Texas Space Commission launches, Houston execs named to leadership

future of space

Here's who's at the helm of the newly announced Texas Space Commission. Photo courtesy of the Office of the Governor

Governor Greg Abbott announced the Texas Space Commission, naming its inaugural board of directors and Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium Executive Committee.

The announcement came at NASA's Johnson Space Center, and the governor was joined by Speaker Dade Phelan, Representative Greg Bonnen, Representative Dennis Paul, NASA's Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche, and various aerospace industry leaders.

According to a news release, the Texas Space Commission will aim to strengthen commercial, civil, and military aerospace activity by promoting innovation in space exploration and commercial aerospace opportunities, which will include the integration of space, aeronautics, and aviation industries as part of the Texas economy.

The Commission will be governed by a nine-member board of directors. The board will also administer the legislatively created Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund to provide grants to eligible entities.

“Texas is home to trailblazers and innovators, and we have a rich history of traversing the final frontier: space,” Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick says in a news release. “Texas is and will continue to be the epicenter for the space industry across the globe, and I have total confidence that my appointees to the Texas Space Commission Board of Directors and the Texas Aerospace Research and Space Economy Consortium Executive Committee will ensure the Texas space industry remains an international powerhouse for cutting-edge space innovation.”

TARSEC will independently identify research opportunities that will assist the state’s position in aeronautics research and development, astronautics, space commercialization, and space flight infrastructure. It also plans to fuel the integration of space, aeronautics, astronautics, and aviation industries into the Texas economy. TARSEC will be governed by an executive committee and will be composed of representatives of each higher education institution in the state.

“Since its very inception, NASA’s Johnson Space Center has been home to manned spaceflight, propelling Texas as the national leader in the U.S. space program,” Abbott says during the announcement. “It was at Rice University where President John F. Kennedy announced that the U.S. would put a man on the moon—not because it was easy, but because it was hard.

"Now, with the Texas Space Commission, our great state will have a group that is responsible for dreaming and achieving the next generation of human exploration in space," he continues. "Texas is the launchpad for Mars, innovating the technology that will colonize humanity’s first new planet. As we look into the future of space, one thing is clear: those who reach for the stars do so from the great state of Texas. I look forward to working with the Texas Space Commission, and I thank the Texas Legislature for partnering with industry and higher education institutions to secure the future of Texas' robust space industry."

The Houston-area board of directors appointees included:

  • Gwen Griffin, chief executive officer of the Griffin Communications Group
  • John Shannon, vice president of Exploration Systems at the Boeing Company
  • Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby, co-founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace
  • Kirk Shireman, vice president of Lunar Exploration Campaigns at Lockheed Martin
  • Dr. Nancy Currie-Gregg, director of the Texas A&M Space Institute

Additionally, a few Houstonians were named to the TARSEC committee, including:

  • Stephanie Murphy, CEO and executive chairman of Aegis Aerospace
  • Matt Ondler, president and former chief technology officer at Axiom Space
  • Jack “2fish” Fischer, vice president of production and operations at Intuitive Machines
  • Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership and vice chairman of Wellby Financial
  • David Alexander, professor of physics and astronomy and director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University

To see the full list of appointed board and committee members, along with their extended bios, click here.

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This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby of Venus Aerospace, Youngro Lee of Brassica, and Le Dam of myAvos. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

WHO'S WHO

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from rocket science to fintech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby, CEO and co-founder of Venus Aerospace

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby of Venus Aerospace joins the Houston Innovators Podcast this week. Photo courtesy of Venus

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby and her husband were living in Japan and considering a trip back to Texas and wishing there was a faster option than a full day of international travel — with their kids, no less. That's when Andrew Duggleby told Sassie that there actually might be an engine that could do that.

Flash forward a few years, and the husband-wife team has built a company around that idea. Venus Aerospace, originally founded in California, relocated to Houston in 2021 to establish their company in an ecosystem with the tools to advance their tech — and give their employees a good work-life balance, Sassie Duggleby explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

"We knew we had to find a location where we could test our engine and still be home for dinner," she says on the show. "Our company vision is 'home for dinner.' We want to fly you across the globe and have you home for dinner. And, if you work for us, we want you home for dinner." Read more.

Youngro Lee has announced funding for his latest fintech endeavor. Photo courtesy

Youngro Lee is no stranger to shaking up the finance world with a new tech-based way of doing business. One of the founders of NextSeed, Lee's newest mission is providing "investment infrastructure as a service" with his company, Brassica, which just raised $8 million in seed funding.

