SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell received the award for Satellite Executive of the Year 2020 from Via Satellite Tuesday at the Satellite Awards Ceremony in DC (via Michael Sheetz).
This marks the second time Shotwell has won this award with SpaceX, which is actively launching its Starlink low-Earth orbit internet satellites, expected to cover the whole Earth by the end of 2022.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, in recorded remarks to the virtual @SATELLITEDC ceremony, says she's accepting the award "not for myself, but for the extraordinary people at SpaceX that did such extraordinary things in such a weirdo year." https://t.co/3hPlmhdOGf
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) April 5, 2021
Shotwell said she’s accepting the award “not for myself, but for the extraordinary people at SpaceX that did such extraordinary things in such a weirdo year.” Shotwell continued, praising Iridium CEO Matt Desch for also winning the award a second time, saying, “[Desch] also won this award twice, and so I feel doubly blessed and honored, as he’s one of my favorite people in this industry.”
Shotwell, who also won the award in 2017, was nominated in 2020 alongside five other satellite company executives, including Astroscale Founder Nobu Okada, Yahsat CEO Masood M. Sharif Mahmood, AXESS Networks CEO Mauricio Segovia, Northrop Grumman President Blake Larson, and NanoAvionics CEO Vytenias Buzas.
SpaceX head and Tesla CEO Elon Musk may be planning to construct a new SpaceX facility at its Austin, Texas Gigafactory, though the car assembly facility is still under construction, and is expected to be completed later this year.
