Kush Patel is Relative Dynamics’ Chief Executive Officer and is responsible for leading the company towards its ultimate aim of establishing itself as an engineering think-tank in the Aerospace Industry. Kush began his career supporting the Space Shuttle missions in 2009, having graduated from University of Maryland in Aerospace Engineering.  

As the space industry turned a new page going towards commercial capabilities, Kush realized a need for an engineering think-tank that innovates for new-space with lessons learned from old-space. With a detailed eye and sharp focus, Kush has worked in unique ways to grow Relative Dynamics from a start up to a sustained enterprise that now has a highly technical IRAD team developing cutting edge aerospace technology at it’s own facilities.  

As the Chief Growth Officer, Ms. Shuby Ambardekar provides senior strategic leadership to the Relative Dynamics business development initiatives. Ms. Ambardekar is an accomplished Business Development Strategy Leader experienced in developing actionable growth pipelines and capture strategy to include establishing teaming, pricing, discriminators, and Customer focused value propositions. She has extensive experience in capturing, implementing and executing multi-million-dollar, multi-year Government Services Programs requiring high end engineering and operations skills. A strong operations background complements her business development skills in driving proposal strategy for executable profitable programs.

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Her long-term employment with Honeywell International (previously AlliedSignal and Bendix Field Engineering Corporation) allowed for progressively increasing responsibilities in a multi-billion-dollar corporation. As a President Emeritus Maryland Space Business Roundtable (MSBR), Past President for 2 years, Officer of the Board for 4 years, and active Board member over 8 years, she brings extensive Industry and Customer relationships.

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Ms. Ambardekar’s role within Relative Dynamics provides a dedicated resource for establishing a growth strategy, and generating and winning new business opportunities. She brings a wide range of government agency contacts as well as relationships within the federal contractor community.

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Shuby has a Graduate Degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and extensive Leadership Training during her tenure at Honeywell and through external institutions.

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As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Dr. Krainak manages, develops and enhances the Internal Research & Development portfolio.  Our primary focus is the development of commercial optical communication terminals for use in terrestrial, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), High Altitude Platform (HAP) and satellite markets.  Dr. Krainak is the Principal Investigator leading two recently awarded NASA Small Business Innovative Research proposals:

• Optical Communication Terminal: Communications and Navigation for Distributed Small Spacecraft Beyond LEO
• Large Space Optics Using System Identification: Advanced Optical Systems and Fabrication/Testing/Control Technologies for EUV/Optical and IR Telescope

Dr. Krainak maintains his strong interest in Photonic Integrated Circuits and their application for sensors, communication, and high-performance computing.  The RDi team (led by J. Draganov) won third place in the “Honey, I Shrunk the Payload” NASA Herox challenge that incorporates a state-of-the-art PIC for Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry to enable a miniature fiber-grating-based Lunar Seismometer.

Dr. Krainak has a strong interest in laser-based manufacturing.  He is co-leading the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) Applications and Technology (A&T) 2: Laser-based Manufacturing, Machining and Nanoprinting sub-committee.  Dr. Krainak is a member of the Advanced Photon Counting Techniques sub-committeee for the Society of Photo-Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Photonics West Conference.

Dr. Krainak holds five patents, the most recent, “Coherent Optical Transistor”, awarded in September 2020.  He has co-authored over 200 publications. Dr. Krainak was awarded the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Internal Research and Development Innovator of the Year award in 2018.

Michael Krainak received his BS in electrical engineering from Catholic University and MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.  He started his career as a telephone switch office field engineer for AT&T Western Electric.  He worked for nine years at the National Security Agency in the Computer Research Group.  His PhD research was on real-time holography in photorefractive crystals.   He had a short sabbatical at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the Optical Computing Laboratory. For twenty-eight years, he worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in the Lasers and Electro-Optics Branch on inter-satellite laser communications and lidar systems. In 2001, he worked at the semiconductor laser start-up - Quantum Photonics Inc.

