HELPING FIRMS REACH FOR STARS
Colorado aerospace veterans’ small company opening new frontiers in international trade, open-source systems
Colorado aerospace veterans are helping small businesses fulfill their dreams of journeying to the cosmos.
The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has aerospace veterans Maureen O’brien and Stanley Kennedy Jr. celebrating what the industry has achieved and looking forward to the kinds of projects that will drive space exploration in the decades ahead.
The founders of Oakman Aerospace, each with years of experience with such industry powerhouses as Martin Lockheed and General Dynamics, see opportunities for smaller companies and the potential for partnerships with businesses spanning the globe.
The company, based in Highlands Ranch, has developed a platform that can be customized to enable smalland medium-size companies to plan missions, launch small satellites or determine how their instruments will mesh with another company’s spacecraft.
The platform, called ACORN — Advanced Configurable Open-system Research Network — is designed so smaller companies don’t need what O’brien calls a standing army of experts to handle different aspects of planning, designing, building, testing and launching space projects.
“There’s lots of people who have really cool ideas to do in space, but they need to understand ‘How do I get that into space and make sure it works.’ Even though space is getting less expensive, it’s still really expensive,” said Kennedy, who participated in panels at the Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum’s weeklong celebration of Apollo 11.
And Oakman has marked a major milestone in its other objective: working with companies and agencies in other countries to achieve shared goals and expand its business. The first of July, it sent its first shipment to
a foreign company under an export license through the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The 2013 defense bill opened the door to transferring less sensitive spacecraft and components from the United States Munitions List to the less restrictive Commerce Control List. O’brien, the CEO, and Kennedy, the company’s president and chief systems engineer, said it wasn’t a snap, but Oakman got its first commercial export license in March and made its first international commercial shipment July 1. The recipient was Newspace Systems in Cape Town, South Africa.
“It’s still controlled. We still have regulations on who we can and can’t sell to. All those things still apply, but it also allows for slightly less paperwork,” said O’brien, who stressed “slightly” and then laughed.
There are still plenty of hoops to jump through, but also wider opportunity, O’brien and Kennedy said. For years, they joined other members of the Colorado Space Coalition, state officials and members of the state’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Michael Bennet and former Rep. Mike Coffman, to make it easier for U.S. aerospace companies to export technology that’s already available and doesn’t pose national security risks.
At one point, anything that said “space” was controlled through International Traffic in Arms Regulations, O’brien said. The regulations are intended to keep defense-related technology out of the wrong hands.
Oakman will have to apply for an export license for each international business it sells to.
The Space Foundation, an advocacy organization based in Colorado Springs, has said it supports the change in regulation to make U.S. aerospace companies more competitive globally.
Oakman has set an example for other Colorado aerospace companies by pursuing and obtaining a commercial export license, said Jay Lindell, who serves as the aerospace and defense industry champion with the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
“This is a great example of persistence, having the patience to go through the regulatory process. It can be a lengthy process to get the certificates,” Lindell said.
Some of the larger aerospace companies have navigated the regulatory twists and turns, but many smaller ones have not taken them on, Lindell added.
That’s something Kennedy and O’brien hope changes. They are big boosters of Colorado’s aerospace industry, which state and Denver-metro economic development officials say is second only to California’s.
Colorado has 180 aerospace companies and more than 500 businesses that provide spacerelated products and services, according to a 2018 report by the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. The report said the state has the highest concentration of direct private aerospace employment in the country: 26,620.
And 60 percent or more of the companies have 10 or fewer employees, Kennedy said.
“A lot of small companies just immediately see ‘State Department’ and ‘Commerce Department’ and say ‘No, we’re not big enough. We’re not going to do it,’ ” Kennedy said. “But I think there are a lot of opportunities for small businesses. It’s an added cost, but it isn’t prohibitive if you know what you’re doing.”
Oakman Aerospace is a small but growing company. O’brien, Kennedy and Stanley Kennedy Sr. started Oakman after the company where they previously worked, small-satellite producer Comtech Aeroastro, was shut down in 2012. O’brien and the younger Kennedy were in London for an air show when they got the news of the impending closure. After some discussion, they decided to carry on with their own business.
“We started with six (employees) in that first year, and now we’re at 26,” O’brien said.
Oakman has two buildings: one in Littleton acquired through a lease-purchase agreement with Comtech Aeroastro and a larger, main facility in Highlands Ranch where the company is adding lab space.
Oakman was chosen as one of the “Colorado Companies to Watch” in 2015, and Kennedy is now chairman of the business group’s alumni committee. Coloradobiz magazine recently named Oakman, with O’brien as majority owner, to its list of top woman-owned companies for the third consecutive year.
O’brien is also a veteran, having started her career in the U.S. Navy as an aviation structural mechanic. She went on to work for Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. Kennedy worked for years on launch vehicles, multiple spacecraft programs and ground systems while at Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Advanced Information Systems.
Stanley Kennedy Sr., Oakman’s executive vice president, worked for a number of years at Boeing and the Department of Defense.
At large aerospace companies, there was a group of 35 or 50 people whose whole job was to design missions, Kennedy said. “When we got here, we didn’t have those 40 people to design those missions.”
Oakman’s technology is designed for companies that don’t have big staffs and experts in every subject area. It provides open, standardized interfaces that allow communications and tests between different systems, Kennedy said.
Companies can use the software and components in the ACORN module, plug in their own components or products from other companies, depending on their need or project.
“This is where space is going, open-system architecture and open source,” Kennedy said. “Think about Google and how they do application programming interfaces. That’s what we’re developing for space systems.”
In other words, small companies and startups, which make up a big part of Colorado’s aerospace industry and are helping drive innovation, can tap into already available systems, technology, modeling and simulations as they build their projects or design missions. Oakman sees itself as disrupting the system by making technology and expertise more accessible.
Oakman has also teamed up with a European company that works with the European Space Agency to standardize the data sheets of thousands of spacecraft components available across the world. Kennedy said the standardized data of catalogued components have been incorporated into ACORN so people can rapidly pick and compare satellite components.
“We really are an enabler. We know how to build spacecraft. We used to build spacecraft, but what we’re trying to do now is enable the next generation of space enthusiasts to design, develop and fly their missions,” Kennedy said.