Ray Williamson Future Fund 2017 Award Winner

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

We would like to congratulate the recipient of the Ray Williamson Future Fund Award, Luis Ángel Castellanos Velasco. SWF is pleased to honor Mr. Castellanos Velasco by providing this scholarship to attend the International Space University Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program 2017 (ISU SH-SSP) in Adelaide, Australia.

Mr. Luis Ángel Castellanos Velasco is a last semester student of Electric & Electronic Engineering and the first in his family to study engineering. Since he was child, he dreamed of being an astronaut, but rather than go into space, he dreams of bringing space to humanity. During his stay at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), he participated in multiple projects, including making printed circuit boards for the mainframe of the telescope cosmic rays "JEM-EUSO," as well as participated at the Laboratory of Space Systems, learning about the operation of on-board cameras for remote sensing satellites. Mr. Castellanos Velasco was the first person on the UNAM team to attend the Lunabotics Mining Competition at Kennedy Space Center, with a lunar exploration robot. He won second place in Design & Innovation. Now, Mr. Castellanos Velasco is involved with UNAM Space (Hans von Muldau 2016 IAF’s Award), which has competed in the Sample Return Robot Challenge convened by NASA for two years. This group of students aims to create a space technology company that contributes to development and space research. He is doing an internship in the Mexican Space Agency generating technological solutions to analyze influential network-nodes within the ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in the space sector. 

This Ray Williamson Future Fund annually supports a small number of scholarship or professional development awards to support students or young professionals with demonstrated commitment to and aptitude for the advancement of the Secure World Foundation’s values, goals, and objectives. It is named for a former Executive Director of the Foundation whose life work has particularly advanced the cause of preparing new generations of leadership for the space sector.