On Monday, 18 May, AIAA hosted its inaugural ASCEND Classified Day at The Aerospace Corporation’s corporate headquarters in Chantilly, Va.
Tanya Pemberton, President and CEO, The Aerospace Corporation, and Laura McGill, AIAA Immediate Past President and Director at Sandia National Laboratories, welcomed 100 attendees from across industry, government, academia, and investors, all gathered to drive actionable outcomes and address critical challenges facing national security space operations.
Programming held timely relevance with the nation’s space enterprise positioned at a pivotal moment for the always evolving and increasingly contested domain. The ASCEND Classified Day provided the AIAA technical community an opportunity to hear directly from national leaders about what is needed to deliver continuing leadership in space and to address and dissect the pressing challenges for doing so.
General Shawn Bratton, Vice Chief of Space Operations for the United States Space Force, delivered the keynote address, providing strategic insights into the Space Force’s FY27 investments, priorities, and operational imperatives. The afternoon keynote program featured an Intelligence Community Fireside Chat with Chris Scolese, Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, in conversation with Kevin Keating, Senior Vice President at Aerospace. In between, Brad Edmonson, Senior intelligence Officer for Analysis at Space Force Headquarters, presented a comprehensive threat briefing on evolving counterspace capabilities that set the context for the day’s discussions.
A highlight of the morning was the panel, “Need for Speed: Pain Points for Industry,” which gave industry a platform to address critical barriers to rapid acquisition and deployment, examining financing challenges, regulatory constraints, and operational bottlenecks. The spirited hourlong conversation moderated by Eric Hall, Corporate Chief Engineer at The Aerospace Corporation, brought together investors – Josh Hartman, Managing Director at Cerberus Operations and Advisory Company, and Jenny Irvine, Vice President, Technology at IQT – alongside industry leaders Col. Dean Bellamy, USAF (Ret.), Executive Vice President, National Security Space at Redwire; Maj. Gen. Brook Leonard, USAF (Ret.), CEO of Rogue Space; and Aaron Rogers, Director of Requirements & Capabilities, Mission Solutions, and Payloads, at RTX.
The afternoon featured a 90-minute interactive roundtable experience, the Strategic Innovation Sandbox, a unique activity for a classified setting. The Sandbox explored classified challenges along three key themes: innovation tools and processes for speed, synchronizing investments to build healthy commercial space markers, and developing innovation ecosystems beyond current requirements. Facilitated by The Aerospace Corporation’s Strategic Foresight Team and senior leaders from AIAA’s member organizations, this format generated creative, actionable recommendations from cross-sector dialogue and networking. The Aerospace Corporation will host an unclassified companion session to this rapid ideation exercise on 21 May at ASCEND, 1:30-3 p.m. ET, open to all ASCEND attendees as part of Aerospace’s curated Space Transformation Track.
• Related reading: ASCEND 2026 Puts “Need for Speed” at the Center of National Security Space
