Neel Mehta
Dan Hart, a 34-year veteran of Boeing and former vice president of its government satellite systems business, has been appointed president of Virgin Orbit — a small satellite launch services venture spun out of Virgin Group‘s commercial space company Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Orbit is headquartered in Long Beach, California, and aims to help clients launch small satellites with the LauncherOne platform, Virgin Galactic said Thursday.
“To me, the Virgin brand is about making life on Earth better, and we are going to fulfill that purpose by accessing low Earth orbit to connect billions of people and enabling valuable applications of data from space,” Hart said.
He previously managed all aspects of the aerospace product life cycle in various satellite programs of Boeing’s U.S. government customers and its allies.
Hart also worked on the Space Shuttle, Delta launch vehicle and satellite systems designed for global connectivity and national security efforts.
Virgin Galactic noted the LauncherOne system is currently in advanced phase of hardware tests.