“The future of finance will depend on the ability of trustworthy institutions to provide secure and seamless transitions between traditional financial services and web3 innovations while complying with strict regulations and still providing great customer experience,” says Lee in the news release.

Houston-based Mercury Fund led the round with several other investors participating. Read more.

Le Dam, CEO and founder of OptiChroniX

Le Dam moved from California to Houston to build her company. Photo via LinkedIn

After years on the West Coast, Le Dam has returned to her adopted hometown of Houston — just in time to launch a new app dedicated to providing health resources and information to its users.

“I always knew that I wanted to build my business in Houston,” Dam says, mentioning the assets of the world’s largest medical center, a thriving startup community, and diverse population for whom she wants to build her technology.

myAvos pairs with a user’s smart watch and harnesses their health information such as physical activity and hours slept. The user can also input additional information such as blood test results and meals eaten. The app analyzes the information provided and assesses the user’s risk for chronic illness later in life. Read more.

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby of Venus Aerospace joins the Houston Innovators Podcast this week. Photo courtesy of Venus

Female Houston founder on her dream of making high-speed, international travel a reality

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 181

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby is on a mission to get people home in time for dinner — whether they are traveling around the world or working for her business. That's why she founded Venus Aerospace, which is developing hypersonic space planes. It's also why she relocated the company from the West Coast to Houston.

"We knew we had to find a location where we could test our engine and still be home for dinner," Duggleby says on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Our company vision is 'home for dinner.' We want to fly you across the globe and have you home for dinner. And, if you work for us, we want you home for dinner."

Venus's technology enables this revolutionary travel through its supersonic combustion engine — more akin to a rocket's engine than an airplane's — that allows for travel at a higher elevation, she explains on the show. Jet engines rely on air outside of the aircraft to combust, and rocket engines work with a system that supplies air internally. And, as Duggleby explains, the engine can go further with the same amount of fuel, so it's a more sustainable way of traveling too.

"Our ultimate goal is to go with completely carbon-free propellants. There are fuel choices we could make that would be carbon free, but the biggest challenge is continuous operability," she says, explaining that there would then need to be green fuels at whatever airport Venus aircrafts land in to refuel. "You've got to stand up an entirely green ecosystem across the globe. But I think the world would handle that."

The company's developed engine right now works with jet fuel and hydrogen peroxide, a source that can be made without any carbon emissions, she says.

Duggleby founded Venus Aerospace with her husband and CTO Andrew in 2020. The two worked for Virgin Orbit before leaving to start Venus, relocating to Houston in 2021 and setting up shop in a hangar at Ellington Field in the Houston Spaceport. Last year, Venus raised a $20 million series A round.

Once a scrappy team of three people, Venus Aerospace now has almost 100 employees. When thinking about the challenges she's facing, Duggleby says she knows how to navigate the engineering journey the technology faces and she knows they face regulatory obstacles ahead too. Something Duggleby, recently named to Inc. magazine's Female Founders list, is focused on these days — with the pace of growth at the company — is staying true to the company culture she founded since day one.

"There's a constant tension to grow, grow, grow, and build out bigger systems, versus take what you have now and get it really great," she says on the show, recognizing that aerospace work environments tend to have more toxic and competitive cultures. "As important as the technology that we're building is, it's also just as important who we are and how we treat our people."

Duggleby shares more of her story on the podcast, as well as her observations on the space tech industry, Houston's role in the ecosystem, and more. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


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Houston helps power Texas’ rise as AI infrastructure hub, new report finds

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Houston plays a major role in Texas’ rapidly evolving AI economy, a new report indicates.

The report from Build American AI, a pro-AI advocacy group, notes Houston’s growing AI presence includes:

  • A factory being built by AI chipmaker NVIDIA and electronics manufacturer Foxconn that will produce AI supercomputers and infrastructure systems
  • Houston Methodist’s use of ambient AI to listen to health care providers’ conversations with patients, eliminating the need for manual notetaking
  • An abundance of AI products and services for the energy sector

Across the state, billions of dollars in new AI investments are fueling advancements in construction, manufacturing, energy production, logistics, and health care, according to the report.

“Texas is not merely a place where AI products will be used. Texas is becoming one of the places where the AI economy is being assembled,” the report says.

Particularly noteworthy are four major AI-related projects around the state representing an investment of more than $140 billion, including Google’s $40 billion buildout of AI data centers.

