Chief Product Officer and Enterprise Chief Engineer, ABL Space Systems
B.S. ASE 1988, The University of Texas at Austin
Kevin D. Sagis is Chief Product Officer and Enterprise Chief Engineer at ABL Space Systems. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.
He began his multi-faceted career in 1988 with the Space Transportation Systems Operation Contract (STSOC), where he supported NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the first Space Shuttle return-to-flight campaign. In 1990 he joined Lockheed Martin to support Advanced Programs for NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center, making contributions to the design of the National Launch System (NLS), which subsequently formed the basis of the Space Launch System (SLS) for the Artemis program and NASA’s historic return to the moon. After his early career experience supporting NASA, Sagis changed his focus to the commercial sector, where he and a skunk-works team rapidly created multiple versions of the Athena launch vehicle that repurposed existing technologies to provide cost effective launch opportunities for the very early emerging small-satellite market. In 2000 Sagis pivoted into the high-tech industry and founded a start-up that architected and deployed wireless internet capability for Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch; later he joined American Express Business Finance to create mission-critical, small-business end-to-end multi-tier applications. In 2007 he returned to aerospace with Lockheed Martin and was the Chief Engineer of the Extended Medium Range Ballistic Missile that was designed with unique air-launching capability to enable testing of critical scenarios for the Missile Defense Agency. In 2012 as one of the original visionaries of Virgin Orbit, Sagis partnered with Richard Branson to reimagine how a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft could be used to launch liquid-engine orbital rockets. As Chief Engineer at Virgin Orbit, he was directly responsible for numerous new technologies that significantly advanced the field of aerospace engineering and set the foundation for taking the company public. In addition to his extensive portfolio in aerospace and software, he has driven transformational change in the aviation sector developing and deploying remotely operated aircraft systems at Reliable Robotics.
Sagis has been awarded the Lockheed Martin Mission Success Award and has received recognition and awards from NASA for innovations on trajectory simulation. His achievements have been featured numerous times in Aviation Week and Space Technology and he holds multiple patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Outside of work, Sagis is the founder of Paragon Labs and has led various NewSpace (Space 2.0) efforts such as building a Vertical Takeoff, Vertical Lander (VTVL) and competing in the Xprize Lunar Lander Challenge. Kevin mentors the UT Texas Rocket Engineering Lab (TREL) and also created / funded a scholarship for students in TREL with demonstrated financial need. In addition to his active involvement with TREL, he has provided highly specialized ground support equipment to numerous universities’ space launch efforts and also founded a 501(c)(3) non-profit to provide hands-on aerospace learning opportunities to students of all ages.
