Bernhard Bals — Consulting for Space Companies

Pragmatic. Standards-aware.
Grounded in Real Space Practice.

With growth, new customers and increasing requirements, many space companies face the same questions:

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How do we deliver Product Assurance under ECSS or Prime requirements

… without building unnecessary bureaucracy?

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How do we integrate ISO 9001, EN 9100 and ECSS into structures

… without slowing down day-to-day project work?

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How do we build organisations that can grow

… without losing effectiveness?

I support space scale-ups, SMEs and space-adjacent technology companies in addressing exactly these challenges — with experience from real New Space and ESA missions and a structural view of the interfaces between Engineering, Product Assurance, Project Management and Quality Management.

Schedule a check-in meeting

1:1 meeting (approx. 30 minutes, online) – free of charge and without obligation.

Bernhard Bals is part of:

Complex Challenges in the Space Industry

These Three Challenges
Usually Appear Together

Start Bernhard Aerospace Consultant

Today, space companies operate in an environment shaped by high technical complexity, increasing regulatory requirements and growing organisational pressure.

  • New customers bring new compliance and evidence requirements.
  • Space projects introduce ECSS obligations.
  • Growing teams increase the effort required for coordination and decision-making.

These challenges rarely occur in isolation. They reinforce one another.

That is why it is often not enough to look at the technical perspective, the compliance perspective or the organisational perspective in isolation.

Effective solutions emerge where Engineering, Product Assurance, Quality Management and Project Management come together.

With more than 20 years of aerospace experience across Engineering, Product Assurance, Project Management and Quality Management, I help space companies create exactly this connection.

Start Bernhard Aerospace Consultant

My Areas of Expertise

Three Ways to Make Complexity Manageable

Space companies rarely face just one challenge. Product Assurance, Compliance and Organisational Development are closely interconnected.

Depending on the situation, however, the collaboration usually starts at different points.

Start Bernhard Aerospace Consultant

New-Space Product Assurance

Standards-aware without unnecessary bureaucracy.

The right level of assurance. No more. No less.

For space companies that need to deliver Product Assurance under ECSS or Prime requirements — without sacrificing speed, clarity or execution capability.

From Product Assurance Plans and Milestone Reviews to ongoing Product Assurance support.

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Tailored Standard Compliance

Standards that work in practice.

Integrating standards instead of creating parallel worlds.

For space companies that need to integrate ISO 9001, EN 9100 and ECSS into their organisation — without creating unnecessary complexity, duplicate structures or additional documentation overhead.

From Compliance Assessments and Audit Readiness to long-term Compliance support.

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Quality Management Consulting & System Development Consulting – Bernhard Bals

Scalable Engineering Organisations

Growth that remains effective.

Carry more complexity. Without losing control.

For space companies that are growing, taking on new projects or facing increasing complexity — without losing speed, clarity and decision-making capability.

Working on the structures that support growth, collaboration and organisational effectiveness.

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That is how you benefit

Your Structural Advantage

Manageable complexity

Technical, regulatory and organisational requirements become transparent and manageable — enabling informed decisions and reliable project execution.

Clarity and Effectiveness

Roles, evidence requirements and processes are refined where they create value. This reduces coordination effort and increases organisational effectiveness.

Trust with Customers and Partners

Your organisation demonstrates the professionalism, traceability and engineering credibility that institutional customers and partners expect.

Bernhard Bals, Consultant for Space Companies — EQMC Consulting

About EQMC Consulting

Hello, I am Bernhard Bals.

Comprehensively solution-oriented. Trust-building. Responsible effective.

As an aerospace engineer with more than 20 years of experience in Engineering, Product Assurance, Project Management and Quality Management, I support space companies at the intersection of technology, compliance and organisation.

Over the years, I have worked with development projects, Product Assurance mandates, quality management systems and organisational change initiatives in demanding aerospace environments. One observation has consistently proven true:

Technical challenges can usually be solved. The real difficulty arises where technical, regulatory and organisational requirements come together.

That is where EQMC comes in.

EQMC stands for Engineering, Quality, Management and Culture. Four perspectives that cannot exist in isolation within successful space projects — they must work together.

Engineering provides technical substance. Quality creates traceability and trust. Management provides direction and enables decisions. Culture makes collaboration sustainable.

My goal is to connect these four dimensions in a way that enables space companies to grow, deliver and meet regulatory requirements — without creating unnecessary complexity.

If you would like to explore what the next meaningful step for your organisation could be, I would be pleased to speak with you.

