Leon Alkalai is a retired Technical Fellow of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology where he spent 32 years after getting his PhD at UCLA in 1989. During his career at JPL, Dr. Alkalai held numerous leadership positions and was responsible for the capture leadership of both the GRAIL mission to the Moon (2007) and the INSIGHT lander on Mars (2012). For both efforts, Dr. Leon Alkalai received Distinguished Individual Achievement medals from NASA in 2011 and 2019 respectively. Dr. Alkalai was also heading up JPL strategic partnerships and strategic planning for the Laboratory. In early 2021, Dr. Alkalai retired from JPL and created Mandala Space Ventures, a space-focused, Pasadena-based incubator for new start-ups in the emerging space economy. Leon is also the General Partner at the Explorer-1 Venture Fund which is also affiliated with the Mandala space incubator. Mandala launched its first new venture called Continuum Space Systems, a Software as a Service (SaaS) company for the emerging digital space economy. Mandala has two other portfolio companies in the studio; Viridian Space Corporation and Specter Aerospace. Mandala has also recently launched Sophia Space Inc., which is developing data centers in space.
Jekan Thanga has a background in aerospace engineering from the University of Toronto. He worked on Canadarm, Canadarm 2, and the DARPA Orbital Express missions at MDA Space Missions. Jekan obtained his Ph.D. in space robotics at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and did his postdoctoral training at MIT's Field and Space Robotics Laboratory (FSRL). Jekan Thanga is an Associate Professor and heads the Space and Terrestrial Robotic Exploration (SpaceTREx) Laboratory and the NASA-funded ASTEROID (Asteroid Science, Technology and Exploration Research Organized by Inclusive eDucation) Center in Formation at the University of Arizona. He has through NASA and university supported STEM education programs mentored nearly 300 graduate and undergraduate students. Jekan and his team of students have co-authored nearly 250 technical publications. He is the Engineering Principal Investigator on the AOSAT I CubeSat Centrifuge mission. He and his team of students were winners of the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award in 2016 for proposing the SunCube FemtoSat and won a Best Paper Presentation Award at AMOS 2019 for the Early Warning Constellation to Detect Incoming Meteor Threats. Jekan and his team of students were finalists for the NASA 2020 BIG Competition and winners of the 2021 NASA RASCAL Competition.
Michael Saing is a Systems Engineer in the Project Systems Engineering and Formulation Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He is part of the systems engineering teams for several missions, including MoonShine—a cislunar mission—Caltech’s Mission to Apophis, and Europa Clipper. In addition to his systems engineering work, Michael is a subject matter expert in cost engineering, specializing in technical design evaluation, cost estimation, and analysis. He also serves as a subsystem engineer chair for JPL’s concurrent engineering design teams—Team X, Team Xc, and A-Team—under the Foundry initiative. On behalf of NASA Headquarters, Michael contributes as a proposal reviewer and supports efforts in small satellite and CubeSat data collection and model development. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from California State University, Long Beach, and has spent over a decade working at NASA and JPL. Outside of work, Michael is an amateur backyard astronomer who enjoys sharing his passion of stargazing, planetary observation, and astrophotography with his family and friends.
Craig L. Moll has 30 years of experience in the space industry and knows the international space market from a wide variety of perspectives, including as a regulator, satellite operator, consultant, and satellite manufacturer.
Craig is the Director of International Development at Intuitive Machines where he leads commercial engagement with international space agencies, commercial companies, and strategic partnerships.
Mr. Moll was a founder of SpaceLink Corporation, a space-based data relay play securing its key early-stage agreement to put an optical terminal on the International Space Station as well as developing the pricing model, sales operations, and value propositions for the company.
He was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Space Systems Loral (now Maxar Technologies). There he led sales and marketing in the Middle East region where he opened and ran the regional office in Dubai, UAE. He was tapped to lead SSL’s sales and marketing efforts in the SmallSat industry.
Mr. Moll began his career as a regulator for the U.S. Government and was telecom policy specialist handling the satellite portfolio at the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) over the course of two presidential administrations. He moved from that role to become Managing Director of PanAmSat Europe Ltd. based in London, England, where he led the company’s European expansion.
He worked at several companies where he focused on building satellite-based networks for television broadcasters and other industries and then founded Sequitur Group Inc. where he rebranded and repositioned Arabsat as a commercial operator, while based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Craig lives in the Los Angeles area.
