COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A satellite that will be launched into space this fall will include an invention created in Cobb County.
Trevor Smith says his father urged him to pursue a career in real estate.
“I was supposed to be a biochem major. My dad said, ‘I don’t think you have the personality to be in a lab,’” he said.
Smith built a lab, a space lab, and space is dangerous.
“The projectile you see coming from the left is moving around Mach-21, 17,000 mph. It’s essentially a BB,” Trevor said while showing Channel 2’s Berndt Petersen a video depicting the damage space particles can do to a satellite.
In 2024, WSB Chief Meteorologist Emeritus Glenn Burns put together a special report on how destructive space junk can be.
“So why do you and I care what’s floating around in space?” Glenn asked.
Smith says he cares.
“Speck of paint, a speck of paint going through the wrong system can take an entire satellite down,” he said.
That is, unless the craft is outfitted with Space Armor created by Smith’s Atomic-6 aerospace company in Marietta.
“We’re essentially stopping ‘bullets’ in space — moving really, really fast — with these shields,” Smith said.
A satellite sporting Space Armor will hitch a ride aboard one of Elon Musk’s Starships this fall. Smith believes this will show the world — perhaps even the galaxy — that the tiles pioneered by his Cobb County team are the stuff of “Star Trek.” Not bad for a former realtor.
“Ironically, my middle brother was the one who got the aerospace engineering degree and worked at NASA,” Smith exclaimed.
The launch is scheduled for October at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
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