Thor Kissman
On Nov. 14, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems launched the SkyTerra1 satellite from the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Wichita State University alum Thor Kissman served as director of Boeing's Launch Day, the culmination of four years of leadership of the design, assembly and test of the 702HP satellite built for LightSquared.
In his role as Space Segment Program Manager, Kissman was responsible for the activities of more than 600 Boeing employees and more than 100 suppliers. Once operational, this satellite will allow personal PDA/smartphones that have a view of the southern sky to connect from anywhere in the United States, virtually removing bad cell coverage.
Kissman graduated from Wichita State in 1993 and went on to work for Learjet, Northrup Grumman and Hughes Space and Communications, which was later purchased by Boeing. He received his master’s in business administration from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1999. A Wichita native and graduate of Goddard High School, he served in active and reserve units of the U.S. Army Military Police, including deployment to the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1991.
He was briefly assisted on the SkyTerra satellite program by his wife and fellow WSU aerospace engineering alum, Michelle Kessler Kissman (class of ‘92). She works as chief of staff for the new Boeing 702MP satellite program. They met at Learjet while working to complete their aerospace engineering undergraduate degrees.
“Thor and Michelle were great Wichita State students with big dreams,” said Scott Miller, professor and chair of aerospace engineering at Wichita State. “They obviously have gone on to do big things with Boeing in California. It’s not every day people get to help send things into space, not to mention impact society in a larger way.”
“It is amazing to see how much the world has changed in such a short time,” said Thor Kissman. “In the 1980s, I was deployed in Western Germany during the Cold War Era. This November, I worked with a former colonel from the Soviet Union’s Missile Command in Eastern Europe to launch a satellite that will help people connect better than ever before … all made possible, in part, by my experiences and education at Wichita State. I’m living the dream every day.”