John Gedmark

John Gedmark is the co-founder and CEO of Astranis. Astranis builds and operates small, low-cost telecommunications satellites with the mission to bring the world online. The company has raised over $350 million to date, and has a team of over 175 based out of their San Francisco headquarters. Astanis  is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Venrock and Y Combinator.

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Gedmark co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, the industry association for commercial space companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. As Executive Director, Gedmark reported to a CEO-level board of directors and led the commercial space industry’s efforts to privatize flights of NASA’s astronauts to low Earth orbit. In February 2010 President Obama announced the historic decision to use commercial space transportation, a landmark change worth more than $10 billion to the commercial space industry.

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Prior to that, Gedmark served as the Director of Rocket Flight Operations for the X Prize Foundation, responsible for operations of rocket launches in front of a crowd of 20,000 people, including the first-ever public flight of a Vertical Take-off Vertical Landing (VTVL) rocket. Gedmark holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University and a Master of Science degree from Stanford University, both in Aerospace Engineering, with a focus on rocket propulsion.

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