Bernie Kelm

Acting Director, Naval Center for Space Technology @U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

Washington, DC, US

As the Acting Director of the Naval Center for Space Technology, I have the great privilege of leading and representing a team of over 360 government employees augmented with about twice as many support contractors.The mission of the Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST) is to preserve and enhance a strong space technology base and to provide expert assistance in the development and acquisition of space systems that support naval missions. The Center is the Navy\'s principal organization or \"lead laboratory\" for space research. Activities extend from basic and applied research through advanced development in all areas of interest to the Navy space program. These include developing spacecraft, systems using these spacecraft, and ground command and control stations. Principal functions of the Center include understanding and clarifying requirements; recognizing and prosecuting promising research and development; analyzing and testing systems to quantify their capabilities; developing operational concepts that exploit new technical capabilities; system engineering to allocate design requirements to subsystems; and engineering development and initial operation to test and evaluate selected spacecraft subsystems and systems. The Center is a focal point and integrator for those Divisions at NRL whose technologies are used in space systems. The Center also provides systems engineering and technical direction assistance to system acquisition managers of major space systems. In this role, technology transfer is a major goal and motivates a continuous search for new technologies and capabilities, and the development of prototypes that demonstrate the integration of such technologies.

University of Maryland

Bachelor's degree, Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical/Space Engineering