“While California had a headstart in building the software era, Texas will build the infrastructure era,” says the report. “That is not a slogan. Economic research has revealed for decades that innovation happens where the local conditions make building and collaboration possible, and Texas is positioned to be a central hub.”

According to the report, components of Texas’ infrastructure era include:

  • Energy leadership
  • Top-tier hospitals
  • Semiconductor investments
  • Construction capabilities
  • Data center growth
  • Major companies and universities

On the workforce front, Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index found Texas had 80,547 AI job postings in 2025, accounting for 8 percent of the national total.

“Texas no longer needs to ask whether AI will reshape the economy. It already has,” the report concludes. “The question is whether Texas will merely host part of that future or lead it.”

Who are Houston's top innovators? Nominate now for 2026 Houston Innovation Awards

Calling All Innovators

Calling all Houston innovators: The 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, presented by InnovationMap, return this fall to celebrate the best and brightest in the Houston innovation ecosystem right now.

We're asking you to nominate Houston's top innovators and startups for this year's awards. Nominations are open now through August 27 and can be made on behalf of yourself, your organization, and other influential leaders in the local innovation scene.

The annual awards program recognizes the most innovative individuals and companies in Houston across 10 prestigious categories.

This year's awards will honor the following categories:

  • Minority-founded Business, honoring an innovative startup founded or co-founded by BIPOC or LGBTQ+ representation.
  • Female-founded Business, honoring an innovative startup founded or co-founded by a woman.
  • Energy Transition Business, honoring an innovative startup providing a solution within renewables, climatetech, clean energy, alternative materials, circular economy, and beyond.
  • Health Tech Business, honoring an innovative startup within the health and medical technology sectors.
  • Deep Tech Business, honoring an innovative startup providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges, including those in the AI, robotics, and space sectors.
  • Startup of the Year (People's Choice), honoring a startup celebrating a recent milestone or success. The winner will be selected by the community via an interactive voting experience.
  • Scaleup of the Year, honoring an innovative later-stage startup that's recently reached a significant milestone in company growth.
  • Incubator/Accelerator of the Year, honoring a local incubator or accelerator that is championing and fueling the growth of Houston startups.
  • Mentor of the Year, honoring an individual who dedicates their time and expertise to guide and support budding entrepreneurs.
  • Trailblazer, honoring an innovator who's made a lasting impact on the Houston innovation community.

You have three weeks to submit nominees, so don't delay — nominate today at this link or fill out the form below. Qualified nominees will receive a formal application to complete, which will be reviewed by our esteemed panel of judges to determine the finalists and winners.

More announcements about the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards are coming soon, including an introduction to this year's panel of judges. Interested in sponsoring the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards? Please contact sales@innovationmap.com.

KBR unveils name, branding for new government services spinoff

new identity

Houston-based KBR Inc.'s new Mission Technology Solutions unit officially has a name.

The previously announced government services spinoff, which until now has been nicknamed SpinCo, will now be known as Trinzic. The company said in a news release that the name was inspired by the word intrinsic, "reflecting essential, built-in capabilities and deep expertise operating in some of the world’s most complex and mission-critical environments."

New York-based firm Siegel + Gale developed the company's new brand. In addition to the new name, the company shares that its new logo will feature a stylized letter N, with brand colors in orange and gray.

“Trinzic represents who KBR Mission Tech has always been at our core: an essential partner bringing innovation and trusted execution to the missions that matter most,” Stuart Bradie, KBR President and CEO, said in the release. “The new Trinzic brand represents both our strong heritage and the tremendous opportunity ahead. Our teams aim to deliver solutions that address some of the world’s most critical national priorities every day, and this new identity captures the purpose-driven culture and mission focus that we expect to continue to define the company moving forward.”

KBR expects the spin-off to be completed in January 2027. At that time, Trinzic will operate as an independent, publicly traded company that will focus on technology and engineering services for the space and national security sectors.

KBR will remain a separate publicly traded company that will focus on sustainable technology and services to support the energy transition. KBR first announced the spinoff plans in October 2025.

Last month, KBR announced two C-suite hires for Trinzic, or what was then known as SpinCo.

Michael LaRouche will serve as Trinzic's inaugural president and CEO. LaRouche is currently CEO of Serco North America, a Virginia-based government services contractor. Nicholas Veasey, current CFO of Virginia-based MAG Aerospace, was named Trinzic's CFO. Bradie will remain chairman, president and CEO of KBR.

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