Originally founded by students at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, STARS now holds an interdisciplinary focus aimed at helping students in business, engineering, robotics, computer science, and other fields to find opportunities and cultivate relationships in the growing commercial space industry. 

We believe the industry will see rapid expansion in the years to come. While the commercial space industry is primarily comprised of a vast array of satellite technologies that have transformed modern life, from GPS and telecommunications to weather prediction and surveillance, the next phase of the space economy has already begun.  This era will be brightly marked by commercial successes in launch,  low-earth orbit, private landings on the lunar surface, and manned missions to the international space station and beyond.

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The age of the nation-state monopoly on human spaceflight is quickly coming to a close. The growth of the space economy will not be achieved by governments alone, but through public-private partnerships that provide enhanced service to state and commercial customers.  Our future in space requires a new generation of innovative business and technical leaders with the skills to make space operations more profitable, more effective, and more accessible, all while maintaining the utmost standards of safety. STARS exists to find those leaders and connect them with companies and resources that will help them excel.