PERFORMANCE METRICS

• SYSTEM MASS: 100 KG

• DROP ALTITUDE: 80,000 FT

• GLIDE RANGE: 70 MILES

For a Space Force SBIR Phase 3 project, I led the development of a 100kg autonomous paragliding robot engineered to bring spacecraft down from orbit to precise, runway-scale landings on Earth. Deploying a high-glide paraglider wing from free fall was widely dismissed by industry consultants as impossible, and our earliest drop campaigns validated their skepticism with immediate failures; chaotic line twists, collapsed wing tips, and a lot of impact craters in the California desert floor.

Instead of abandoning the architecture, I stripped the problem back to first principles. Using high-rate sensor data from our own test drops, I built a proprietary 6-DOF dynamic simulation to model wing inflation physics and invented a novel deployment mechanism that mechanically forces suspension lines to resolve twists and limit chaos. In nine months, we took the system from a blank CAD model to 80,000 feet, executing a clean stratospheric deployment and proving out a recovery capability everyone said would fail.

My responsibilities included generating top-level vehicle requirements and system architecture, designing primary and secondary structures along with the parachute deployment and control systems, setting specs for (or personally designing, procuring, and fabricating) every single physical part on the vehicle, managing suppliers and contractors, driving project timelines, leading teams across software, firmware, avionics, GNC, structures, and flight test operations, and filling in wherever else was needed as test director, parachute rigger, machinist, and facility manager.

You could say I wore a lot of hats, but the photos prove I just wore one :)

This is my favorite problem I’ve ever solved, and I loved working on it with an incredible group of people who are all still near and dear to my heart!