2023 SMD Symposium highlights advances, products, services in missile defense

The 2023 Space and Missile Defense Symposium has come to a close, and so with it one of the busiest weeks for Huntsville this year.

The event, held August 8-10 at the Von Braun Center, featured 20 Tech Track discussions and over 260 exhibitors showcasing products and services ranging from weapon systems and precision machining to end-user training.

The SMD Symposium is an annual networking, education, and professional development event for the space and missile defense industry, supported by Titanium Patron Northrop Grumman, among a number of others. Its 2023 event attendance exceeded 6,000. Its various components occupied South Hall, Propst Arena, M.C. Smith Concert Hall, North Hall 3, East Hall 2&3, and the Mars Music Hall. 

The diverse roles of attendees and exhibitors provided ample opportunity to learn about and discuss new technological and business developments both within and outside of attendees’ individual disciplines.

In addition to a plethora of exhibits, networking suites, wargames and a Huntsville Association of Small Business in Advanced Technology Small Business Showcase, the symposium featured 20 “Tech Track ” symposium sessions hosted by missile defense industry experts on August 8 and 9. 

Artificial intelligence, ballistic detection and hypersonics were all recurring Tech Track themes. A few presentations included “Orbital Debris: A Cybersecurity Threat to Military Warfare and Space Systems” hosted by Philomena Compton of Mission Multiplier, “Using Generative Artificial Intelligence to Explore Defense against Hypersonic Gliders” with Jorge O’Farill of MTSI and “Data Driven Modeling and Technique (as Applied to Hypersonic Flowfields and Signatures)” with Charlie Stallard of Northrop Grumman Space Systems.

HASBAT Small Businesses Showcase participants had the opportunity to show their tech offerings to SMD Symposium attendees on August 8-10. Participating organizations presented unclassified company overviews, capability descriptions and advantages, and customer data.

The 2023 symposium theme was “Space and Integrated Air, Missile Defense: Meeting the Global Challenge.”

I“This year’s theme recognizes that missiles have become a common and expected facet of modern warfare, which makes missile defense and missile defeat efforts more important than ever. … Finding ways to effectively defend against these types of threats is an important task and really is why we’re all here this week,” said SMD Executive Committee Chairman Bob McCaleb in his welcome to the Symposium. 

High-profile exhibitors included Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing, Deloitte, BlueHalo, the Missile Defense Agency, and the United States Space Command. Among big names like these were small, 50-employee businesses like PPT Solutions, a government contractor supporting Army aviation and Homeland Security with safety and reliability testing as well as software development.

One standout non-profit organization exhibitor was Nā ‘Ōiwi Kāne, which supports Native Hawaiian businesses working in missile defense as well as Hawaiian culture and tradition, funding over 25 unique programs and having awarded $3 million to charities. According to a Nā ‘Ōiwi Kāne representative, the organization, “takes profits from our companies and reinvests that in the Hawaiian community to help better the culture, help promote the culture, and keep traditions going alive within the community.” 

Exhibitors also included specialized services and products that often go overlooked in space and missile defense, like Seal Company which specializes in distributing and manufacturing seals and gaskets for government contractors and World Micro, a supply chain solutions company, which works in global material sourcing in terms of expediting clearances through customs and International Traffic in Arms Regulations compliance as well as testing and measurement, IT and computing, and ground-support.

The SMD Symposium App 2023 allowed attendees to build custom schedules, identify target exhibitors, and receive notifications of agenda changes.

The 2024 SMD Symposium is scheduled for August 6-8. The symposium has already invited organizations to contact them for 2024 exhibition space availability.