Rick Ward
CTO
OrbitsEdge
Rick is a creative problem solver, U.S. Marine and startup veteran. As founder of OrbitsEdge, Rick’s vision is to bring advanced compute to space via a unique solution of hardening, sensors and processing that is at the heart of the OrbitsEdge technology stack.

In addition to his last four years leading OrbitsEdge, Rick is a frequent guest, resource and speaker for space compute conferences, podcasts and publications. Rick’s space industry roots trace back to his time working for Deep Space Industries, developing, producing and experimenting with asteroid regolith simulant with the goal of In Space Resource Utilization (ISRU) for both construction and water extraction. Rick looked at the infrastructure required to enable ISRU and determined that it would not be possible without autonomy. Then looking at the current state of space compute, he saw that it was not adequate nor sustainable to bring the high-performance computing to space that autonomy and greater commercialization of the ecosystem demands. This led Rick to start OrbitsEdge and, with his team, work on creating a radiation-hardened enclosure to support advanced commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) compute hardware and the sensors and processing necessary to meet the space the industry demands. Rick feels that the next generation of space development is impossible without next-generation data handling, and OrbitsEdge has the sustainable architecture that leads to that goal.
Rick Ward