{"id":"5ac4a5db-b3ee-4a6a-bed8-d0eeae431e83","slug":"leon-alkalai","name":"Dr. Leon Alkalai","bioBrief":"Dr. Leon Alkalai is a 32-year veteran of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he served as capture lead for the GRAIL lunar mission and received the NASA Distinguished Individual Achievement Medal in 2011 and 2019. Following his JPL tenure, he founded Mandala Space Ventures, a deep-tech incubator and venture fund backing aerospace companies including Anduril, Stoke Space, and Varda. In 2023 he founded Sophia Space, an orbital edge computing company developing modular, solar-powered, passively cooled space-based data centers, which closed a $10M seed round and was awarded a patent with Caltech for space-based data center architecture in July 2026.","priorExits":null,"nationality":"American","verificationPosture":"verified","aliases":[],"sources":[{"url":"https://sophia.space/news/sophia-space-closes-10m-seed-round-to-accelerate-orbital-edge-computing","title":"Sophia Space Closes $10M Seed Round","sourceName":"Sophia Space"},{"url":"https://www.latimes.com/b2b/business-visionaries/aerospace-defense/leon-alkalai","label":"Los Angeles Times","title":"Leon Alkalai - Aerospace & Defense Visionary"},{"url":"https://mandalaspaceventures.com/news/sophia-space-caltech-patent-space-based-data-centers","label":"Mandala Space Ventures","title":"Sophia Space and Caltech Awarded Patent for Space-Based Data Centers"},{"url":"https://www.hlc.com/en/news/hogan-lovells-advises-sophia-space-as-it-closes","label":"Hogan Lovells","title":"Hogan Lovells advises Sophia Space as it closes US$10 million seed round"}],"reviewStatus":"reviewed","createdAt":"2026-08-08T20:17:26.501Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-12T11:55:24.054Z","educations":[],"companyRoles":[{"id":"71903b64-3782-4f49-b347-21f7f7212b95","personId":"5ac4a5db-b3ee-4a6a-bed8-d0eeae431e83","companyId":"43e71017-148d-4b65-9512-e6f04b3dd32c","role":"cto","roleTitle":"CTO & Founder","startDate":null,"endDate":null,"currentRole":true,"roleBasis":"verified_secondary","displayOrder":null,"createdAt":"2026-08-08T20:17:27.277Z","company":{"slug":"sophia-space","name":"Sophia Space"}}],"boardRoles":[],"investorRoles":[],"foundings":[{"id":"b49c5c41-fc4f-4163-892f-f9a0231620e9","personId":"5ac4a5db-b3ee-4a6a-bed8-d0eeae431e83","companyId":"43e71017-148d-4b65-9512-e6f04b3dd32c","foundingDate":"2023-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","cofounderStatus":"sole","stillAtCompany":true,"createdAt":"2026-08-12T11:55:25.202Z","company":{"slug":"sophia-space","name":"Sophia Space"}}]}