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February 8, 2020.

NASA Astronaut Christina Koch returned to Earth on Thursday after spending 328 days on the International Space Station, having set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. The story of women in exploration is one that inspires me tremendously and holds lessons for all of us who strive to defy convention and succeed against all odds. This has a lot to do with the fact that I have lived this very experience – much like the famous photograph of the only woman engineer in the firing room during Apollo 11, JoAnn Morgan.

Unfortunately, this century-old saga has had many fits and starts due to numerous external influences. Through tremendous advancements in technology, two world wars, national policies on civil rights and employment, the Cold War and various space races, and gradual changes in our society, women have come a long way but not far enough. This is very much the case across the board, literally – from corporate boards and C-suites to science and engineering careers.

As reported by the Washington Post in November:
In the aerospace industry, only 24 percent of employees are women, and there has been little change in years, according to a study done by Aviation Week. For many, another example of how far the agency has to go came just a few weeks ago when NASA announced its “honor awards,” what it calls its “highest form of recognition” to employees and contractors. In total, 42 people were honored. All but two were men. “We haven’t moved very much in the last 30 years in overall diversity,” said Mary Lynne Dittmar, the president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, an industry group. “Aerospace is still heavily male and white, and we’re not moving very quickly.”

JoAnn Morgan later accomplished many “firsts” for women at NASA: winning a Sloan Fellowship, becoming a division chief, senior executive and agency director of Safety and Mission Assurance. So many others, both well-known and “hidden”, have also helped pave the way. And now, Christina Koch has broken Peggy Whitson’s 2017 record of 288 single mission days, and she was only 12 days short of the American record set by Scott Kelly in 2016. A woman still has the overall career duration record for any astronaut, at 665 days in space—Dr. Peggy Whitson. This is yet another vivid example of a concept very dear to me: when women of equal capability are given equal opportunity, the sky is the limit.

It was thrilling to see Christina in the first all-female spacewalk last October, where she and Jessica Meir made history in low-Earth orbit while guided on the ground by capsule communicator (CAPCOM) astronaut Stephanie Wilson. These three women are part of a small cadre of current female astronauts, one of whom is destined to become the first woman to set foot on the surface of the Moon, addressing another significant achievement gap that is perhaps one of the greatest in human history.

No less than 55 years will have passed before a woman will be able to make this unforgettable journey that changed the world, a stunning example of the steps forward and back we continue to face. The fact is, the larger and more bureaucratic the technology program, the longer it takes for women to have a primary seat at the table. In some ways I have done my part, launching Stellar Solutions as a woman-owned technical company after already blazing new trails in my own engineering career and helping open doors for other women who followed. But this work is never done–it is up to all of us, as a community, as a company and as individuals – to usher in a future of boundless possibility for all.

The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. – Malala Yousafzai

About the author: Celeste Ford is the Founder and Board Chair of Stellar Solutions. Read her bio here.

January 24, 2020.

The website of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) describes collaboration as an approach used by the Intelligence Community (IC) to establish “intelligence and information sharing relationships with international, military, domestic, and private sector partners to promote intelligence-related communications, standardize processes for collaboration, lead coordination of IC information sharing and foreign liaison issues, identify emerging issues, forge solutions in support of military operations, and maximize the use of private sector information and expertise to support intelligence missions while protecting privacy and civil liberties.”

The following scenario involves a critical situation at an unnamed embassy, demonstrating the urgent collaboration challenges that many of us face in the dynamic world of intelligence/incident operations.

An Embassy Engulfed in Questions

A strategically important embassy unexpectedly found itself in a turbulent shutdown mode one evening, with staff conducting evacuation preparations at a fever pitch. Hours ago, the Ambassador to the United States decided that a recent threat to the embassy was credible. Therefore, this location was no longer safe for personnel due to this possible imminent attack. The Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, which had been alerted earlier, was on the scene and working quickly through their emergency checklists.

But then, everyone received word that the execution plan had just been accelerated, and that the embassy must evacuate immediately. The speed and manner of this caught many by surprise, with a number of questions that remained:  What changed? What could happen next? Are we still prepared?

The 24×7 operations center, responsible for maintaining situational awareness (SA), providing threat warning, coordinating resources, deploying assets and updating leadership, is charged with keeping pace during these situations and evaluating the information throughout its communication channels. Their computers were suddenly inundated with a vast and fast tsunami of documentation and discourse. Tempers flared as the speed and volume of communication overwhelmed the staff. One frustrated senior leader privately remarked, “We didn’t need more data, we needed a way to efficiently share and discuss the information we had, and quickly make sense of it all. So that we could understand what does all of this mean, why was it important, and what could happen next?”

