Transforming earthborn visions, into space-faring realities!

Mission Support
Enabling Technologies
Professional Education

About

Dr. Sam Richards

Sam is the Founder and Director of Meridian Space Command, where he sets the strategic vision and leads the delivery of complex, high-impact space missions. With over 20 years of international experience across the space and aerospace sectors, Sam is recognised for his deep operational expertise, technical leadership, and ability to bridge the gap between emerging innovation and mission-critical delivery. He has directed missions for NASA, scaled mission orientated startups from zero-to-IPO, led commercial and sovereign programmes, and worked across domains including Earth orbit, Deep-Space and Lunar exploration, and Hypersonic atmospheric flight.

Sam’s approach combines hands-on leadership with a strong commitment to collaboration, enabling Meridian to serve as a force multiplier for mission operators, defence stakeholders, academic institutions, and commercial ventures. Each project taken on reflects a broader goal: to make space more accessible, more secure, and more useful to the world around us.

At Meridian, Sam champions the development of sovereign space capabilities and next-generation talent. He develops and oversees a suite of services spanning mission support, enabling technologies, and professional education, all designed to accelerate the readiness and resilience of the UK and its allies in space. Under his leadership, Meridian also partners with developing space nations to support their first steps into orbit and beyond. By focusing on sustainable capability-building, Meridian helps emerging space programmes grow with confidence, autonomy, and a clear path to mission success.

For every client engagement, Sam defines success by making himself redundant. His goal is to build the internal capability, confidence, and culture needed for teams to thrive independently long after the mission support concludes. Through focused in-house education and hands-on knowledge transfer, he ensures each organisation is equipped to lead its own future missions without external reliance. This approach allows Sam to move on to the next challenge with pride, knowing that true success is measured by the lasting growth and autonomy of those he supports.

Portfolio

Trusted By

ispace, inc.

Cis-lunar Services

UK Space Agency

Government Space Services

Space Engine Systems

Dual-Use Hypersonics

University of Leicester

Academic Missions

Space Kidz India

STEM Missions & Education

NASA

Government Space Services

AAO

Astronomical & Space Science

University of Sydney

Astrophotonic Research

USRA

Research & Missions

Exotopic

Science & Business

AWE

Nuclear & Space

Rolls Royce

Energy & Aerospace

TMET

Academy Education

Relm

Cyber Insurance

JAXA

Government Space Services

MBRSC

Government Space Services

Mission Support

  • Feasibility Check


    Work Style
    : Ad-hoc
    Price: £200+VAT per hour
    Length: e.g. 1 - 3 hours

    Meet 1-on-1 (online or in-person) to go through your Mission Concept and receive experienced opinions on its feasibility, considerations, and future potential. Receive advice on how best to achieve your project in the short term, which funding sources could be of assistance, and potential network and partnership opportunities.

  • Embedded Support


    Work Style: Flex
    Price: £150+VAT per hour
    Length: e.g. 50 - 1000 hours

    Receive personal and embedded support into your team to accelerate your mission readiness, setup mission control infrastructure, accomplish mission objectives, provide knowledge transfer and training, and be alongside your team through to mission completion. Our objective is for your mission to succeed, and to make ourselves redundant by mission end, as your team should then be ready to scale by themselves.

Enabling Technologies

  • Economical Transfer Vehicle (ETV)


    The Economical Transfer Vehicle (ETV) is a low-mass, low-cost, high-delta-V orbital transfer platform designed to begin in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) from ride-share launches. Capable of  delivering small payloads to more precise orbits within LEO or onward to MEO, GEO, the Moon, and beyond. It enables affordable access to deep-space for emerging space nations, educational missions, and commercial users seeking to demonstrate capabilities in-and-beyond Earth orbit. By lowering the cost and complexity of reaching deep space destinations, ETV serves as a key enabling technology for a more inclusive and distributed future in space exploration.

    First mission (cislunar) is scheduled for 2027-Q2.

    Learn more

  • Skylark - Open Mission Kit (OMK)


    Skylark is the Open Mission Kit (OMK); a unified toolkit that consolidates and integrates the full suite of mission operations software into one seamless platform. By combining design, simulation, testing, control, and data visualisation into a single web-based interface, it eliminates the need to juggle disconnected systems. Enabling early mission modelling, hardware-in-the-loop testing, predictive operations, and realtime mission risk assessments & auditing, Skylark provides a transparent and future-proof environment that reduces risk, streamlines decision-making, and makes professional-grade space operations accessible to organisations of any size.

    Skylark-v1 is scheduled for release in 2026-Q3.

    Learn more (coming soon)

Professional Education

  • Newspace Mission Operations


    Length
    : 5 days
    Location: In-person (Space Park Leicester, UK)
    Price: £1250+VAT per participant
    Capacity: 15 participants
    Type: Technical Workshop
    Next course: TBD

    The Operations Team make the concept-of-operations a reality and deliver on the goals of a Mission. In this course, you take the helm inside the Mission Control Centre, hands-on designing, creating, testing, re-viewing, executing, and auditing your Mission, using the latest industry-adopted Newspace Mission Software, providing knowledge, experience and insight of the inner workings of a Newspace Mission Operations Team. This course provides you with an intensive experience of what it takes to run a Mission from concept to completion.

  • Newspace Entrepreneurship


    Length: 1 day
    Location: Online
    Price: £100+VAT per participant
    Capacity: Unlimited
    Type: Informative + Q&A
    Next course: TBD

    A fast-paced, one-day masterclass for aspiring space founders ready to build bold ventures in the commercial space economy. Through six focused sessions, participants explore the Newspace landscape, uncover real opportunities, and learn how to create fundable startups that thrive within industry constraints. We go beyond the hype and take a critical look at current trends, sharing insider insights into the technical and economic challenges of the space sector. From technical feasibility, sustainable business models, public funding, early customers, and team building, this course delivers the clarity and confidence needed to take your first steps as a space entrepreneur.

  • Space for Non-Space Investors


    Length: 1 day
    Location: Online or In-Person
    Price: £500+VAT per participant
    Capacity: Unlimited within the same firm
    Type: Informative + Q&A
    Next course: On-Demand

    An introductory course that demystifies the space sector for generalist investors, family offices, and venture firms new to the domain. It covers the fundamentals of space technologies, key terminology, mission architectures, revenue models, and downstream applications. Participants will gain insight into current market trends, risk profiles, and investment opportunities across launch, satellite services, data products, and in-orbit infrastructure. Designed to build confidence and clarity, this course provides a solid foundation for making informed, strategic investment decisions in one of the world’s most rapidly evolving and capital-intensive industries.

Enquiry

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