MDA Space CEO Mike Greenley and 3GPP NTN Standards Win 2023 Exec and Tech of the Year Awards

MDA Space CEO Mike Greenley and 3GPP NTN Standards won the 2023 Satellite Executive and Technology of the Year awards, Via Satellite announced Wednesday. In addition, TrustPoint won the 2024 Startup Space pitch competition.

Winners were chosen by a combination of public vote and the Via Satellite editorial board.

Greenley leads satellite manufacturer and Earth observation company MDA Space. The company had a landmark year in 2023, growing revenue 26 percent year-over-year, and landing the deal to build Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation in a major win. MDA Space also acquired the digital payload division of SatixFy Communications to enhance its digital satellite offerings.

Accepting the award, Greenley said MDA Space has doubled its business in the last two to three years and is working to double the business again.

“This is a recognition of MDA Space, and what we've gone through in the last four years with all that growth, and the position that we're starting to fill within the space community, which is awesome and exciting,” Greenley said. “It’s recognition of Luigi Pozzebon and the Satellite Systems team and the tremendous growth we’re going through right now [with our] new digital satellite product MDA Aurora. I’m very happy to accept this award in recognition of all of their efforts.”

Isabelle Mauro, director general of the Global Satellite Operators Association (GSOA), accepted the award for 3GPP NTN Standards on behalf of a collaboration between GSOA, ESA, EchoStar, Thales, Inmarsat, Intelsat, and individual contributors.

This group’s work resulted in the successful expansion and adaptation of the 3GPP standards to incorporate non-terrestrial networks (NTN) starting with Release 17. The standards enable full interoperability between satellite and terrestrial including mobility procedures across both network components, allowing mass-market smartphones and IoT devices to connect seamlessly with both terrestrial mobile networks and NTN-based satellite networks when out of range of terrestrial connectivity. This is a key development in satellite direct-to-device connectivity to smartphones and IoT devices.

“We've worked relentlessly to be integrated into 5G and 6G as satellite-based systems, with our members. This award is fantastic, we are so grateful,” Mauro said. “I do believe that the convergence of the mobile and the satellite industry will help connect the 2.6 billion [unconnected] people that Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary General of the ITU mentioned.”

TrustPoint, which won the Startup Space pitch competition, is developing a commercial next-generation Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) to provide performance, security and reliability improvements for GPS users. TrustPoint won over nine other startups that pitched their businesses, judged by a team of venture capitalists.

TrustPoint founder and COO Chris DeMay accepted the award.

“I'm encouraged by the big ideas and the big visions I see here at SATELLITE, and the fact that small companies are given the opportunity to succeed in this industry is tremendous,” DeMay said. “TrustPoint builds and deploys the world's trusted PNT Solution. On behalf of our incredible team, we were honored to be recognized as part of the innovation happening here.” VS