The collaboration process had become fractured or piecemeal at best, with stove-piped information sharing. Many staffers were making numerous desperate phone calls and/or unleashing a flood of emails, none of which included everyone who needed to see the details or had the ability to provide the answers. Several people were observed with a phone on each ear simultaneously. Things were moving too quickly and they just couldn’t keep up, with fleeting opportunities that were being missed. Even more questions were being asked. Did leadership have a clear picture of the situation and an understanding of what was expected moving forward? What was being missed? More importantly, many were asking, “How and who can we engage to identify our gaps and unknowns?”

This story of an embassy and its supporting organizations struggling to answer numerous questions of a crucial or even life-and-death nature has been fictionalized for instructional purposes, and it provides a number of lessons learned that we can examine.  Stellar Solutions is at the forefront of creating collaborative solutions for situations just like this one and providing hands-on training to address these human-centric needs.

Our experience and analysis suggest that the operations center in this story could have benefited tremendously from a lightweight, bottom-up solution like the Human Net. This resource provides a venue for informal interaction via a continuous chat environment that is facilitated by skilled collaboration operators. Just imagine the difference in the above scenario, if the center had access to an online chat space for sensor operators, planners, individual brokers for down-range elements, analysts, logistics personnel, supporting elements, etc.

Stellar maintains a time-tested and recognized role in innovating, educating and operating in the world of online collaboration and information sharing within the IC and Department of Defense (DOD).

Notable collaboration achievements by Stellar’s highly trained staff in the classified environment include:

• Establishment of an agency-endorsed, national level certification program.
• Serving as a go-to resource in support of high-interest, crisis events impacting the national interests of the United States.
• Recognition from the DNI though a 2018 National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation for efforts supporting a Strike Support team.

Celebrating our 25^th Anniversary this year, Stellar continues to develop and implement novel capabilities in response to the evolving and critical needs of our customer community. Our ongoing development of innovative collaboration concepts for U.S.-based and international IC and DOD locations is a good example of this commitment. Additionally, our experts are training and certifying watch officers, program managers, collaboration operators and facilitators in the art and science of using the Human Net to address some of the most challenging and complex events that can unfold in the blink of an eye.

About the Author:
Lisa Parker is currently serving as one of four National-level Collaboration Facilitators supporting IC and DOD activities.

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Stellar Solutions is a trusted partner to the Intelligence Community, with expertise in national geospatial, intelligence, and reconnaissance programs.

January 16, 2020.

A recent story about QuakeFinder in the LA Times conveyed the many obstacles that Stellar Solutions has faced over the past two decades in our quest to definitively prove electromagnetic precursors to earthquakes. And in spite of these numerous and significant scientific, technical, political and financial hurdles, we have made tremendous headway toward this noble, long-term goal that could benefit countless lives.

It is important to remember that science is a journey. The article compares our experience to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and the hunt for the meaning of earthquake lights, and we’ll add that this endeavor is very much like many of the grandest challenges in human history – achieving heavier than air powered flight, the race to space, mapping the human genome, and effective treatments for devastating diseases from polio and cholera to smallpox, HIV and cancer. It’s the nature of innovation: we have achieved a great deal in many areas but in others we still have a ways to go.

While the financial obligation and constraints inherent in this important work have not been overstated, we must elaborate on QuakeFinder’s recent and compelling technical achievements as well as a path forward with partners that can only serve to continue and leverage the significant progress made.

Yes, Stellar Solutions spent big to see if there are electromagnetic precursors to large earthquakes. And yes, they do exist! Our research attempted to prove that electromagnetic signals (in this case magnetic pulses) exist in the days prior to earthquakes larger than M4.0.

The research efforts involved developing algorithms that could find these small signals from 70 Terabytes of data collected from our national network of sensors from 2005 to 2018. The results published late last year in a peer-reviewed journal (Computers and Geosciences) found that for earthquakes larger than M4.0 and within about 40 km of a magnetometer instrument, a measurable increase in magnetic fluctuations occurred in the window 4-12 days prior to the earthquakes. Rigorous statistical methods were used and, in one case, QuakeFinder achieved a 2.86 sigma confidence threshold on these results—or saying it another way—the odds of getting our results if there really is no correlation were only 1 in 475 (0.2%). This suggests that the increased electromagnetic activity does precede earthquakes and is not just experimental happenstance or unrelated to the earthquake process. We are not aware of any other similar research study of this size and scope, nor one that has been formally published or achieved this level of certainty.

Now the challenge is to refine the algorithms to discriminate the unusual activity from the large amount of background noise (e.g. BART trains, lightning, solar storms, and other man-made magnetic noise). To do this, we need funding and partners.

While our research did not specifically focus on earthquake lights, we developed a hypothesis that if there are deep underground electrical activity (e.g. large currents released prior to earthquakes), perhaps very sensitive induction magnetometers might be able to detect these current surges. Today, after 20 years of building a network of very sensitive induction magnetometers, which are spaced about every 20 miles along the faults, QuakeFinder finally had enough data and earthquake events to test the hypothesis.

