Maria Pau Bravo

Our published scientific paper on Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin Company LISTER's operations on the moon just dropped. All the credit goes to Seiichi Nagihara of Texas Tech for putting it together, with contributions from fellow Peter Ngo and Kris Zacny for kicking it all off. More discussions on the Heat Flow Probe bit of the science to follow at a later date. Geek out here: https://lnkd.in/gdDSSPBq

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I’ve been reading Arthur C. Clarke’s The Exploration of Space (published in 1951) and it’s incredible how relevant it still feels to modern spacecraft design. Clarke intuitively broke vehicles into the same subsystems we integrate today—propulsion, GNC, structures, thermal, life support—and understood how tightly coupled they must be to succeed. The chapters that explain the need from staging and complex fuel transfer are beautifully explained.  For anyone working in space engineering, it’s a humbling reminder that the challenges we tackle now were already visible to those who looked at the problem with first principles in hand and imagination. Now let's go tackle them!

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Over the past week, I’ve teamed up with Shane Stamm to offer mechanical systems consulting and contract engineering services focused on deployable mechanisms and autonomous docking systems for space applications. Shane brings an exceptional background in on‑orbit servicing and robotic capture mechanisms. As Chief Engineer for the Starsys docking system developed for DARPA’s Orbital Express mission, he led the engineering of one of the earliest and most successful demonstrations of autonomous spacecraft capture. For anyone interested in the technical heritage behind this work, I highly recommend the SPIE paper he co‑authored: “Orbital Express Capture System: Concept to Reality” https://lnkd.in/gSJr4XBT Together, Shane and I provide deep experience across: - Autonomous docking & capture systems - Deployable mechanical systems - Robotic interfaces and alignment mechanisms - Structural, kinematic, and mechanism development for spaceflight - Early‑phase concept development through flight‑ready hardware If your team is developing servicing spacecraft, in‑space robotic systems, or deployable mechanical architectures, we’d be happy to connect and discuss how we can support your mission. Feel free to reach out directly!

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Discover how top aerospace teams compress model build time from 6–8 weeks to just days. This white paper breaks down how implicit modeling enables faster iteration and 10x more design exploration. Get your copy when you click through. https://lnkd.in/e2ypBNaH

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"The Gardener and the Machine", from Art Villanueva, DEng, ESEP, just come out. TL;RD (in my words): complex systems are larger than anyone single comprehension. Design and upkeep approaches based on purely mechanistic paradigms (think quantitative, coherent logic models driven towards pure performance) will create brittleness which will fail upon the reality of continued deployment. A "gardener" mindset will led to better results, from design to operations, enabling evolvability, learning and adaption. The book advances with these ideas, while proposing a framework and tools for performing engineering from the gardening mindset perspective. Art had the good grace to send me an Advanced Review Copy. The title and content strongly resonated: a change of mindset, approach and tools is needed if we claim to work with "complex" systems. The book is rich in showing that complexity appears in all layers of life and how a humble and gardening mindset is more robust towards success than a "mechanistic" approach, driven by maximizing for total performance. All starts maybe by understanding how to frame success: single point metrics or an understanding of availability, coherence, needed capability in time: the word #resilience thus comes to the eye many times, as #learning and #evolving. It is not wonder that among the examples we can go from the impact on ecosystems in Africa, to defense systems and child raising. Common themes thread throughout and it is helpful to exercise recognition of the same fundamentals working across. Art was happy in weaving several fundamental ideas with practical tools, methods, and heuristics to approach complex systems design from an engineering perspective. He proposes a framework to articulate and support decision making from a "gardening" perspective. I think the book works both as an entry point, middjourney reflection, and reference to further explore, so we get better at designing and evolving systems that are in fact resilient OR, maybe more importantly, not rush to destroy what we don't understand. Being a gardener is a mix of cultivation of permanent curiosity and the humility of aiming to see the whole without falling into the illusion of having achieved holistic understanding. The gardener tries to map and feel the topology and behavior, sense for the response, expect unknown stress, aim for resilience. Engineering, I have come to believe, is a political act on the world. It constrains and amplifies us all. Like the adage of "you ship your org chart", I can provoke with "you ship the ethical fundalmentals from which you frame the world". So, I encourage anyone to pick the "The Gardener and the Machine" and engage around, at the work office or practice community to discuss. So there are more "gardening" around and less hubric britleness thrown around.

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Spacecraft design looks glamorous… until you meet reality 😅 I just published a short, fun breakdown of Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design — those brutally honest “engineering truths” that remind us why the last 10% takes the other 90% and why interfaces are where both magic (and disasters) happen. If you’re into engineering and complex projects, you’ll probably relate. #AerospaceEngineering #SystemsEngineering #Engineering #Space https://lnkd.in/db9_P33F

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Braze is shipping at a pace that's genuinely hard to keep up with - I broke down the February release notes so you don't have to. The headline feature is Automated IP Warming (finally in early access). IP warming has always been one of the most anxiety-inducing parts of any MarTech migration - no guaranteed formula, lots of manual babysitting. Braze's new approach lets you hand off a few templates, set a target volume, and let the platform figure out the rest. Pause and resume support is a nice touch for businesses that can't afford to be rigid. Beyond that, there's a lot to like: → LinkedIn Audience Sync is now native - big news for B2B teams or anyone running advanced suppression and targeting → New Media Library APIs open the door to programmatic asset management (and hint at a lot more to come) → Machine Opens tracking is live - your email open rates are about to look very different, and that's actually a good thing We've also take a look at what January shipped (dynamic BCC, Currents improvements) and what the pace of Braze's release cycle says about where the platform is heading. Full breakdown on the Composed Digital blog 👇 #Braze #MarTech #EmailMarketing #MarketingAutomation #CDP #CustomerEngagement #BrazePartner #ComposedDigital

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