Craig Clark, founder and CEO of Glasgow-based Clyde Space Ltd, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for Services to Innovation and Technology.
He said he was: “Absolutely delighted to be awarded with an MBE and I hope that this honour can help to raise awareness of the UK space industry and to encourage more children to decide on science and technology based careers.
Clyde Space has built Scotland’s first satellite, UKube-1, which will be sent into space aboard a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in September.
Craig founded Clyde Space in 2005 with £50,000 he raised himself and the company is now one of the most successful suppliers of small satellite systems in the world. He has won 40% of the global market for nanosatellites, known as CubeSats.
The small but highly sophisticated satellites can carry multiple payloads and their applications can be used from anything from astrophysics research to tracking ships or wildfires or taking high-resolution photographs.
The company works closely with the UK Space Agency and Its global customer base includes the likes of NASA, US Air Force and MIT.
The company’s growth continues as it develops cutting-edge products for the space market and it now employs more than 20 highly skilled, full-time staff.
Before setting up Clyde Space, Craig was employed by for Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) for 11 years from 1994 where he worked as a technical manager on more than 20 space missions.
Craig has a BEng in Electrical Power Engineering from the University of Glasgow and an MSc in Satellite Engineering from the University of Surrey.
Married with two children, he lives in Glasgow.
