA degree from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. He also earned a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Neurobiology from the University of California at Berkeley.

SpaceWorks Commercial Interns, past and present