Schedule a check-in meeting
More about me

Selected customer projects

Gain an insight into my previous projects.

Click on the respective button to find out more about previous customer projects.

Turning process and supplier audits into findings organisations can actually act upon

Across multiple engagements, the same pattern emerged: internal process audits against ISO 9001 or EN 9100, alongside supplier audits in aerospace and space projects.

The challenge rarely lies in the audit methodology itself. The real challenge is producing findings that responsible stakeholders can act upon — and establishing corrective actions that will withstand the next certification or customer audit.

At the end of each audits I handed over findings written in a form that enables action, and a reporting structure that supports effective action planning and prepares the organisation for future certification and customer audits.

About the project

Developing solid Product Assurance Plans for bids and project start-ups — when the team has weeks, not months

Across many space companies, the same pattern appears repeatedly: a bid is being prepared or a new project is about to start, and the Product Assurance Plan must withstand scrutiny from ESA, a prime contractor or an end customer — within a very limited timeframe.

Generic templates rarely survive detailed review. Full ECSS implementation is often disproportionate at this stage. What is needed is a tailored Product Assurance Plan with genuine tailoring depth — delivered within weeks, not months.

The engagement concluded with a structured hand-over, enabling the customer’s team to take ownership of the plan from day one rather than depending on the consultant who created it.

About the project

Introducing Model-Based Systems Engineering into a cabin-pressure systems development organisation — without disrupting ongoing operations.

A manufacturer of cabin-pressure management systems for commercial aircraft wanted to introduce MBSE into a development organisation built around traditional document-driven systems engineering.

The structural risk was clear: a methodological change that appears to be an engineering decision, but ultimately succeeds or fails at the interface between the new MBSE world and the existing process landscape.

The result was not MBSE according to a textbook standard, but an MBSE approach tailored to the organisation’s specific context.

About the project

Carrying a New Space infrared payload for wildfire detection from SRR to PDR — under Canadian Space Agency expectations

A New Space engineering team was developing an infrared payload for a satellite mission dedicated to wildfire detection, with the Canadian Space Agency as the end customer.

The challenge was to establish a Product Assurance Plan aligned with ECSS-Q-ST-10C, but tailored to the pace and realities of a New Space programme — robust enough to support both SRR and PDR without slowing down engineering progress.

The resulting structure successfully supported both the SRR and the preparation for the payload’s PDR.

About the project

Carrying preliminary design through ECSS Product Assurance — for an ESA Earth observation mission

My customer was developing the deployable antenna system (LDRS) for ESA’s CIMR mission.

To support the Preliminary Design Review, the project needed timely and solid evidence for Safety Analysis, Cleanliness and Contamination Control, Fracture Control and Critical Items Control — all in parallel and aligned with the project schedule.

The result was a Product Assurance package that enabled the customer to enter the PDR with confidence.

About the project

From a blank whiteboard to an ECSS-ready Product Assurance organisation — for an ESA Earth observation mission

A space company in the Munich area had won the contract for the deployable reflector assembly (DRA) of ESA’s CIMR mission.

The project carried full ECSS Product Assurance obligations, but no Product Assurance organisation, no tailored PA Plan and no supporting evidence structure were yet in place. All three had to be established before the next review cycle began.

Together, we created the three foundations the project required: a Product Assurance Plan tailored against ECSS-Q-ST-10C and defensible in discussions with ESA; an evidence and tooling structure capable of surviving future personnel changes; a Product Assurance team able to operate the system independently, including the interfaces to Engineering, Project Management and the prime contractor.

About the project

Aligning EU, US and Kazakh stakeholders on a space test-facility installation — without losing schedule control at the interfaces

A Kazakh space company was establishing the SBIK satellite integration and test centre in Astana. Service providers from Europe and the United States were responsible for installing, commissioning and verifying the test facilities.

The main project risk was not technical capability, but the interfaces between the parties: different languages, contractual frameworks and engineering cultures had to be aligned before implementation could begin.

At the end of our collaboration, my customer had a structured and validated test and installation concept that was coordinated with the service providers. This enabled them to commission the service providers with the assurance that the risk of delays due to misunderstandings and ambiguities was minimized.

About the project

Let’s find out whatyour organisationneeds next

Schedule your free check-in meeting.

In a check-in conversation, we will look at your current situation, the challenges your organisation is facing and the possible next steps.

If none of the available time slots work for you, feel free to contact me by email: bals@eqmc-consulting.de