Travis Bessell SDA Lead

Travis Bessell appointed as Space Domain Awareness Lead

In a sign of the growth of its Space Domain Awareness (SDA) business, Clearbox Systems has appointed Travis Bessell into a leadership position as SDA Lead to head up its SDA product line.

Travis has joined the team after working within the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group (DST) for 15 years as a research scientist in the fields of intelligence, surveillance and space.

Travis received his Bachelor of Engineering in 2005 from Flinders University and a Masters in Science in 2008 from Adelaide University.

Since commencing his career in 2005, Travis has gained a wealth of experience in tracking and sensor fusion across domains including air, maritime and space. From 2012, Travis began performing research in the field of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) working with international partners to quickly develop skills and experience in the field.

In 2015, Travis was awarded a fellowship with led him to being embedded within the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in the United States for 15 months, working with SDA experts within the Space Vehicles Directorate.

Upon returning to Australia, Travis was appointed to the role of Discipline Lead SDA, building DST’s SDA research team and investigating the use of novel sensors combined with advanced algorithms to improve the way that Australia and its allies perform surveillance of space.

Commenting on Travis’ appointment, Executive Director, Jeremy Hallett, noted, “Travis is internationally respected within the SDA community for both his technical skills and leadership. As we continue to grow our SDA offering, Travis positions us for success and I look forward to working with him.”

In coming into the role, Travis commented, “I am excited to take on this new opportunity with Clearbox Systems as Leader of their SDA Product Line. Clearbox Systems has a wealth of experience in Space and spectrum monitoring and I am looking forward to leveraging this knowledge as well as my own experience to produce novel passive radio frequency sensor technology to improve SDA.”

Clearbox Systems’ SDA team is continuing to grow under Travis’ leadership with recruitment open for the following roles:

  • RF Electronics/Hardware Engineer
  • Software/Aerospace Engineer

About Clearbox Systems SDA Program

Clearbox Systems is leveraging over a decade of experience in the Space Industry, particularly related to the use of RF for the assurance of space-based communications and is undertaking development of a suite of Space Domain Awareness (SDA) technologies.

These include:

  • a unique radio frequency (RF) sensor that will accurately locate and identify satellites through their radio transmissions, including the software and algorithms to convert sensor data into SDA data;
  • methods to couple SDA data with SIGINT/ELINT data collected from the monitored satellites;
  • a Clearbox Systems-owned network of these sensors to collect data, and
  • a cyber-hardened SDA data storage facility for the data generated by the RF sensor network.