Abstract

In this talk I will share my life story from my early days in Belen, Ayacucho, Peru a remote village in the Andes Mountains of Peru where my passion for building rockets and spaceships first started, all the way to today where I am the CEO of an aerospace startup that’s building CubeSats, in-space propulsion systems, and launch vehicles in Denver, Colorado, USA. I will briefly go over my early years up until my college years. I will spend a bit more time on my college years, early career years, and graduate school years, focusing on the steps I took to find my strengths and interests. I will then spend the most time on my early-to-mid-career years up until now focusing on all the preparation work and research I did before leaving the corporate world to cofound two aerospace startups and a small consulting business. I will conclude this talk sharing my experience cofounding Aphelion Aerospace, focusing on its vision, mission, strategies, value proposition, challenges, and opportunities. 

Speaker Biography

Miguel Ayala has more than 20 years of experience in engineering, leadership, and management of multidisciplinary engineering teams developing aircraft, launch vehicles, spacecraft, and associated ground support equipment in high-profile government and commercial space programs. Miguel is passionate about contributing to groundbreaking innovations in space exploration and aerospace transportation. With the intent of becoming an effective well-rounded leader, he has devoted his entire career to gaining a broad background in engineering and leadership, encompassing: small startups and large corporations; design, analysis, test, and manufacturing; propulsion, structures, mechanisms, and thermofluid systems; technical leadership; project and people management. Previous programs include ULA Vulcan rocket at Belcan, Orion spacecraft and A2100 satellites at Lockheed Martin, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets at SpaceX, aircraft GNC at L3Harris, Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) F-35 aircraft engines and ISS habitat module at Honeywell, and NASA Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster processing at Northrop Grumman. Miguel holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA. He also holds Bachelor’s degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering from Arizona State University.