Thomas Svitek has joined TransOrbital_® as Chief Consultant. As Co-founder, CTO and L-1 lunar project manager, Tomas Svitek assembled and led a team of 40 space engineers for BlastOff! Corporation, the commercial space venture company that planned to land three rovers on the moon. The project was suspended after the stock market downturn. With Stellar Innovations, Inc., Tomas served as systems and lead engineer on numerous projects including the Mars Microlander, Mars Surveyor, and the Mars airplane mission concept development, working with JPL, NASA / Langley, Aurora, Orbital, Phillips Lab, the Air Force, Ball Aerospace, and SpaceDev. Thomas has worked for Orbital Sciences Corporation as Principal Scientist, Space Systems Group. He earned his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology and his B.A. from Czech Technical University, Prague.

Established in 1998, TransOrbital, Inc. ( http://www.transorbital.net) intends to win the new "Race to the Moon" by being the first company to orbit the Moon with a completely commercial spacecraft, 2001 TrailBlazer. The spacecraft's prime mission is to return HDTV video and other multi-media content from lunar orbit to market as commercial products. The spacecraft will also deliver a time capsule to the moon, carrying small cargo items such as personal memorabilia and business cards.

The 2001 TrailBlazer_TM Project is a for-profit space venture.  

"We want to do for the Moon what Jacques Cousteau did for marine exploration- to go, look, sell the images and repeat it again and again."

Point of Contact:
TransOrbital may be reached at:
Tel: 858-455-5900 or 703-960-5953
Fax: 858-455-5979 or 603-619-5538
E-mail: at dlaurie@transorbital.net.
Further information may be found at the TransOrbital website http://www.transorbital.net. 

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