The National Space Society (NSS) has named Jeffrey Manber the 2019 recipient of NSS’ Space Pioneer Award for Entrepreneurship. Jeffrey Manber is the CEO of NanoRacks and is a leading entrepreneur in the new space arena. Space commerce promises to open the door to space development.

The prestigious award will be presented to Mr. Manber at the Society’s 38th annual International Space Development Conference (ISDC^®), to be held in the Washington DC area at the Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel from June 6-9, 2019. NSS invites the public to come meet, interact and learn from Jeffrey and attend his award ceremony.

For more information, see: isdc2019.nss.org.

Jeffrey Manber has aided the Commerce Department during the formation of the Office of Space Commerce in the 1980s, served as Managing Director of Energia USA where he assisted the creation of the first commercial contract between NASA and a Russian organization, and served as the CEO of MirCorp, where he managed the world’s only fully private crew launch to orbit as well as leasing the Mir Space Station.

Since 2009, Manber has placed multiple items of NanoRacks microgravity research hardware on the International Space Station (ISS), plus satellite dispensers for deployment of CubeSats and microsats from ISS and Cygnus. To date, he has launched over 700 payloads for 32 nations, including the first commercial research project from a Chinese organization on the ISS, the Beijing Institute of Technology. Manber is now also poised to install and operate the world’s first commercial airlock on ISS and is leading the way to a post-ISS future of private space stations through his Outpost program.

About the Space Pioneer Award

The Space Pioneer award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, the well-known space and astronomical artist. The globe, which represents multiple space mission destinations and goals, sits freely on a brass support with a wooden base and brass plaque as shown at right. The support and base are created by renowned sculptor Michael Hall of the Studio Foundry of Driftwood, TX. NSS has several different categories under which the award is presented each year, starting in 1988. Past recipients of the Space Pioneer Award include: Elon Musk, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bigelow, Apollo Astronaut Russell L. Schweickart, Dr. Michael Griffin, the Rosetta Mission Team, the Kepler-K2 Team, the New Horizons Mission Team and the Voyager Mission Team.