Name: Seattle Space Week - Don’t Launch Blind: What Space Founders Overlook Until It’s Too Late
Start: 2025-10-07T23:00:00Z
End: 2025-10-08T01:30:00Z

Seattle Space Week - Don’t Launch Blind: What Space Founders Overlook Until It’s Too Late

Speaking Engagements

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

4:00 - 6:30 PM PT

Pioneer Building
Seattle, WA

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Launching a space start-up requires deep expertise in so many disciplines that it’s all too easy to miss something important. In this panel, we’ll explore the most devastating and common mistakes that new founders make when they make their own way in the space industry.

Join us for two discussions of key topics:

Legal, Accounting, Marketing, Insurance, and Regulatory Compliance
Testing, Manufacturing, and Launchability

Our expert panelists will share their hard-won lessons from founding their own businesses plus decades working in the space industry.

Seating is limited. Save your spot today!

Event Schedule

4:00-4:15 p.m. Check-in and registration
4:15-5:00 p.m. Legal, Accounting, and Insurance panel
5:00-5:30 p.m. Break and networking
5:30-6:30 p.m. Testing, Manufacturing, and Launchability panel

Moderators

Brendan Wales, Founding Partner, FUSE VC
Dradin Kreft, Sr. Director of Government Capture, Pacific Northwest Defense Coalition

Panelists

Curt Blake, Attorney, Wilson Sonsini
Melissa Heldreth, Senior Advisor—Commercial Risk, The Baldwin Group
Jodi Sorenson, Co-founder, Little Candle Marketing
Kristina Hloptsidis, President & Founder, MVRK Advisors
Nikki Malcom, CEO & Executive Director, PNAA
Marcy Mabry, CEO, SpaceLaunch
Travis Moore, President, Jemco

Contacts

Rebecca Poizner

rpoizner@wsgr.com

Presenters

Curt Blake

Senior Of Counsel

Seattle

Curt Blake is Senior Of Counsel in the Seattle office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he is a member of the corporate practice. Curt is an attorney and senior executive with more than 25 years of experience leading organizations in high-growth industries—and over 10 years as CEO of Spaceflight, Inc.—at the forefront of the NewSpace revolution. He has extensive expertise in strategic planning, financial analysis, legal strategy, M&A, and space commercialization, with deep knowledge about the unique challenges of NewSpace growth and the roadmap to success in the that ecosystem. He has forged relationships with key commercial, civilian, and defense-related customers. Milestones include opening the Indian PSLV to U.S. commercial customers, the first dedicated rideshare Falcon 9 launch vehicle mission deploying a then-record 64 satellites, and launching the first non-governmental mission to the moon (SpaceIL), as well as developing, launching, and orbiting several flavors of Sherpa, the Spaceflight OTV.