Roxanna Pakkar grew up in space hardware’s backyard—on the west side of LA, where her high school robotics team sought mentorship from engineers at nearby Boeing, Raytheon, and SpaceX facilities.

When Rouzaud went to turn his lifelong interest in space and experience as a software developer into a career, he quickly discovered that the act of finding a job in the industry was no simple task. So he founded Space Crew, an aggregator of space industry jobs.  

Nederlander is building a software tool that will allow systems engineers to evaluate the holistic radiation risks of their spacecraft. 

“I turned to the partners at Riot and said, ‘We should invest in this’…but I also turned to the partners and said, ‘Hey, I want to go and join them.’” That’s how Rosner wound up the second hire and head of product at True Anomaly

Space is hard. Rachel O’Connor is trying to make it easier.

The AZ-based startup uses a blend of SAR, robotic systems, and proprietary software to hunt for resources beneath the surface of both Earth and other bodies in space, such as asteroids.

As a regulatory affairs officer at Charter, the 25-year-old is working to demystify space law to help the firm’s clients understand the regulations that apply to them. 

“You can have the satellites, but if you can’t talk to them, it doesn’t really help at all,” Shaurya Luthra, cofounder and head of software at Northwood Space, told Payload. “We believe the ground industry of today is not ready for that boom.”

Hamdan is the co-founder, CTO, and CEO of Aphelia Space, a Malaysian startup that is trying to use microwave technology to beam power over long distances—potentially powering up sats in orbit or hardware on the Moon.

The 27-year-old tried her hand in fields from forestry to medical devices before she found her calling in the space sector.

While he’s helping the government figure out how to keep the current generation of astronauts safe and sound, Benjamin Kron is also drumming up excitement among the next generation of space fans. 

As the driving force behind much of Turion Space’s technology stack, Sadaat is enabling systems to better track non-Earth objects in space.