Rich Kacik is a retired aerospace engineer with 35 years of experience in satellite mission control, mission planning, anomaly resolution, and orbit optimization. Following his 8.5 years’ service in the U.S. Air Force, he worked for Lockheed Martin and the company now known as Arcfield.
He earned a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering from West Virginia University and a M.S. degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. While at AFIT, he served as the principal investigator for a Mach 6 wind tunnel experiment to optimize the scramjet inlet configuration for the National Aerospace Plane (X-30).
He is a 45-year member of the National Space Society and its predecessor organizations. Since 2020, he has served as a judge for the NSS Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest.
Space Conference Speaker
Richard Kacik
Aerospace Engineer (Ret.), NSS Contest Judge