NCC January 11th general meeting

David King speaker for our January meeting.

The talk will describe the Starlink system, why it’s a big deal, and a little bit about the esoteric technology called electric propulsion for spacecraft.

About David's background, he has contributed to the development and production of electric propulsion for spacecraft for four decades. His career began at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory which is known for planetary exploration. His interest shifted to near term application of the technology to commercial communications spacecraft when he joined Aerojet Rocketdyne in Redmond WA. In 29 years, the team there developed two types of electric propulsion used on over 70 commercial and military spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. In 2016 he joined SpaceX in Redmond to develop another propulsion system for the Starlink internet satellites. There are now over 5,000 Starlink satellites orbiting earth, each depending on the electric propulsion system for orbital maneuvering and…