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Jason Andrews is an American serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Andrews Space in 1999 with his wife Marian Joh, founded Spaceflight Inc in 2010, BlackSky Global LLC in 2013, and integrated all three entities together in 2015 under Spaceflight Industries. From 2013 to 2018 Andrews raised over $200M in equity to fund the development and growth of the BlackSky business plan.

Andrews was born in Redwood City California in 1972 while his father finished his PhD at Stanford University. Andrews grew up in Seattle, WA and attended the University of Washington where he graduated with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. In 1995 he joined Kistler Aerospace in Kirkland WA, one of the early space startups developing a fully reusable two stage launch vehicle to serve the emerging LEO communications market. Andrews' first role was as the launch vehicle performance analyst, where he developed the "rocket back" trajectory to recover the first stage at the launch site. This trajectory was later used by SpaceX to recover the Falcon 9 first stage. Andrews then lead the Kistler propulsion system development contracts with Pratt & Whitney and Aerojet, and went on to manage the K-1 vehicle integration team located in El Segundo, CA.

Andrews left Kistler in late 1998 started Andrews Space & Technology in July 1999. The name was shortened to Andrews Space in 2001. The company's first two contracts were a NASA Phase 1 SBIR to develop the Mini-Mag Orion Propulsion System, and supporting Buzz Aldrin's company Starcraft Boosters. Over the next 15 years Andrews Space would be a leading small aerospace prime contractor with a mission to be a “catalyst in the commercialization, exploration and development of space”. The company would develop a number of innovative technologies and space transportation concepts including:


 * Mini-mag Orion
 * Alchemist Air Collection and Enrichment System
 * Gryphon fully reusable horizontal take / horizontal landing space plane
 * Peregrine small launch system
 * SHERPA space tug
 * Cubesat/Nanosat recovery system

The company worked for most branches of the US Government. Noteworthy efforts include:


 * NASA Space Launch Initiative
 * NASA Space Transportation Architecture Study
 * NASA Commercial Cargo Logistics
 * DARPA FALCON Small Launch Vehicle
 * DARPA FALCON Common Aero Vehicle
 * DARPA / USAF Reusable Booster System
 * NASA Altair Lunar Lander
 * NASA Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle
 * US Army Kestrel Eye Program

In 2007 Andrews Space diversified into space hardware and acquired Automated Controlled Environments Inc (ACEi). The company focused its development efforts on nanosat subsystems and full spacecraft as part of a major pivot into what Andrews saw as an emerging business opportunity and market segment. Andrews was one of the first people to identify and articulate the “killer app” for cubesats and nanosats: to deploy swarms of spacecraft to observe the planet in near real time; which had never been possible before. From 2008-2012 Andrews Space developed a series of cubesat and nanosat products including the CORTEX avionics suite, a lithium ion battery, solar arrays and numerous spacecraft subsystems. During this time the company had a contract with the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) to study how to “put UAVs in space”, which required deploying a constellation of nanosats to observe the planet in near real time. This effort would evolve into the Kestrel Eye 2 spacecraft development effort.

In 2010 Andrews founded Spaceflight Inc to revolutionize space transportation, and specifically small satellite launch. Spaceflight was the first “commercial spaceline” in that the company did not build or own rockets, but instead provided space transportation services via rideshare on all existing rockets. Spaceflight was part of Andrews’ push to build a “small satellite ecosystem” of companies and businesses. Spaceflight addressed the emerging need to launch cubesats and nanosats, vehicles that were too small to buy their own launch vehicles. Spaceflight was revolutionary because it established classes of launch services by volume and mass for satellites weighing up to 1,000kg, and published list pricing. This was critical for developing an economic standard for rideshare payloads, but risky for the company because it was done several years before the company’s first launches. Over the next eight years the pricing and class of service did not materially change and Spaceflight built a $75M a year business in the process.

