Dr. Mark Skinner is a senior project leader for space traffic management at The Aerospace Corporation, supporting the development of civil and commercial space traffic management.
Prior to joining Aerospace, Skinner was with the Boeing Company, heading up the Commercial Space Situational Awareness group, conducting research into observational and analysis techniques to advance the state of the art in space surveillance, and in developing infrared sensing and characterization techniques of resident space objects.
Skinner is internationally recognized as a researcher in space object characterization and commercial space situational awareness and specializes in the techniques of non-resolved object characterization (NROC) and non-imaging space object identification (NISOI) and has extended this research into both the infrared and time domain arenas. His current research focus is on solving pressing problems related to space traffic management, including the tracking and identification of small objects.
For eight years, he supported the United States delegation to the UN COPUOS working group on the long-term sustainable use of outer space in the successful development of guidelines and best practices, as an expert on space debris and space situational awareness.
Education
Skinner received a bachelor’s degree in physics and a bachelor’s degree in humanities and science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a Ph.D. in experimental astrophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a master’s degree in business administration from the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.
Affiliations
Skinner is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Institute of Space Law, the International Astronautical Association, and the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety. He also serves on the Technical Advisory Committee of the Space Environment Research Centre.