And QuakeFinder is no longer alone in this effort. Researchers in Japan (Han and Hattori) did a similar analysis over a decade in a relatively quiet area, removed from electric trains and during the night when the trains were not operating. They too found statistical evidence of both magnetic pulses and longer disturbances in the 2 weeks prior to earthquakes.

The quest for accurate earthquake forecasting is an extraordinarily difficult and unprecedented task–far larger than what a single, small aerospace company can afford. It is true that Stellar Solutions is “hitting the pause button” and reducing staff to a minimum level, after having spent approximately $30M over 20 years building the network of sensors and developing these initial algorithms. But, all of this is far from our last contribution to this cause or the end of the QuakeFinder story.

We are hopeful that the initial published QuakeFinder research results, as well as corroborating results in Japan (and soon possibly, China) will attract other funding from either private or government sources, to continue and advance the effort. Better results may occur with the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques. We expect at least one such data mining company to publish their initial results using the QuakeFinder magnetometer data sometime this spring.  And our work and methods have application to other areas of societal benefit as shown by our recent selection as a final winner in a federal competition for the World Magnetic Model. The never-ending struggle and adventure of science can be fraught with risk and uncertainty. However, its discoveries, breakthroughs and possibilities have the potential to change everything that we know and care about for the better. We look forward to this continuing journey!

January 10, 2020.

In March, Celeste Ford will be honored at the 2020 Enterprising Women of the Year Awards, an annual tribute to the world’s top female entrepreneurs.

This award is widely considered one of the most esteemed recognitions for women business owners. The presentations will take place at a Gala Dinner during the final evening of the 18th Annual Enterprising Women of the Year Awards Celebration & Conference, to be held at the Wyndham Clearwater Beach Resort in Florida from Sunday, March 29 to Tuesday, March 31. 

“Celeste Ford demonstrates the leadership qualities of our Enterprising Women of the Year:  as Founder and Board Chair of a successful company, as a passionate mentor of women and girls on the path to entrepreneurship, and as a committed contributor to her community, the nation and the world,” said Monica Smiley, Publisher and CEO of Enterprising Women magazine.

Celeste was one of only four honorees in the “over $50 million in annual sales” category. This is a great recognition of Celeste’s leadership as the company enters its 25th year of operation.

Read Stellar’s Press Release here: https://www.prweb.com/releases/stellar_solutions_chair_celeste_ford_named_a_winner_of_the_2020_enterprising_women_of_the_year_awards/prweb16824339.htm

December 20, 2019.

As we enter a new year and decade as a company, community and nation, it is a good time to reflect on the collective achievements and lessons that will guide our path forward. The avenue of space exploration continues to provide many of our greatest examples of both – with countless instances of courage, ingenuity and resilience that continue to define the course of human history.

Today’s landmark mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is a vivid reminder of this incredible challenge that we all face. Starliner successfully lifted off on its first test flight to the International Space Station, but failed to reach an operational orbit. As said so eloquently by President John F. Kennedy as he kicked off the space race of the 1960s, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”  

Space has always been an incredibly hard thing to do. NASA experienced this immediately during the Apollo Program but persevered toward to the ultimate achievement of the Apollo 11 landing on the lunar surface. More recently, we have observed the efforts of New Space companies like SpaceX as they lean-in, innovate, learn and adjust course along the way toward groundbreaking success.

At Stellar Solutions, we can relate to this inherent risk because we’ve experienced it firsthand. This company was founded to provide the critical services that form the backbone of many of today’s aerospace, defense, intelligence and commercial systems.

We are providing a wide variety of engineering support for the Orion Crew Module and the Ascent Abort-2, Artemis-1 and Artemis-2 missions of the Space Launch System which will extend our presence beyond Earth’s orbit into deep space. Our team is heavily involved in providing program level support to NASA in its efforts to work with commercial partners on systems that will send the first woman and next man to the Moon. What an exciting time to be in aerospace, with so many opportunities and possibilities to help transform our way of life and understanding of the universe. 

Kennedy continued on to say that the goal of pursuing the Moon “will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”

These words still ring true today, more than ever. In celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this year and looking forward to the next five decades of human spaceflight, it is clear that we are all in this together – partners and competitors alike. So many small and large companies have dedicated themselves to delivering innovation on the ground and in space that will benefit all of humanity, with much more to come. I wish to extend our gratitude and best wishes for success to The Boeing Company and other commercial trailblazers who are helping lead the way to the next era of space exploration.

About the Author: Michael S. Lencioni is the Chief Executive Officer of Stellar Solutions, Inc.