Season 25 Episode 631
Think Engage Thrive E20 Entrepreneur Rob Quigley, Co Founder and CEO New Ascent
Rob Quigley is Co-founder and CEO of New Ascent, and the driving force behind the company’s vision to create thriving product ecosystems around Ground-Based Launch systems. The unifying theme in all his work is Rob’s desire to push what lives at the edge of possible in the space industry towards the light of reality, for the benefit of all. He spent his early years cutting his teeth on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Repair Mission Astronaut Tools teams, and proudly will tell you that the first designs of his that flew in space were a handful of trash bags for old Hubble electronics boards. Rob soon realized that progress in the industry was not metered by a dearth of good ideas, but by a lack of a cogent path, and the means, to commercialize those ideas, prompting him to pursue an MBA. From there Rob got involved in ATK’s Small Satellite business, where he led strategy and business capture activities for commercial and “Startup Space” pursuits, and soon became Director of the division’s R&D programs. He conceived the company’s 1st business model for a satellite servicing venture, persuaded leadership to pursue this as a core product line, and eventually formulated a comprehensive, multi-decade In-Space Logistics vision and strategy that is still guiding Northrop Grumman’s subsidiary, Space Logistics LLC. After seeing that through to the point where the first two satellite life extension vehicles had secured funding, and with a fully-stoked interest in entrepreneurship, Rob set off to pursue New Ascent.
