146: Sending Science to the Lunar Surface with Aegis Aerospace Principal Owner Stephanie Murphy

When you need to send payloads to space, you call upon the expertise of Stephanie Murphy, because Ms. Murphy and her newly merged company is (and has been) perfectly practiced at providing on-orbit testing for government and commercial customers. Today on the show, you’ll enjoy getting to know the impressive Stephanie Murphy- how she’s overcoming obstacles as a female principal owner in the competitive commercial space industry, what it takes to fly payloads in space, her team’s ability to champion challenging flight schedules (from concept to flown in 3 years!) and what it feels like to receive a new contract from NASA to be the first woman-owned company that will land testing equipment on the moon!!    Alpha Space leads the commercial space industry through its Space Testing as a Service (STaaS) offerings. Alpha Space owns and operates the MISSE – an orbiting commercial science and testing facility permanently installed on the exterior of the International Space Station. MEI Technologies is a nationwide company providing innovative technical services and solutions including Space Access, Engineering Services & Solutions, Modeling and Simulation and IT/Cyber Services & Solutions, and Stephanie Murphy is the woman who formed the merger between Alpha Space and MEI Technologies!    About Stephanie Muñiz Murphy: Stephanie Muñiz Murphy a Hispanic-American woman who owns Aegis and serves as Chair of the Board. Through a new contract with NASA, Aegis will be the first woman-owned company that will land testing equipment on the Moon! Stephanie is working closely with Mark Gittleman, the CEO of Aegis, which was formed in August 2021 through the merger of Alpha Space and MEI Technologies. Gittleman’s background is rich with hardware development in the commercial space industry.    About AEGIS AEROSPACE https://www.aegisaero.com (pronounced ējis) is a woman-owned space and technology company that provides turn-key solutions to government and commercial customers in the space and defense industries. Formed through the merger of Alpha Space and MEI Technologies, Aegis Aerospace offers 30 years of success and innovation in the areas of commercial space services, technology and engineering services, and related products.   About Alpha Space https://www.alphaspace.com/about-alpha-space.html  Unparalleled Commercial On-Orbit Testing and Data Collection Services Alpha Space Test and Research Alliance, LLC (Alpha Space) is a minority-woman-owned commercial space company serving the space R&D and testing markets.  It is an ISS National Laboratory Implementation Partner and Commercialization Partner.  Alpha Space provides turnkey on-orbit technology testing services utilizing its unique, external flight facility, MISSE.  Alpha Space makes it easy to get your science or technology to orbit and into the actual space environment, providing confidential testing and data collection for both passive and active tests and experiments for about 6 months at a time.  When the test period is over, Alpha Space returns your hardware to you.  The Alpha Space team has the experience and skills needed to provide its customers with services that include: Hardware design Hardware/experiment fabrication Payload and experiment integration Flight certification Launch vehicle integration On-orbit operations Confidential data collection De-integration and return   About the MISSE Facility https://www.alphaspace.com/about-misse-ff.html  Affordable, Unparalleled Access for Space Environment Technology Demonstration Testing Instrument Validation | Material Science | Solar Cell Testing The MISSE test platform consists of a flight facility that is permanently installed on an ISS truss and modular technology/experiment carriers.  The flight facility provides structural mounting and utility distribution to up to twelve technology/experiment carriers at a time.  The modular carriers are rotated about every six months with a new set of customer technologies.