Emerging Trends in Satellite Manufacturing

Noel Rimalovski is a Managing Director at GH Partners, an independent New York-based investment banking firm. Mr. Rimalovski leads the firm’s representation of mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, debt financings, and strategic advisory services to domestic and international clients. At GH, Mr. Rimalovski specializes in the telecom, media, technology, space and defense sectors.

Prior to joining GH, Mr. Rimalovski was with Macquarie Capital, Wasserstein Perella, and Lazard Frères.

Mr. Rimalovski graduated from Tufts College and received an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Colonel Dean Bellamy (Ret.) is the Executive Vice President of National Security Space, at Redwire. Dean brings his experience and expertise in strategic planning and program management in both the private sector and as a military officer to set and achieve new space development goals while meeting the needs of Redwire’s national security customers.

Prior to joining Redwire, Dean was Vice President of Space Strategies and Development at national security technology company Peraton. In that position, he led Peraton’s space resilience campaign and produced long-range strategies to help Peraton meet its space portfolio’s objectives, including. Peraton’s critical space capabilities included the development of secure cloud platform as a service for ground battle management command and control; development of indications and warning tools for the National Space Defense Center and National Reconnaissance Operations Center; flight safety and conjunction assessment support to the National Reconnaissance Operations Center; development and operations of commercial and civil ground stations; and operations and maintenance of NASA’s space network, near-Earth network, and deep space network. Dean drew on his expert knowledge of program management, leadership, and satellite operations developed through his years of service in the military. In addition to developing these strategies, Dean took an active role in their implementation.

Before joining Peraton, Dean served as a U.S. Air Force officer, retiring with the rank of Colonel. During his tenure in the Air Force, Dean served in a variety of positions related to satellite operations and acted in many other engineering and leadership roles. His most recent position as an Air Force officer was as Chief of the Policy and Strategy Group in the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), where he led the development and implementation of the Integrated Protection Strategy, which was the first update of the space protection strategy in 35 years. Dean oversaw the NRO’s Space Enterprise Vision activities and served as Director of the NRO’s interagency representative to various high-level defense, intelligence, and government groups such as the Space Enterprise Vision, National Security Council, National Space Council, Space Defense Council, and Department of State. He also developed and implemented space policy and strategies for U.S. intelligence satellites.

Dean holds master’s degrees in aeronautical science, strategic intelligence, and strategic studies from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the Joint Military Intelligence College, and Air War College, respectively. He also attended the executive leadership course at the Harvard University School of Government and is a certified acquisitions level three program manager.

Dean was awarded by the Director of National Intelligence the 2018 National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement medal and was recognized by the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office as the NRO’s 2018 Jimmy D. Hill awardee for meritorious service.

John Borrego is a veteran of manufacturing operations and production, and is a subject matter expert in the manufacturing of propellant tanks used for in-space applications. In his current role as vice president of operations at Machina Labs, he oversees production, quality assurance, and manufacturing engineering. Prior to joining Machina Labs, John was head of operations at Industrial Electronic Engineers (IEE), a manufacturer of enhanced displays to the military. Additional aerospace experience includes Operations Manager at Northrop Grumman (Previously ATK Space Components) that built propulsion tanks for in-space applications, and as a Flight Systems manager and Propulsion Manufacturing Engineer at SpaceX developing the second stage nozzle extension used on the Falcon 9 Launch Vehicle.

Karolis Senvaitis is the Director of Engineering Operations at KNA, where he leads a team responsible for supply chain, production, quality control, and mission control. His daily responsibilities include solving operational challenges, ensuring timely product delivery, and maintaining continuous improvement. Karolis also focuses on planning satellite constellations and developing expansion strategies to meet industry demands and optimize costs for clients.

Chris Winslett is the General Manager of Blue Canyon Technologies, part of the Space, Imaging and Microelectronics leadership under the Advanced Products & Solutions Strategic Business Unit of Raytheon, an RTX business.

With close to 25 years of industry experience, Chris joined Blue Canyon from Lockheed Martin where he most recently was the Program Director for SDA Transport Layer Programs. Prior to this role, he was the Director of Programs for OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus. In this position, he was responsible not only for completing the design and development of the OneWeb constellation, but also for standing up a factory that was able to produce 10 satellites a week and for developing a strategy to leverage that production to build a wider customer base. 

Before joining OneWeb, Chris worked with Boeing for 17 years, holding a variety of positions across the company including leading the Platform and Payload Products for the Satellite Vehicles Business Unit.

Chris earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.