Full Burn ep17 : Redwire CTO on AI Autonomy, On-Orbit Maneuvering and Servicing & Golden Dome

Trevor Smith takes Full Burn to the mountain top—literally—in a Porsche 911 with Al Tadros, CTO of Redwire, for a rolling conversation through Stanford University, up into the Santa Cruz Mountains, and past some of Silicon Valley’s most iconic tech and natural landmarks.
Along the way, they dig into how Redwire is pushing the edge of AI-enabled autonomy, rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), on-orbit refueling, and the next generation of missile defense under the Golden Dome architecture.

🔹 In this episode:
• Why Redwire is sponsoring CAESAR at Stanford and how AI-enabled autonomy is changing space operations
• How machine vision can identify “blobs of pixels” in space and turn them into actionable intelligence
• The U.S. Space Force's Tetra-5 mission: demonstrating RPO, docking, and on-orbit refueling in GEO for billion-dollar spacecraft
• Why satellites are still “one-and-done” assets—and how refueling could completely change that model
• What VLEO (very low Earth orbit) and Redwire’s SabreSat platform unlock for hypersonic tracking
• How Golden Dome ties together space-based interceptors, sensing, and command-and-control
• Al’s journey: from small-town Illinois → MIT → Ford Aerospace / Maxar → building Redwire via 11 acquisitions
• Redwire’s acquisition strategy (including Edge Autonomy), and what it takes to scale in space & defense
• Going public via SPAC, ringing the bell in New York, and what’s next for Redwire

🚗 Also in this episode:
• Cruising past Hoover Tower, Sand Hill Road, and Tesla’s Global Engineering HQ
• Driving a Porsche 911 on legendary twisty roads (with a friendly reminder from a local cop)
• Rolling by the McLaren dealership and debating the ultimate “blank check” vehicle

⏱️ Episode Timestamps (approx.)
• 00:00 – Intro, Stanford Oval, and setting the scene
• 03:20 – Redwire + Stanford: CAESAR and AI-enabled autonomy in space
• 06:45 – The Tetra-5 mission: rendezvous, proximity ops, and on-orbit refueling in GEO
• 11:30 – Al’s path: Illinois → MIT → Ford Aerospace / Maxar
• 15:35 – Building Redwire: the roll-up, 11 acquisitions, and Edge Autonomy
• 18:15 – Golden Dome: defending against hypersonics from space
• 23:40 – VLEO, SabreSat, and tracking next-gen threats
• 31:30 – Why autonomy is a war-fighting discriminator
• 37:45 – Getting recruited into Redwire and going public via SPAC
• 40:10 – Tesla HQ, McLarens, and blank-check vehicles
• 43:10 – Recommended future guests & closing thoughts
👉 Subscribe to Full Burn for more on-the-move conversations with leaders across the space and defense ecosystem.