Dr. Krainak’s NASA roles included:

• Research and Development lead for Optical Communication technology and Lidar technology.
• Technical management lead for the X-ray Timing Explorer (XTE) Interferometric Fiber Optic Gyroscope (IFOG) experiment.
• Cloud Lidar Subsystem Lead Engineer for the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESAT) Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) Instrument.  
• Co-Investigator for the Laser Sounder for Earth atmospheric CO2 mapping Instrument Incubator awards that subsequently led to the Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) mission. The ASCENDS objective is to make global atmospheric column carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements without a seasonal, latitudinal, or diurnal bias.
• Co-Investigator on the NASA-GSFC management oversight team for the Mars Laser Communication Demonstration (MLCD).
• Co-Investigator on the NASA-GSFC management oversight team for the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD).
• Technical lead on the Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) proposal team.
• Lead for laser and photon counting detector subsystem Preliminary & Critical Design Reviews for the Advanced Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) on the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESAT-2).
• Co-Investigator on the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) laser development.
• Co-Investigator on the ACaDAMe (Atmospheric Coupling and Dynamics Across the Mesopause region) proposed space-borne sodium lidar development.

He served as the NASA representative to the American Institute of Manufacturing (AIM) Integrated Photonics Consortium.  He is presently the Chief Technology Officer at Relative Dynamics Inc. working on satellite optical communications.

Recent News

Relative Dynamics Wins NASA SBIR Phase 2 for Optical Communication Array Transceiver (OCAT) Development
March 2022
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NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate in conjunction with NASA GSFC awarded Relative Dynamics a Phase II SBIR Award to further develop the next generation of near-earth and deep space Optical Communication Array Terminal technology.

The newly awarded NASA Phase 2 SBIR program will take the SCOUT terminal to the next level of internet-compatible performance- operating with coherent transceivers at 100 Gbps data rates and near-optimum receiver efficiency to realize our goal of enabling worldwide and interplanetary internet access.

Relative Dynamics is proud and excited to help further NASA’s deep interest in commercially viable Optical Communication Development and to help fulfill the agency’s vision to leverage industry infrastructure for future communications needs. This award builds on our existing relationship with NASA as well as our focus to help advance technologies here on Earth and beyond.

Employee Spotlight

How would you describe the culture at Relative Dynamics?

Intelligent and agile with diligent pursuit of innovation, opportunities and working simulations, algorithms, models and hardware

Why did you choose to work at Relative Dynamics?

High commercial target markets and high energy work environment

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Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and his childhood passion for aerospace, Antriksh joined the fast-growing small business Relative Dynamics in an entry-level operations role, where he aspired to make a difference translating the CEO's vision into a functional and sustainable path.

He quickly rose through the ranks, taking on increasing responsibilities in operations, human resources, marketing, project management, financial management, and business development. Today, with more than 10 years of experience in the aerospace industry Antriksh, as COO, focuses on optimizing processes, fostering cross-functional collaboration, supporting organic growth across programs and ensuring the scalability of the organization. Antriksh holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from University of Maryland College Park.

Prior to RD, Ms. Kline was the Director of Business Development for MCSGTechnologies, and was responsible for pipeline development and capture of large(>$100M) government services pursuits. She has also previously served as the Director of Technical Services at Emergent Space Technologies and was responsible for both operations of technical services contracts, as well as strategic pursuits in government services.  

She has held various leadership roles at ATA Aerospace and KBR (formerly SGT, Inc.).  Ms. Kline has 22 years of experience in the aerospace industry, starting her career as a thermal analyst with Lockheed Martin.

Ms. Kline holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State University.

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Terry has over 38 years of experience in the aerospace industry, including 21 years as a NASA civil servant serving in a variety of technical and leadership roles and as an internal consultant. While with NASA, Terry also served for one year as a Legislative Fellow in the U.S. Senate. He possesses broad experience in strategic planning, managing operations, business development and capture, change management, organizational improvement, and building teams to achieve business and organization goals.
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Following his NASA career, Terry joined Booz Allen Hamilton where he led teams advising government senior executives on a range of issues. He also held leadership roles at Engility and KBR, managing and growing key lines of business. Terry also started his own consulting business providing consulting to private sector C-suite, non-profit, and federal government clients in strategy, corporate development, organizational performance, program management, change management, and business development and capture.
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Terry received a BS in Electrical Engineering and a MS in Engineering from California State University, Fresno. He also completed Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development, HBS’s alternative to an executive MBA.
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“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

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