Applied Invests in Deorbit Systems with Acquisition

Vestigo Aerospace founder and CEO Dr. David Spencer joins Applied Aerospace & Defense as the company's new vice president of deployable systems. Prior to Vestigo, Dr. Spencer served as a planetary mission designer, system engineer, and mission operations manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He also previously served as an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University.

"We are proud to join the Applied team and look forward to accelerating the evolution of Spinnaker™ as a proactive and scalable solution for deorbit compliance, " said Dr. Spencer.

In 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted the "5-year Rule" for new orbital licenses. The rule requires all satellites to be deorbited within five years of the termination of active operations. Similarly, in 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed new regulations that would require components of upper stage launch vehicles to be deorbited within 25 years of mission end. The Spinnaker deorbit products provide a cost-effective solution for a broad range of space systems operating in low Earth orbit.