2026 NAFEMS Americas Conference

Keynotes

Title:

IV&V at The Aerospace Corporation in Support of U.S. Space Force Programs

Abstract

The Aerospace Corporation collaborates closely with the United States Government and contractors to ensure launch and spacecraft programs are successful, particularly for National Security Space (NSS) missions. Schedule and cost constraints can result in truncated test programs and potential gaps in analysis and execution. To increase program success, The Aerospace Corporation leverages lessons learned from many programs and augments this insight with independent verification & validation (IV&V) activities. This talk will discuss how IV&V has played a critical role in ensuring the success of spaceflight missions.

Bio:

Mr. Brett Soltz is a Senior Engineering Specialist and a member of the leadership team within the Structures Department at The Aerospace Corporation. He received a master’s degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he specialized in solid mechanics and experimental stress analysis. Mr. Soltz is currently the co-chair of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Structural Committee on Standards, a member of the Structures Technical Discipline Team (TDT) for NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), and a NAFEMs certified Professional Simulation Engineer (PSE). He provides technical expertise and guidance to programs and customers in the areas of structural mechanics, design evaluation, requirements and planning, risk identification and mitigation, anomaly resolution, additive manufacturing, finite-element modeling, and advancing the state-of-practice in structural analysis and testing. In the past 24 years at The Aerospace Corporation, Mr. Soltz has helped establish and execute IV&V processes on Space Force programs to assist more than a dozen launch vehicle programs, and more than a half-dozen spacecraft programs. Prior to joining The Aerospace Corporation, he worked at Caterpillar Inc. for three (3) years performing structural analysis and manufacturing process simulations of big yellow machines.

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