The Aerospace Corporation - was it the organization reverse engineering off-world craft?

 The Wilson/Davis document

Since the release of the Wilson/Davis document, UAP researchers have been trying to identify the aerospace entity referred to in the notes. Part of the notes reads:

EWD: "Who was the project contractor or USG agency that runs program?"

TW: "An aerospace technology contractor - one of the top ones in US." 

EWD: "Who?"

TW: "Core secret - can't tell."

EWD: "Defense contractor?"

TW: "Yes the best one of them."

EWD is Eric W. Davis and TW is former Admiral Thomas R. Wilson. 

There has been much speculation as to whether it was an aerospace company like Lockheed Martin. 

In a previous blog post, I presented an historical review of the interest of aerospace companies, and some of their employees, in UAP. One entity I overlooked, was the U.S. "The Aerospace Corporation." The purpose of this blog is to explore what is publicly known about this Corporation, specifically looking for clues as to whether or not it conducted, or is conducting, any work on UAP. Or even if it could be the company TW was referring to?

You will note that Wilson does not say "An aerospace company," but "An aerospace technology contractor - one of the top ones in US." An additional point made by some UAP researchers, is the fact that Dr. Davis left EarthTech in 2020, and according to the 23 July 2020 issue of the New York Times newspaper joined The Aerospace Corporation. A search of the Corporation website failed to locate any reference to him.  I checked the LinkedIn profiles of employees of the Corporation but failed to find one for Dr. Davis. 

Dr. Eric W. Davis

The Corporation history

The "Our history" section of their website tells us that "The Aerospace Corporation" was founded in 1960. In the early years it was involved with projects for the U.S.A.F. and missile technology, including the conversion of military missiles for space rockets. It helped develop the Project Mercury Pilot Safety Program, and was also included in space based reconnaissance programs.

At the end of the 1960's it developed expertise in projects other than space in the areas of transportation; energy and body armor. In the 1970's it was involved with the development and operation of the space shuttle; and the Strategic defense Initiative. Into the 1980's the Corporation saw some of its time going into the development of the global positioning System; and on the Milstar and DSCS satellite communication systems.

The 1990's saw it perform assessments for the International Space Station. More recently it "...supported planning for Space radar to provide global persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the Department of Defense" In times just gone by, it has provided support for a number of still classified DOD operations. 

Business model

The Corporation is not a private company , as opposed to say Lockheed Martin. It's website states that it is:

"...the only Federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) committed exclusively to the space enterprise." 

It is an independent and non-profit organization. Its customers are government, civil and commercial. It operates an headquarters in El-Segundo, California; regional offices in Chantilly, Virginia and Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

Numerous other Corporation  business addresses are listed on its website including at a number of U.S.A.F. bases. One such  Corporation business address is worthy of specific note, being at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) at Wright Patterson AFB. NASIC was recently mentioned as one of the two locations, the other being the UAP Task Force, that U. S. agencies should forward UAP sightings to. 

The Corporation has around 4,000 employees. According to USA spending.gov the Corporation received $1 billion in funding in FY 2021, including 65 new awards. 89% of this funding was from the U.S, Department of Defense, and 8% from NASA. 

Focus areas

The Corporation website lists five focus areas:

1. Launch Assurance.

2. Satellite and orbits - "The Aerospace corporation remains the leading authority on the development, launch and deployment of space systems." Included in this is the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies." established in 1997. The Center maintains a database of all reentries; which might be useful for UAP researchers, in recognizing satellite reentries as IFOs.

3. Space exploration.

4. Space policy.

5. Research and development - A recently formed group within the Corporation is XLab

"...that consolidates our prototyping expertise to develop rapid solutions to the threat facing the nations' space assets." 

While there is no mention of UAP in this section, one could read into it that it should have an interest in UAP, given that the UAPTF report stated that UAP could be a threat to U.S. national security.

Area of interest - propulsion

Given that a range of aerospace companies, in the past, have taken an interest in the propulsion aspects of UAP observations, I checked what the Corporation says it is doing in terms of methods of propulsion, specifically, whether or not it had research going on "exotic" propulsion systems?

A search of the website found a section titled "State of Play: In-space Novel Propulsion Technologies," which I thought might be what I was looking for. It was released 8 June 2021. The document covers advances in nuclear, electric, chemical and solar propulsion systems. However, there is no mention of anything more exotic than those just mentioned. It is authored by one Laura Speckman with contributions from nine other Corporation employees. None of them was astrophysicist Dr. Eric W. Davis who lists work he undertook on exotic propulsion systems. 

Area of interest - retrieval of crashed space objects

Elsewhere on the Corporation's website, is a section dealing with the Corporation's Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS.) In this section is the following:

"CORDS provides information on when a reentry might occur, and Aerospace collects and analyses material that survived re-entry."

It also has a section which actively seeks observations of space object reentries, via an input form.

The process by which Aerospace physically collects such material is not shown on their website. However, the mention of collection and analysis of conventional crashed space objects by the Corporation, raised a tantalizing thought in my mind.

Astute blog readers, will by now, recall that the U.S.A.F. ran programs, from the early 1960's, called MOON DUST and BLUE FLY.  These were to locate, then retrieve and transfer to the U.S., crashed objects which had returned from space, e.g. satellites, booster rockets, with a view to mining intelligence data from them. Some UAP researchers insisted that these programs also extended to the retrieval of crashed UFOs. There has been a lack of evidence of what happened to these programs post around the 1980's; and whether or not they continue to today. Perhaps The Aerospace Corporation is now the driver of the former MOON DUST and BLUE FLY programs?

A more speculative thought also occurred to me. If CORDS collects and analyses conventional crashed returned space objects, perhaps it might also be called upon to study alleged unconventional material, e.g. fragments from crashed UAP?

What then, can we conclude?

The Aerospace Corporation would fit Wilson's description, as in the Wilson/Davis notes, as well, if not better, than any traditional aerospace company. However, its public website failed to reveal any overt mention of UAP.

Update: 31 August 2021

Thanks to both Jonathan Davies, and a comment from "anonymous" on the blog, for pointing to the fact that Dr. Davis has a Facebook page. On that page it states that he is a Senior Project Engineer at The Aerospace Corporation. 

The Facebook page also has:

"Started job

9 December 2019 - Senior Project Officer at The Aerospace Corporation, Huntsville, Alabama. Work on the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Flight Demonstration Project and quantum sensors at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and advanced propulsion at the USSPACECOM/SSDP in Colorado Springs."