Robert R. Cleave has over 35 years’ experience in the space industry as an engineer, program manager and executive leader with profit & loss responsibilities. He has worked nearly every mission area, from rovers on Mars to remote sensing and communication satellites. Robert has also worked every segment of the value chain, spanning spacecraft and payloads, launch vehicles and ground systems. He managed over $2B in business at Lockheed Martin, was President and Chairman of Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services business unit, and successfully delivered secure networking solutions to the US Government, and the Governments of Spain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He managed investment portfolios and led multiple strategic investments into several emerging companies in the space ecosystem.
Robert continuously seeks to create use cases where space-based solutions are leveraged to improve life on earth. In the mid-1990s, he invented a satellite-enabled machine-to-machine solution which remains in use today, and later was the founder of XTAR, LLC, the worlds’ first satellite operator to exclusively offer communication services at the coveted X frequency band.
More recently, Cleave has focused on ground-based technologies, and co-founded NewSpace Networks Inc., a software company building technologies to improve networking efficiency leveraging virtualization and edge computing. Robert is also a co-founder of Secure PNT Inc., a company building digital satellite antenna technologies for noise suppression and signal enhancement.
He is a member of the founding team, a technical advisor and Executive Committee member to the Neo Space Group in Saudi Arabia; a strategic advisor to ABL Space; a strategic advisor to a satellite operator in South-East Asia; and a Subject Matter Expert to multiple corporations and national labs.
Robert has published over 25 technical and business papers and an active speaker at multiple conferences, including a TED event. He has originated or co-authored seven patents related to space and received multiple awards throughout his career. Robert earned an Aerospace Engineering degree at Arizona State University and a Systems Engineering Certificate from the University of Southern California. He is an angel investor in multiple non-space businesses and is a leading investor in a non-profit that he hopes will eventually leverage satellite technology for tracking and eliminating plastic waste in our oceans.