Spaceflight signed its first customer contract in October 2011 with Cosmogia (which later changed its name to Planet Labs, and then just Planet). It conducted its first two launches in April 2013, which ironically occurred with 24 hours of each other, on a Russian Soyuz launch vehicle and on the maiden launch of the Orbital Antares launch vehicle. From 2013-2018 the company launched over 150 spacecraft for different customers.

In 2013 Andrews founded BlackSky Global LLC to build the enabling infrastructure to observe the planet in real time. Having been involved with the US Army Kestrel Eye program since 2008 and observed the early success of SkyBox and Planet, Andrews’ felt there was a commercial market opportunity to deploy a constellation of 1 meter resolution satellites to provide near real time observations (revisit rates measured in hours or minutes versus days) to complement existing high resolution spacecraft. The BlackSky constellation could be used to “tip and cue” high performing space assets to monitor conflict and critical infrastructure. For Andrews, BlackSky was the next phase of building a smallsat ecosystem of companies and would leverage the spacecraft production expertise of Andrews Space and satellite launch services of Spaceflight. On June 30th 2013 the company completed a $7.5M Series A investment to build and launch two Pathfinder demonstration spacecraft. Andrews decided to operate BlackSky in "stealth mode" for two years because he knew a very high revisit rate constellation would be very disruptive to existing high resolution operators and the military industrial complex overall. BlackSky was formally unveiled in June 2015 at the GeoInt Conference based on a Pathfinder launch later that year. In August 2015 a SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded on a Florida launch pad, significantly delaying the launch of the two Pathfinder spacecraft.

In August 2014 Andrews unveiled plans for Spaceflight Networks at the SmallSat Conference in Logan UT. The company was already planning a series of commercial ground stations to support the then unannounced BlackSky constellation. The business plan was to sell excess capacity on the BlackSky communication network and establish a set of communication standards and radios to further accelerate the growth of the satellite ecosystem. While very promising, Spaceflight Networks as a business was eventually put on hold so that available resources could be focused on operating the existing businesses and building the BlackSky constellation.

In 2015 Andrews integrated all three corporate entities under Spaceflight Industries, the parent corporate entity. Spaceflight Industries fulfilled Andrews’ vision to create a vertically integrated company that operated at all levels of the small satellite ecosystem: the company had the ability to build, launch and operate spacecraft. Andrews would lead Spaceflight Industries as its President, CEO and Chairman and oversee operations at the operating companies. Coincident with this event, Spaceflight Industries closed a $21.5M Series B investment lead by venture capital firms Vulcan and RRE.

BlackSky’s business plan centered around revolutionizing the price point, frequency and user experience of satellite based imagery. Building and launching revolutionary spacecraft provided enabling price and frequency, but Andrews knew the company had to develop a compelling user experience to achieve its commercial potential. In June 2016 Andrews lead the acquisition of OpenWhere Inc. of Herndon VA, which had a unique cloud-based geospatial intelligence platform. Coincident with this acquisition Spaceflight Industries closed a $25M Series B-1 investment lead by Mithril Capital.

In September 2016 following lengthy launch delays, BlackSky launched the Pathfinder-1 spacecraft on an Indian PSLV. Pathfinder successfully met its demonstration objectives and validated the spacecraft economics (size and price) to enable the overall BlackSky business plan. Based on this success, the company opted to not launch the second Pathfinder demonstration spacecraft and instead focus its efforts on its constellation of Global next generation commercial spacecraft.

In March 2018 Spaceflight Industries (SFI) closed a $150M Series C investment lead by Thales Alenia Space (TAS) and Mitsui to fund the construction and launch of 20 BlackSky spacecraft. Andrews and TAS CEO Jean-Loic Galle signed the agreement at the Satellite 2018 conference in Washington DC. As part of this investment, SFI and TAS created a 50/50 joint venture called LeoStella, which would produce the Global spacecraft for the BlackSky constellation based on the design developed by SFI. Further, LeoStella’s objective is to be a leading global producer of nano and micro satellites for the broader industry, taking advantage of the overall trend towards smaller spacecraft.