The Collaborative Research Centre 1667 ATLAS was honoured to receive Dr. Silvia Rodriguez Donaire from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) as their first guest in 2026 on 14 and 15 January.
Dr. Silvia Rodriguez Donaire is a lecturer on strategic management in aerospace engineering at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain, with a research focus on Aerospace Business Models. As a joint leader of the highly successful European H2020 DISCOVERER programme, she is a seasoned veteran in VLEO research, having conducted extensive market analyses as well as the business and technology roadmapping for the project.
As part of her visit to Stuttgart, Dr. Rodriguez Donaire shared some of her most recent insights in a special guest lecture to the team of the CRC ATLAS, titled The VLEO Frontier: From Technical Feasibility to Market Viability - A Strategic and Economic Analysis of Air-Breathing Electric Propulsion (ABEP). In her talk, she illuminated the many facets of VLEO as a business opportunity and provided an in-depth analysis on the conditions, challenges and potential strategies for the commercialisation of ABEP as a key enabling technology for sustainable access to VLEO. Her presentation was met with considerable interest from the ATLAS researchers present.
In the follow-up to the guest lecture, future collaboration potentials surrounding research into developing the Very Low Earth Orbit market were explored together with apl. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Herdrich from the ATLAS team / University of Stuttgart, and Dr. Daniel Garcia-Almiñana from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya / BarcelonaTech.
During the Industry Meets SFB ATLAS main event on 15 January, Dr. Rodriguez Donaire contributed her expertise on the NewSpace economy and the challenges of bringing VLEO technologies to market to the panel discussion titled International Views on VLEO opportunities for European Regions and Baden-Württemberg.
The CRC ATLAS thanks Dr. Rodriguez-Donaire for her visit and for sharing her valuable insights on bridging the gap between VLEO research and a thriving VLEO market!
