Colorado Aerospace Veterans’ Small Company Opening New Frontiers In International Trade, Open-source Systems

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 small- and 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.