Edmund Burke - What Does It Take To Get On The Test Launch Schedule At Vandenberg AFB? - CSP S02E81

Cold Star Project

What does it take to get on the test launch schedule at Vandenberg Air Force Base? How do so many organizations unnecessarily delay their time because of unexpected but avoidable issues? Edmund Burke of Space Information Labs joins host Jason Kanigan on the Cold Star Project to explain range safety compliance - happenings, trends, success, and failure.

We discuss:

• The shift to Autonomous Flight Termination and Space Based Range
  
• Brief explanation of flight termination systems
  
• Advantages and necessity of intelligent lithium battery systems
  
• RadTol BMS, and radiation tolerant avionics
  
• Testing and documentation required to fly (RCC 319-19)
  
• A decade of watching companies fall short on promises because the didn’t understand what it takes
  
• Danger of vertical integration for startups
  
• Important lessons learned
  

Edmund Burke served as an Air Force Program Manager and Project Director for many years prior to founding Space Information Laboratories in 2004. He served as the Space Lift Range System, Range Instrumentation and Metric Track lead for both Vandenberg AFB and Cape Canaveral, FL. Mr. Burke is a master designer, inventor and business development leader of launch vehicle, missile and small satellite avionics and power system technologies that are required to be Range Safety and Space environmentally qualified. He holds four USPTO utility patents on SIL’s VBITS GPS Tracking and AFTS, VBIRS – Space Based Range, Li-Ion Polymer Intelli-Pack® Battery, Intelli-Avionics® and Chameleon 12U to 27U Open Modular Scalable Reconfigurable Bus technologies. Mr. Burke has a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and a M.S. in Astronautical Engineering from West Coast University.

Useful Links:

Still image of SIL flight termination module: https://coldstarproject.com/edmundburkesilftcphoto
Still image of SIL 2 Amp battery unit and battery management system (BMS): https://coldstarproject.com/edmundburkesilbmsphoto

Space Information Labs website: https://www.spaceinformationlabs.com/

Disclaimer: We were not remunerated in any way by Edmund Burke or Space Information Laboratories for this discussion.

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