Former Chief of Staff to UK MoD Space Directorate Takes Reins
On 11 May the Aerospace Corporation announced the appointment of David Sandy as Managing Director of its wholly-owned, UK-based subsidiary, Aerospace Corporation UK Ltd.
Previously the chief of staff for the UK MoD Space Directorate, Sandy was responsible for developing space policy and strategy, resource allocation and capability development. He will lead Aerospace UK’s work with the MoD and the UK Space Agency, to support decision-making and to deliver value within the fast-paced and complex space environment.
Aerospace UK draws on Aerospace’s 60+ years of experience as a trusted partner to the US space enterprise, and as an adviser for governments of space-faring nations within the global space economy. Emphasising the development of joint US-UK approaches to problem-solving in space, Sandy also points out “With the war in Ukraine and its global impact, we need, more than ever, to work together to assure secure access to a domain that is critical to our everyday lives”.
In his MoD role, Sandy was instrumental in developing the new UK/US strategy for collaboration, prior to which he had a 34-year career in the Royal Navy, during which he held senior posts in NATO and led MoD crisis-planning teams in both COVID response and security aspects of EU transition. “When we launched Aerospace UK in 2021, a stated goal was to develop and deploy local expertise as we extended Aerospace’s decades of experience to our customers in the UK, a crucial US ally,” observed Jim Myers, SVP for the Civil Systems Group. “Tapping David Sandy to guide the next phase of Aerospace UK operations is a natural progression toward that objective, and toward helping the UK shape its future in space”.
