Sean Hollis is President and Chief Operating Officer of Blackstar Orbital Technologies Corporation. He is responsible for the daily operations of the company and for converting Blackstar’s reusable-spacecraft architecture into a disciplined system for fabrication, integration, testing, recovery, inspection and turnaround.
Hollis brings an operations background spanning NASA Artemis, Liquid Oxygen, Liquid Hydrogen, and Main Propulsion systems for SLS, ground support equipment, thermal-protection systems for the X-37B and the Orion capsule, as well as reliability-centered maintenance engineering and operations at Kennedy Space Center. As the Maintenance and Reliability Lead for Jacobs Test and Operations Support Contract, he contributed to the condition-based maintenance program at KSC. Specifically, Hollis managed analysis practices used to move critical equipment from time-based maintenance toward a proactive, data-driven maintenance schedule to save time and cost. The KSC oil management program received industry recognition through the International Council for Machinery Lubrication’s Augustus H. Gill Award for Oil Analysis Excellence. Hollis was charged with applying this philosophy to all NASA contracts where ground support equipment maintenance and operation optimization was required.
At Blackstar, Hollis leads vehicle build execution, safety and mission assurance, recovery planning, supplier coordination, flight-test operations, and re-flight readiness. He owns the operating discipline behind the platform: how hardware is handled, checked, released, recovered, inspected and returned to service. His mandate is not simply to help produce a spacecraft that flies once, but to establish the procedures, evidence and reliability culture required for a reusable fleet.