A New Space Race—Our Current Space Exploration

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  • The bold new technical and scientific challenges that the US space community needs to address to ensure our nation maintains its space pre-eminence through the 21st century. 
  • The ways that space has rapidly changed in the past decade and what the new capabilities are that can shape future exploration, science, and security.
  • The new players in the space industry and the approaches and motivations they use to embrace risk and agile development.
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Dr. Kalirai is also the Program Chair for the Johns Hopkins Whiting School Engineering for Professionals Applied Physics Program.

Prior to his current role, Dr. Kalirai served as mission area executive for Civil Space, where he led the implementation of innovative and cost-effective solutions to critical civil space challenges by developing space science missions, instruments, and research programs – including missions such as New Horizons, Parker Solar Probe, Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), Europa Clipper, Lunar Vertex, Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) and Dragonfly.

Before joining APL in 2018, Dr. Kalirai served as the multi-mission project scientist at NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute. He led strategic initiatives to realize operational, technological, and scientific synergies for the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. He played a leading role in championing the science of these missions. He previously served as the institute’s project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope.

In addition to his APL responsibilities, Dr. Kalirai participates in and leads scientific research programs aimed at understanding stellar life cycles. His research group has published more than 100 research papers, and he has given hundreds of invited presentations.

Honors he has received include the American Astronomical Society’s Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, the Maryland Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist award, and Baltimore Magazine’s “40 under 40” award. Finally, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship as a Hubble Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dr. Kalirai earned a B.S. (with honors) in physics and astronomy, an M.S. in astrophysics, and a Ph.D. in astrophysics, all from the University of British Columbia.

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