Photo of Greg Heckler/ NASA | Photo by Summit Art Creations/ Shutterstock

Greg Heckler, Space Communications and Navigation Program of NASA, is One of the Panelists at the 2024 Space Summit

Greg Heckler is a seasoned executive of NASA who will join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Space Summit as a panelist. Along with other event panelists, Mr. Heckler will tackle the ever-evolving demands on the United States’ air and space defense.

Get to know more about Greg Heckler’s leadership success stories. You can also learn more about the 2024 Space Summit and how to reserve your slot for the upcoming event.

Who is Greg Heckler?

Gregory “Greg” Heckler serves as the Program Executive at NASA’s Space Communication and Navigation Program (SCaN). One of his priorities is to oversee the commercialization of SCaN and NASA’s near-Earth missions.

On NASA’s Near-Earth missions, Mr. Heckler ensures the agency provides communication and navigation services commercially. Greg also handles the development of NASA’s lunar infrastructure, which helps Artemis astronauts’ space exploration.

Greg Heckler will join the POC’s 2024 Space Summit as one of the panelists. During the discussion, Mr. Heckler will share his insights about new technologies and the evolution of the country’s space defense.

We invite you to join the 2024 Space Summit and learn from the discussions of space industry leaders. You may register for the event here.

About the Panelist at the 2024 Space Summit

Date: March 05, 2024, Tuesday
Time: 7:00 a.m. – 1:45 p.m., Eastern Time Zone
Event place: Hilton-McLean, 7920 Jones Branch Drive
Sponsors: Kepler, RG Royce GEO, AWS, ARKA, BWX Technologies

The 2024 Space Summit aims to address the rising concerns of the United States’ space dominance. The summit will also cover how the government handles the most pressing problems in space.

POC invites top space researchers, leaders, and executives to speak and engage in the summit. Meet the following industry leaders who will participate as panelists:

Greg Heckler, Director of the Commercial Communications Services Division at NASA
Steve Butow, Director of Space Portfolio at DIU
Col. Richard Kniseley, Sr. Materiel Leader, Commercial Space Office at Space Systems Command
Peter Muend, Director of Commercial Systems Program Office at NRO
Peter Schemmel, CSP Commercialization Effort at NASA

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Greg Heckler’s Leadership Journey

Before his current position, Mr. Heckler was an Engineering Manager for NASA’s Network Services Division, Space Communications, and Navigation Programs. He also spent over nine years at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, serving various positions but mainly as a telecommunications systems engineer.

In his tenure at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greg worked as a Deputy Telecommunication Systems Manager and Payload Manager for the Tracking Data Relay Satellite Project (TDRS) at for six years. During this time, he helped build, launch, and deploy to service three TDRS satellites.

Here are the positions of Greg Heckler while serving the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:

2002 – 2009: Aerospace Engineer
2009 – 2012: Electrical Engineer
2012 – 2014: Telecommunications System Engineer
2014 – 2016: TDRS Project, Payload Manager
2015 – 2016: SGSS Project, DSP Element Lead
2016 – 2018: TDRS Project, Deputy Telecommunications Systems Manager
2018: Restore-L and SGSS System Engineer

In his time working at NASA, Greg spent most of his time supporting SCaN projects, including SCaN Testbed, McMurdo TDRS Relay System, and Space Network Ground System Sustainment Project. He also contributed to SCaN’s technology development initiatives and space relay architecture studies.