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Mike Smayda

CEO and Founder of Fortastra, a Los Angeles-based space defense startup building autonomous escort satellites to defend critical orbital assets. He earned his PhD (2012) and BS (2008) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia. He spent five years as a senior aerodynamics engineer at SpaceX before co-founding Hermeus, a hypersonic aircraft company, where he served as Chief Product Officer. He founded Fortastra in 2025, closing an USD 8M seed round to develop autonomous orbital defense satellites.

American · 1 current role · 1 founding

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  • Fortastraverified→
    Founder

    Los Angeles-based space defense startup building autonomous escort satellites to defend critical orbital assets.

    $8M raised1 model

Current roles (1)

Foundings (1)

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Sources (4)

  1. https://payloadspace.com/fortastra-lands-8m-seed-to-develop-orbital-defense-sats/
  2. https://www.latimes.com/b2b/business-visionaries/aerospace-defense/michael-smayda
  3. https://engineering.virginia.edu/news-events/news/alumni-taking-flight
  4. https://www.fortastra.com/fortastra-updates/fortastra-news-release

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