Spotlight on ...

Alan Fromberg

Alan joined the Space Professionals Partnership network in January 2024. Alan has over 30 years of experience in space systems engineering and technical project and team management, both as customer and supplier. This has straddled space segment and ground segment in PNT and earth observation and most recently on space sustainability, leading the systems team at Astroscale until the end of 2023. He has a particular interest in requirements management: ensuring that stake holder needs are properly reflected into system requirements and that these are correctly related to design decomposition and traced back into consistent verification evidence (the infamous V diagram). He has brought this approach to an eclectic range of applications including radar interferometry targets, the use of EO data for judicial enforcement and even a facility for receiving extra-terrestrial rock samples!

After completing a PhD in Geophysics, his systems engineering started on the Hubble Space Telescope solar arrays preparing the reliability and safety case and ultimately working in ground support to four of the shuttle servicing missions. He also worked on the Envisat payload data segment where he developed a good understanding of wider ground segment architecture and applications.

He moved to the European Commission Joint Research Centre in 1997 and worked on the CEO programme, an early precursor of Copernicus and on the initial concept studies for the Galileo navigation system. From there he moved to ESA working on the verification and initial operational qualification of EGNOS before returning to industry in 2006. Since then he has been working in business management, line management, chief engineer and technical project management roles including supporting risk management, process improvement and resource planning.

Alan is currently supporting Space Professionals Partnership and its partners, the Royal Institute of Navigation, and GVL Ltd, in the development and delivery of cross-cutting system engineering training within the context of the satellite applications training hub, funded through UKSA.  More details here: