Space tourism operations are being gradually introduced in a number of states and countries. Planning for this eventuality involves trade-offs of risk versus cost versus customer perceptions, and development of procedures to enable the safe operation of the business. Spaceport Associates is available to provide guidance, management and support in the following specific areas:

• Systems engineering for tourism spacecraft design
• Operations planning for sub-orbital and orbital public space travel
• Procedures development and writing
• Spaceport operations
• PDR, CDR, FRR and Red Team Reviews for tourism spacecraft.
• Proposal management, proposal writing, RFP writing and evaluation
• International contract negotiations
• Training and risk management

The DC Director, Derek Webber, brings valuable experience to this task area, in the following ways:

As a former spacecraft and launch vehicle engineer, a former Head of Procurement for the International Mobile Satellite Organization (Inmarsat), and a contracted space systems engineer for Boeing Satellite Systems, he has been a Board Member for many PDR, CDR and FDR design reviews for both spacecraft and ground control facilities, and has developed mitigation plans for troubled program workarounds.

Webber was Managing Director, and developed operating procedures, for Tachyon Europe, a broadband/Internet–via-satellite company headquartered in Amsterdam. Furthermore, he has assisted in the development of customer-oriented operational procedures for new satellite services organizations around the world that were acquiring Boeing spacecraft.

The DC Director wrote and evaluated RFP’s for acquiring over $1B of spacecraft, launch vehicles, tracking facilities, and satellite control centers for LEOP and IOT for Inmarsat. He was a proposal writer for Boeing while they responded to RFP’s for satellite services. Furthermore, he has been a proposal writer for clients involved in the NASA COTS process, and as a member of a design team working on new spaceport facilities in New Mexico. He has negotiated internationally, and given presentations, in nearly 40 countries.

He has provided training in international cultural awareness to MBA students as an adjunct professor of international management, and has given training in spaceport operations to Brazil’s Centro Tecnico Aerospacial in San Jose dos Campos. He holds a patent/service mark for a method of training of international cultures.

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