A national aerospace conference was only part of a busy week for Casey Anglada DeRaad.
On April 17, the founder and CEO of NewSpace New Mexico was in Boca Chica, Texas, to get a peek at SpaceX's launch pad and test facility. (SpaceX launched its Starship from that facility on April 20.) Then, she drove northwest to Colorado Springs, where an estimated 17,000 aerospace experts and enthusiasts were gathering for the 38th Space Symposium.
DeRaad joined four others from the New Mexico-based aerospace nonprofit at the symposium, marking NewSpace's second year at the event. Last year, the nonprofit hosted a booth tucked between two other exhibitors; this year, NewSpace New Mexico had a corner spot, which allowed the organization to attract more visitors, DeRaad said.
Offering coffee and tea might have helped, too.
"A lot of the people that stopped by had heard about us," DeRaad said. "We were really trying to push our space industrial conference coming up on May 15, and a lot already knew about it. That was really cool."
Besides more name recognition, the types of people and companies DeRaad and the NewSpace team met at this year's symposium had also changed.
"We had a number of conversations with different companies, and I would say there are a lot more companies looking at operating in space," DeRaad said. "Years past, this was a conference for large prime contractors — and yes, they're still there and they have massive displays — but there were a lot more smaller, new space companies that are looking to operate in space."
DeRaad said NewSpace was invited to meet with some of those big contractors like BlueHalo and Lockheed Martin Corp. because of her organization's connections to small- and medium-sized space companies.
"We're looking to partner with a number of organizations like ours to expand our support to the space industry nationally," DeRaad said.
But DeRaad wasn't the only New Mexican in Colorado for the symposium. She was joined by other groups from the Land of Enchantment who participated in the event, including the Albuquerque Regional Economic Alliance.
AREA was part of a New Mexico booth, underwritten by the New Mexico Partnership and shared with Spaceport America and the New Mexico Economic Development Department. Grant Taylor, AREA's director of business development, said this is the second year New Mexico has hosted such a booth.
"AREA set up meetings with a half-dozen participating companies that were identified as being inclined for expansion or relocation through AREA's lead-generation initiative, which is relatively new," Taylor told Albuquerque Business First over email. "I spoke with the company representatives about our region generally then our assets specifically, such as our occupational density of engineers and technicians."
One lesson Taylor said he took away from the symposium: New Mexico should focus on expansion opportunities for companies rather than full relocations to the state because of the strength of existing industry clusters in states like California and Colorado.
Trisha Miller, director of research and development at RS21 — an Albuquerque-based data analytics company that's recently broken into the space market with a new artificial intelligence-backed technology — traveled up to the symposium with Carrie Powell, a senior project manager who is helping to develop the company's space technology.
It was RS21's first time at the symposium, Miller said. Landing a phase-three Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Space Force for the company's satellite-saving technology prompted the company to visit the symposium in order to "figure out how to grow that technology into more customer spaces," she said.
Competitor research was another goal for RS21, Miller said.
"There was a lot of focus on space domain awareness, like what is near your space asset and how do you need to maneuver in order to avoid collision? Where is space debris? … That is currently outside the scope of what our technology is doing," she said. "It was interesting to really see that. I think we kind of are in a niche space, which is cool, and it's not crowded."
While the "center of gravity" for space may be in Colorado, where the U.S. Space Command is currently headquartered, Miller said she sees New Mexico as being a part of a growing "space valley" between the two bordering states.
"There were a lot of organizations from New Mexico really waving the New Mexico flag," Miller said. "I thought that was exciting as a New Mexico small business, in particular."
Some other New Mexico companies and organizations were present at the symposium, as well, including the Air Force Research Laboratory, based at Kirtland Air Force Base, and Albuquerque-based aerospace technology company IDEAS Engineering & Technology. IDEAS recently partnered with Verus Research on a $37.5 million contract.
