Hired as vice president of flightoperations in February, Kupferschmied had led a team of consultants from an Air Lufthansa subsidiary that spent three years overhauling CAL's flight safety and pilot training programs.
Following Wednesday's flight, Tony Navarra, Globalstar's president of global operations, was quick to thank the Soyuz team and Arianespace, the French company that markets commercial Soyuz launches through its Starsem subsidiary.