The satellites flying lowest have the hardest physics and the shortest lifespans. They may also have the best economics.
Gregg Burgess is President and General Manager of Orion Space Solutions, the space subsidiary of defense systems integrator Arcfield. Based in Louisville, Colorado, Orion designs, builds, and operates small satellites and payloads for very low Earth orbit, LEO, and geosynchronous orbit, with a technology portfolio spanning ionospheric sensing, high-frequency radar and radios, electro-optical and infrared sensors, and spacecraft power electronics. Burgess took the role in November 2025 after serving as Vice President and General Manager of General Atomics Electromagnetics’ Space Systems Division. Earlier in his career, he served as Chief Technology Officer at Sierra Nevada Corporation’s space business, where his team developed the Dream Chaser spaceplane and advanced solar panel technology, and as Senior Vice President and General Manager of national security space at Orbital Sciences Corporation, where he led programs including the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, the Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload, and the EO/IR Weather System. He holds an MS and BS in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from MIT and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s General Manager’s Program.
Orion’s signature program is the DARPA Ouija mission, a nanosatellite designed for long-duration operations in VLEO. The spacecraft carries a suite of ionospheric and high-frequency sensors, including Langmuir probes, RF impedance probes, HF sounders, and atomic oxygen sensors, built to quantify the HF noise environment in space and validate near-real-time propagation predictions from the F2 layer of the ionosphere. The mission completed its test readiness review in mid-2025. In March 2026, Orion secured initial contracts worth more than $24 million to deliver over 25 advanced payloads for a proprietary space customer, with a total potential contract value exceeding $100 million across batch deliveries. SatNews covered Arcfield’s acquisition of Orion Space Solutions in November 2023, a deal that brought Orion’s atmospheric science and smallsat capabilities under a parent company with more than $1 billion in classified defense and intelligence work.
At SmallSat Europe, Burgess delivers a Tech Brief titled “The VLEO Economy: Skimming the Atmosphere.”
VLEO offers ultra-low latency and reduced size, weight, and power at the cost of atmospheric drag. Burgess is building the satellites that stay down there on purpose.
