Charles Lyons-Burt
A lot has happened to Damian DiPippa since we last spoke to him in February. You see, DiPippa started his career as an aerospace engineer working missile and satellite solutions for the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, which is now the Missile Defense Agency. Flash forward to June and he was offered something that was impossible to pass up, given his background: the chance to lead the newly formed Auria Space as CEO.
DiPippa has accrued experience leading large space and intelligence portfolios for companies like Northrop Grumman, ManTech and Perspecta, which he is applying and channeling in his new role at the Enlightenment Capital-backed venture. Auria, in DiPippa’s words, “a very agile and responsive mid-tier solutions provider formed through the consolidation of legacy companies having decades of experience in space-, missile- and cyber-related missions.”
DiPippa recently and passionately engaged in a conversation with ExecutiveBiz where he shared Auria’s key offerings and the values behind them and lent insight into how commercial input and products are transforming the space domain.
ExecutiveBiz: What factors or GovCon industry trends are influencing your growth strategy as you look toward Auria Space’s future?
Damian DiPippa: There is a definite gap in mid-sized providers of mission critical solutions within the GovCon sector due to a high volume of merger and acquisition activity by large strategic companies over the last decade. Auria is well-positioned to fill the gaps that allow customers to rapidly gain access to nontraditional and innovative solutions without being strapped to large multi-year systems integration contracts with fixed scopes of work. We are agile, yet we have the scale, maturity and experience in agile development, DevSecOps and program management practices to mitigate mission risks through assured, on-time delivery and completeness of expected performance capabilities.
Auria’s growth strategy drives four parallel trajectories:
- Exploit and expand awareness of our existing solutions that enhance space-related and cyber missions.
- Develop new discriminating space-related capabilities to meet emerging needs in space operations; surveillance, tracking and analysis; and testing and training.
- Provide premier engineering and development and operations support as a prime contractor and value-added subcontractor; and
- Target additional merger and acquisition opportunities of space-related companies that create accretive value through the incorporation of new capabilities taking us up the technology stack, while also opening new customer markets within the federal, commercial, scientific and international space communities.
EBiz: Where do you see Auria Space in 10 years and what are the concrete steps you have to take to get to that stage of evolution?
DiPippa: Out of all the previous organizations I have had the honor of leading, Auria has the greatest potential to be a true name-recognized leader in the development and provisioning of solutions for space systems and missions. Many space operators and analysts currently benefit from the use of our tools such as Satellite Tool Kit Scheduler, or STK Scheduler, and our Collection Planning and Analysis Workstation, a.k.a. CPAW.
Our downloadable SpyMeSat app is available in the App Store and Google Play for commercial users to easily request satellite imagery based on geolocation from their cell phones. Our Battlespace Operational Readiness Game is innovating orbital warfare for tomorrow’s space operators as a training tool used at the National Space Defense Center and the U.S. Air Force Academy, among others.
Auria will continue the exploitation and market penetration of over a dozen legacy innovative small business research solutions (from Phase I to Phase II Small Business Innovation Research efforts) to enhance and modernize space domain awareness, satellite communications, command and control, test and training and space operations.
We are developing space test and training environments, digital twins and end-to-end simulations with automated tools and analyses. We will continue researching and developing autonomous operations solutions, systems performance algorithms, machine learning and enhanced satellite communication and space domain awareness techniques.
EBiz: What are Auria Space’s core values? How do you think these values translate into continued success and growth in the GovCon market?
DiPippa: When our customers succeed, and our people excel, then we as a company grow and win. Maintaining a focus on providing solutions to meet the needs of our current and future customers’ missions along with the development and encouragement of talented innovators translates directly to success.
Auria’s vision is to empower exceptional teams to reach the forefront of space operations and autonomous systems through the development of innovative technologies and solutions. Embracing a commitment to people and excellence, we strive to be the preferred and trusted provider of solutions that strengthen national security, enable rapid decision-making and drive the future of space capabilities and operations.
We have a dedicated mission of harnessing the power of innovation and exceptional talent to deliver advanced solutions for space related operations. We empower national security, commercial, scientific and international missions through cutting-edge technologies that enhance operations; surveillance, tracking and analysis; and testing and training to ensure the success of our customers in a rapidly evolving space domain.
EBiz: How do you think the proliferation of commercial entrants in space is changing the domain? What trends or shifts can we expect to see from that going forward?
DiPippa: The proliferation of commercial entrants is making space more accessible and more affordable to both government agencies and industry. As such, even the U.S. Space Force has adopted an approach of ‘exploit what we have, buy what we can and build what we must.’ In concert with this, our everyday lives have become very much dependent on systems within the space domain — well beyond national security and NASA missions. GPS navigation and transportation, cell phones, traffic lights, power grids, agriculture, weather forecasting, shipping and much more all rely on resilient space architectures. This opens the door for commercial entrants to accelerate technology advancements through capitalistic business cases at a pace much more rapid than the government alone can achieve.
A specific example is Space X’s advancements in reusable launch vehicles as well as the entire Starlink communications network. We are also seeing a trend toward ubiquitous satellite systems versus large-scale “battlestars.” However, this proliferation comes with its own set of issues and challenges going forward. Space domain awareness is now very important which includes the tracking of satellites and debris in various orbit regimes. Because of our reliance on space, we must ensure the physical and cyber protections of our space systems against both environmental and adversarial threats.
At Auria, we are meeting emerging space needs by providing commercially available software products for satellite resource management and scheduling, imagery collection, sensor tasking and autonomous vehicle operations.
