Joel Sercel

Joel Sercel is a prominent space technologist, entrepreneur, and innovator who currently serves as the President and CEO of Trans Astronautica Corporation (TransAstra), a company he founded in July 2015.12 With an extensive background in aerospace engineering and space technology, Sercel has made significant contributions to the field of space exploration and resource utilization.

Career Highlights

NASA and JPL Experience: Sercel spent 14 years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he held various positions including Principal Engineer and Project Manager.12 During his time at JPL, he led the conception and definition of the NSTAR ion propulsion system, which is currently in use on the Dawn spacecraft orbiting the asteroid Ceres.1

Academic Contributions: For 12 years, Sercel taught systems engineering and space mission and satellite design at the graduate level at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).1 He holds a Ph.D. and master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Caltech, with a doctoral dissertation focusing on plasma physics as applied to space propulsion.1

Entrepreneurial Ventures: In addition to founding TransAstra, Sercel briefly served as the Founding Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Momentus, a Silicon Valley space technology company, from January to December 2019.2

Innovations and Achievements

Sercel is known for several groundbreaking innovations in space technology:

1. Optical Mining™: A practical method for extracting rocket propellant ingredients from asteroids.1
2. Radiant Gas Dynamic (RGD) method: A technique for lunar water harvesting.1
3. Sunflower™ power tower architecture: A system for providing low-cost electric power to lunar polar regions.1

He is a six-time NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellowship awardee and one of the first two selected NIAC Phase 3 award winners.1 Sercel currently has 14 patents pending in the areas of space resources technology and in-space transportation.1

TransAstra Corporation

Under Sercel's leadership, TransAstra is focused on ethically accelerating human exploration and industrialization of cislunar space and near-Earth asteroids.1 The company is developing technologies for in-space transportation and related services, utilizing propellant derived from asteroid and lunar resources.1

Joel Sercel's work at TransAstra includes developing advanced telescope technology, such as the Sutter Ground telescope network, which aims to support asteroid mining and space resource utilization.3