Scout Space promotes legal chief to CEO

Scout Space, a five-year-old startup that concentrates on observation data and vision solutions, has promoted its now-former general counsel and defense industry veteran Philip Hover-Smoot to chief executive.

Smoot's promotion took effect on Jan. 12 and he succeeds Eric Ingram, one of Scout Space's co-founders. Ingram will now move into the roles of chairman of the board of directors and chief strategy officer, Scout Space said Thursday.

Reston, Virginia-headquartered Scout Space describes its strategy as one of providing plug-and-play vision products to enhance space systems including satellites. The goal is to further improve overall space domain awareness and help spacecraft better understand their surroundings.

Back in the summer, the corporate venture arm of nonprofit science firm Noblis invested in Scout Space to support the further development of vision solutions that aid in data collection and missions that involve proximity operations.

Venture capital firm Decisive Point also took part on that seed funding round, after which Scout Space acquired fellow software startup Free Space to add more domain and security awareness offerings.

Hover-Smoot joined Scout Space in August as general counsel and before that worked in senior legal roles at companies such as Spaceflight Inc., Momentus and RTX.