Our People
Engineering services and short courses for the aerospace industry
Tom Sarafin is President and Chief Engineer for Instar. He has worked full time in the space industry since 1979. He started his career at Martin Marietta Astronautics, where he contributed to and led activities in structural analysis, design, and test, mostly for large spacecraft. Since founding Instar in 1993, he’s consulted for NASA, DigitalGlobe, Lockheed Martin, AeroAstro, and many other organizations. He’s helped the U. S. Air Force Academy design, develop, and verify a series of small satellites and has been an advisor to DARPA. Since 2007, he has had a key role on a team chartered with developing a new NASA-wide standard for use of threaded fasteners. He is the editor and principal author of Spacecraft Structures and Mechanisms: From Concept to Launch and is a contributing author to Space Mission Analysis and Design. Since 1995, he has taught over 150 courses to more than 3000 engineers and managers in the space industry.
Poti (Pete) Doukas is Vice President and Sr. Consultant at Instar with over 30 years experience in space programs. Poti worked at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (formerly Martin Marietta Astronautics) from 1978 to 2006, when he joined Instar. While at Lockheed Martin, he served as Engineering Manager for the Phoenix Mars Lander program (2008), Mechanical Engineering Lead for Genesis (2001-04), Structures and Mechanisms Subsystem Lead for Stardust (1999-2006), and Structural Analysis Lead for Mars Global Surveyor (1996-2006). Poti has also developed flight hardware for the Cassini mission to Saturn as well as the Space Shuttle Orbiter and External Tank. Since working at Instar, Poti has consulted to the United States Air Force Academy, Lockheed Martin, Design_Net Engineering, Comtech AeroAstro, and SEAKR Engineering. Poti also presents Instar short courses and develops new educational materials. He’s a contributing author to Space Mission Analysis and Design (1st and 2nd editions) and Spacecraft Structures and Mechanisms: From Concept to Launch.
Mike Browning is a Principal Engineer with 27 years of aerospace industry experience. He started his engineering career at Rocketdyne working on the Space Shuttle Main Engines from 1983 to 1988 and then worked at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (formerly Martin Marietta Astronautics) from 1988 to 2000 and from 2005 to 2010. Mike went to work at Coherent Technologies in 2000, and in 2005 Coherent Technologies became Lockheed Martin Coherent Technologies (LMCT), where Mike was the Design Analysis Lead for LMCTs first ever space–qualified coherent laser radar payload. Along with a strong structural analysis background, Mike adds thermal modeling and analysis capability and opto-mechanical experience to Instar’s list of skills. Mike has experience leading teams of design, analysis, and systems engineers on small and large programs. Mike joined Instar in April 2010.
Tim Ring is a Project Engineer with 15 years of aerospace experience. At Lockheed Martin, where he worked from 1995 to 2000, he was the lead project engineer for numerous structural tests, including static-load testing of large spacecraft. At Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., where he worked from 2000 to 2009, he performed mechanical-engineering design for several programs—under different capacities—such as Hubble Space Telescope (optomechanical design), Space Based Surveillance System (structural design), and WorldView 2 (mechanism design). Tim joined Instar in October 2009 and has since performed mechanical design and structural analysis in support of Lockheed Martin’s Orion program and Design Net Engineering’s Rideshare Adapter program.
Pat O’Grady is a Senior Engineer with 5 years experience in structural and mechanical design and analysis, in which he acquired a wide breadth of technical skills and knowledge. He worked for three years at AeroAstro, Inc., testing and integrating the STPSat–1 flight vehicle, and helped design the STPSat–2 (SIV) structure and solar array. While there he also worked the sun sensor and miniature star tracker component programs. At Instar, he consults for the faculty and cadets of the United States Air Force Academy on their satellite (FalconSAT–5 and –6) and sounding rocket (FalconLAUNCH–7, –8 and –9) capstone classes. He has also provided mechanical design and analysis services to Lockheed Martin’s Orion program and to a bolted–joint test program for NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center (NESC). Pat joined Instar in March 2008.
Seth Kovnat is a mechanical engineer who recently entered the aerospace industry after receiving his BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Drexel University (magna cum laude). Since joining Instar in July 2008, Seth has performed a variety of structural analyses including static, dynamic, fracture, and fatigue analysis on many types of aerospace structures ranging from propulsion system tubing and components (NASA’s Orion program) to electronics housings (SEAKR Engineering). He has built and test-correlated a variety of finite element models, including the primary structure for the United States Air Force Academy’s FalconSAT–5 small satellite. Additionally, he performed much of the analysis on an Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) program that successfully demonstrated a process that eliminates the need for coupled loads analysis on small to mid–size launch vehicle payloads.
Diane Rath is an administrative assistant and office manager for Instar. Diane joined Instar in Jun of 2010.