Apple vet Benjamin Lyon depart to join Astra as chief engineer

The start-up company Astra has announced that Apple veteran Benjamin Lyon will join Astra as chief engineer. 

Lyon has led the development of core technologies for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. He was also one of the original, core members of “Project Titan,” Apple’s secretive division that’s supposed working on an Apple Car.

“Astra presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to apply my experience designing and manufacturing beautiful products to ignite a new wave of innovation in the space industry,” says Lyon. “Astra is incredibly well-positioned to enable a new generation of space services, and the possibilities for humanity are endless.”

Astra recently announced plans to go public on Nasdaq and raise over US$500M through a business combination with Holicity, in order to productize and mass-produce spaceports, rockets, and satellites and build a space services platform.

“We are thrilled to have Benjamin join us as we enter a new phase of growth at Astra,” says Chris Kemp, founder, chairman and CEO of Astra. “Benjamin’s unique experience helping to design and manufacture products at scale will accelerate our mission of improving life on Earth from space.”

After becoming the fastest privately-funded company in history to demonstrate orbital launch capability in December, Astra is preparing to deliver commercial payloads this summer and start monthly launches by the end of this year, scaling up to daily launches by 2025.