Matt is an experienced engineering leader with over a decade of leading high-performing engineering teams. At Virgin Orbit, he was responsible for building and hiring all aspects of Avionics and led the flight software and GNC teams during his tenure. After Virgin, he joined Bird scooters as their Director of Vehicle Software and led that team through the development of the Bird 2 and 3 vehicles.

Jose has over 8 years of aerospace experience working on numerous missions from initial design to on-orbit operations. At SpaceX, he was the deputy Chief Engineer on the first Falcon 9 vehicle and lead Avionics Integration Engineer and Mission Operator on the first 4 Dragon Spacecraft vehicles to fly in space. At NASA he designed, integrated, tested, and operated micro-lab satellites, participated in initial mechanical design trades for TESS and landing control for future lunar lander missions.

Michael has over four years of experience designing and deploying full stack web applications in both the commercial and research space. At Ex Scientia, Michael led the software and machine learning teams to engineer an underwater, autonomous vehicle capable of waypoint navigation, station keeping, and boat identification. As an aerospace engineer, he drives processes of design, development, test & integration, and deployment for AstroForge’s Mission-1 payload.

Lindsey is the operations specialist at AstroForge. She has a Master’s degree in psychology and spent many years serving students and administrators in educational settings. From an early age she was fascinated by space and hoped to one day be involved in some way. When the opportunity to transition into aerospace presented itself, the choice was easy. She feels very honored to be a part of the early team at AstroForge and is excited to see their vision become a reality.

Colin is an experienced Systems Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the Satellite and Launch industry. He is a strong engineering professional who is skilled with Launch Vehicles, Satellites, Propulsion, Space Missions, Operations, Program Management, Software Development, Communications Systems, and Ground Systems. He earned his B.S in Physics in 1977 at the Fla. Inst. of Technology. He serves as Technical Committee chairman in AIAA Region VI Orange County Section.

Roshan is a GNC Engineer at AstroForge. He has a Masters degree in robotics engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked across the robotics autonomy stack, covering UAV and autonomous vehicle controls, perception, planning, and localization. At school, Roshan led an SAE aircraft design team and served as a GNC engineer for the NASA L’Space mission design student program. Prior to joining AstroForge, Roshan worked as a management consultant for Bain & Company, where his work included a 6 month project consulting for a large aerospace and defense company.

Long is Principal Hardware Engineer at AstroForge. He has more than 20 years of experience as an accomplished hardware engineer in designing complex and high speed PCB designs. Most recently he held the position of Principal Avionic Hardware engineer at Relativity Space. There he was responsible for the Terran-1 One Controller hardware and the architecture of the Terran-R Autonomous Flight Termination Unit hardware design. Prior to this he spent 16 years at Broadcom Corporation designing complex and high speed digital products. He also held hardware engineer positions at Newbridge Networks, Cisco Systems, and Calix Networks. Long holds a US patent for “Method and System for Supplying Power to Multiple Voltage Islands Using a Single Supply Source (SSS)"

Dr. Won Suk You is the Senior Mechanical Engineer at AstroForge Inc. and leads the development of material handling and manipulation techniques.

Won Suk earned his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Sungkyunkwan University in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) focusing on developing a kinematic design optimization process for anthropomorphic robot hands using a novel performance index published by himself and genetic algorithm. After designing and fabricating the SKKU hand V with this optimization process, the robustness and grasp capability of the hand was validated through a hammering impact test and grasping experiments on various objects.

Previously, he worked at Oregon State University as a Post-Doc. There he leveraged robotics technology to advance quality of life, while simultaneously leveraging bio-inspiration to advance robotics, as well as private companies focused on robotic application to health care and food automation industry including robotic hand, gripper, torso structure with FEA analysis, high-payload lifting mechanism, and so-on. As a graduate student researcher, he contributed to the design and development of various novel robotic laboratory automation systems. He developed a localization algorithm using magnetic landmarks for an autonomous mobile robot, work scheduler algorithm, and low-level controller for this application. In this process, Won Suk publicated 10 international journal and 12 conference papers, as well as 2 US and 6 Korean patent applications.

Nha is an experienced operations leader specializing in building strategies for scaling supply chains from the ground up. She has more than 8 years of experience with a focus on supply chain strategies, process development, building strategic partnerships, and solving complex ops problems.

Sascha is a Flight Software Engineer at AstroForge. He has worked across a wide variety of software projects, ranging from a real-time operating system to customs databases. In addition to being a Rust zealot, Sascha is passionate about building reliable software systems and strong teams. Before joining AstroForge, he was one of the first engineers at M10 Network, where he worked on distributed systems and offline payments. In his free-time Sascha is an avid climber and outdoorsman.

Mohammad is a Physicist at AstroForge. He obtained his doctoral degree in 2013 from the University of Missouri, Columbia in Theoretical and Computational Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. He has over a decade of combined doctoral and post-doctoral research experience in materials physics and machine-learning-assisted medical imaging. In particular, his doctoral thesis research unraveled the mystery of the pressure-induced insulator-metal transition in lanthanum manganites as he demonstrated the transition to be percolative. He has also authored several highly-cited publications on how carbon vacancy or magnetic impurities such as iron can induce magnetism in otherwise nonmagnetic graphene, a single layer of graphite, and the first two-dimensional material. As a Research Scientist at the Department of Radiology of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Mohammad authored three publications in machine learning and deep learning-based quantitative magnetic resonance imaging. He also served as a Physics Faculty at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri between 2017-2019 and a Physics Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison between 2021-2022. 

Prior to AstroForge, Joanie worked for Boeing Aerospace Company for 34 years as an Administrator. During that time she supported management in many diverse programs such as Delta, Supplier Management, Procurement, Employee Recognition, IT, and Sea Launch. Joanie was also an active recruit in the Employee Community Fund, which allowed her to work with and make donations to organizations such as Make a Wish Foundation and Seal Beach Animal Care Center. In her spare time, she enjoys raising a horse and cattle dog and volunteering at the SBACC.

Kim is our principal technician here at AstroForge. Before starting here she was a technician at Spinlaunch building small sats, payloads and harnesses. She has many years of experience in manufacturing but now has found her way into the space startup sector and what endless possibilities are out there that are waiting to be explored. In her spare time she spends with her boys watching them play sports and extracurricular activities and is also a sneaker connoisseur.

Lindsay is an Electrical Engineer at AstroForge. She has over 7 years of experience developing electrical hardware and firmware across multiple industries including semiconductors, aerospace, and robotics. In her spare time she enjoys playing the saxophone in local community bands.

Ashton is the Head of Integration at AstroForge. He has a decade of experience in small satellite design, manufacturing, assembly, and testing across multiple satellite systems and payloads at Pumpkin Space Systems and Space Micro. Ashton excels at leading small agile teams tackling difficult projects. The audacious ambition of asteroid mining is what kicked off Ashton’s passion for space as a career over a decade ago. Outside of work, Ashton enjoys attending music festivals and is a fire performer.