xOrbita CEO Becomes EWOR’s Youngest Fellow

xOrbita Inc co-founder and CEO Minh Nguyen has joined EWOR as the youngest founder admitted to its fellowship. The 17-year-old leads the Dallas aerospace company alongside co-founder John Avera. xOrbita is building ARBITER, a platform intended to let satellites make approved collision-avoidance decisions on board in seconds. The company is targeting its first on-orbit demonstration for July 2027.

A Satellite Decision System

xOrbita’s ARBITER platform is designed for conjunction alerts, when two objects in orbit are on course to pass dangerously close. The company says operators can receive such warnings almost daily, while assessing the risk, planning and approving a maneuver, and sending a command can take hours.

Before launch, an operator sets the rules for ARBITER, including acceptable collision risk, maneuvers a satellite may perform independently, and cases requiring human consultation. ARBITER is intended to act only within those limits, return decisions to the ground when it reaches them, and log every action for audit.

“Space doesn't have a data problem. It has an authority problem. Everyone can see the conjunction coming. The question is who is allowed to act on it, and how fast. We build the layer that lets operators delegate that decision to the spacecraft without giving up control.”

EWOR Fellowship Recognition

EWOR accepts one in 1,000 applicants each year, according to the release. It reports that founders who join raise $10 million on average, while 25% of fellows admitted in the previous six months have raised at nine-figure valuations.

Minh Nguyen the 17 year old co founder and CEO.

Nguyen co-founded xOrbita with John Avera, an IBM alum and Colonel in the U.S. Army National Guard who previously served as Chief Architect of Air Combat Command’s Federal Laboratory. The pair connected after Avera came across a paper Nguyen wrote on orbital debris and reached out.

Next Step Toward Orbit

For satellite operators, xOrbita’s focus is setting operating limits before launch while keeping every automated action auditable. The company is targeting its first on-orbit demonstration for July 2027 as it develops autonomous decision intelligence for space operations.