MADISON – At James Clemens High School, NASA Scholar Mishaal Ashemimry recently shared her journey that started with stargazing and led to founding the first private company with designs for moon-reaching rockets.

Global Ties Alabama hosted this Global Perspectives Institute speaker in partnership with the Middle East Institute and Global Ties U.S.

As a child, Ashemimry recalls gazing at the stars over the Unaziah Desert in Saudi Arabia. “I wanted to understand them, I needed to go into space. For me to go into space, I needed to develop the rockets that take me there,” Ashemimry said.

At age 26, she founded MISHAAL Aerospace with the mission to develop low-cost rockets to increase space access for researchers and eventually to the public.

Advances in technology are gravitating to miniaturization; however, these newer, smaller satellites have no way of accessing space. MISHAAL Aerospace caters to this market and develops ways for smaller devices to access space in a cost-effective way.

“Ashemimry has designed four rockets thus far and has completed the design simulation and integration testing of all,” Jacqui Shipe with Global Ties Alabama said.

At James Clemens, Ashemimry shared her four rocket designs, including the M-LVH. This lunar vehicle has heavy-lifting capability that can safely return samples from the moon surface to research centers. When funded, this work will make MISHAAL Aersopace the first private company to access the moon.

A Saudi-American aerospace engineer, Ashemimry was born in the United States and lived a few years in Saudi Arabia. Currently, she is a consultant.

Previously, she worked for Raytheon Missile Systems’s Aerodynamics Department and contributed to 22 different rocket programs. Her areas of expertise include aerodynamics, wind tunnel testing, vehicle design, predictive simulation, analysis and rocket stage-separation analysis and a focus on computational tool development.

At Florida Institute of Technology, Ashemimry earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering.

Global Ties Alabama promotes international relationships through citizen diplomacy and enriches Alabama’s education, commerce and global awareness. The organization’s core values are respect, friendships, collaboration, lifelong learning, multicultural diversity and globalization.

The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture is a Saudi Arabia-based institution aiming to make a positive impact on the cultural scene by focusing on building local talents in creative industries.