WASHINGTON — The Air Force Exploration Laboratory has named Andrew Williams the new head of the organization’s space-connected science and technological know-how attempts, overseeing the lab’s get the job done with the U.S. Place Pressure.
As the deputy technology government officer for place science and technology, or D-TEO, Williams will be the focal stage of AFRL’s room activities, making certain they are formulated and executed in an integrated method. He replaces Kelly Hammett, who was serving as the acting D-TEO.
“Dr. Williams is exceptionally well-qualified, seasoned, and a respected chief within AFRL, the USSF, and our Science and Technology stakeholders,” said Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, AFRL commander, in a Nov. 1 assertion.
Williams has served in several roles in AFRL’s house vehicles directorate at Kirtland Air Pressure Base, New Mexico, about the previous 18 many years, most not too long ago keeping the place of space mission location guide.
The house vehicles directorate portfolio includes many satellites and experiments, together with Navigation and Technologies Experiments Satellite 3 (NTS-3), an AFRL Vanguard application that will support manual the foreseeable future of the GPS software though providing innovative capabilities to the war fighter. The laboratory also develops systems even now in their infancy, this kind of as a rocket-shipped cargo ability and a satellite that can beam photo voltaic energy to war fighters on earth.
“In my most recent function as the Area Mission Space Guide, I oversaw AFRL’s room science and technologies investment decision strategy, making sure synchronization with the technological know-how desires for Room Force, Room Operations Command, and Place Programs Command,” Williams claimed in a statement. “[T]hat encounter will be extremely important in my new job.”
AFRL has invested greatly in creating out the space-relevant infrastructure at Kirtland Air Pressure Base considering that the establishment of the Room Force in 2019.
In 2020, it opened the Deployable Buildings Laboratory, or DeSel, a $4 million lab to produce products for new deployable place structures. And in May well 2021, AFRL opened the $12.8 million Place Warfighting Functions Study and Improvement, or SWORD, lab, which will be utilized to track objects on orbit, progress satellite cybersecurity and acquire autonomous capabilities to aid house autos avoid each and every other and room particles.
Nathan Strout covers place, unmanned and intelligence methods for C4ISRNET.