What We Do

John Thornton has grown Astrobotic’s business of delivering affordable space robotics technology and planetary missions by attracting technology contracts, equity investment, and payload customers. Under his leadership, the company has booked three lunar missions with its Peregrine, Griffin, and MoonRanger spacecraft. At Carnegie Mellon University, Thornton led the build of Scarab, a NASA concept rover for lunar drilling, and the first rover to carry a prototype of the NASA RESOLVE payload that will now be flying to the lunar south pole on the NASA VIPER rover aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin lander. Thornton also founded the Carnegie Mellon University Advanced Composites Lab, a research, training, design, and manufacturing program specializing in high performance, lightweight composites for robotics.

Dan Hendrickson leads Astrobotic’s business development efforts and payload sales. Prior to Astrobotic, Hendrickson served as the Director of Civil and Commercial Space Systems at the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA). During his time at AIA, Hendrickson was a consensus builder among a council of 50 U.S. space companies to provide the U.S. Government guidance on key space industry interests. Before transitioning to AIA, Hendrickson served as a civilian mission assurance engineer at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on five successful Atlas V launch campaigns.

Steve Clarke serves as the Vice President of Landers & Spacecraft at Astrobotic where he oversees the development of all lunar lander missions at the company. Clarke was previously with NASA for 23 years and held many senior leadership positions within the human spaceflight, science, and aeronautics mission directorates. He also served as a senior policy analyst at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

He has over 39 years of experience in executive leadership; systems engineering; program and project management of scientific research programs, civil, national security space, and commercial satellite, launch vehicle, aircraft, and airspace programs; international partnerships; operations; acquisition; budget development and execution; policy development and implementation.

Clarke holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering technology and a Master of Science degree in industrial engineering from the University of Central Florida.

Frank Peri serves as the Director of Engineering, Landers & Spacecraft at Astrobotic. Peri previously worked as the Director of Engineering at Science Systems and Applications, Inc and was responsible for overall engineering activities at the company.

Peri had a long history at NASA, serving as the Director for the Safety and Mission Assurance Office at NASA’s Langley Research Center, Deputy Director for the Engineering Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center, Program Manager for the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program, and Program Manager for the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) as part of the agency’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.

Peri received his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Akron.

Mike Provenzano is responsible for leading early development of all Astrobotic’s product lines, including its vertical takeoff and vertical landing technologies, lunar landers, rovers, and power infrastructure technologies. His team focuses on producing concepts and early stage engineering solutions that are then transferred to Astrobotic’s engineering organizations for execution and delivery.

Provenzano previously led a mixed team of 80+ professionals to develop the world’s first commercial lunar rovers and pioneered the mobility as a service model for lunar payloads. Provenzano’s team was also responsible for leading the development of the Moon’s first lunar power grid: LunaGrid, powered by Astrobotic’s Vertical Solar Array Towers, lunar cables, and the first space qualified wireless charging systems.

An entrepreneur at heart, Provenzano specializes in making early technologies marketable. He started Astrobotic’s former Lunar Surface Systems department and has a history managing complex space projects, including work on the Boeing Space Launch System (SLS), and leading the development of an NSF-funded I-Corps Site Team at Carnegie Mellon researching electromagnetic transportation from the lunar surface.

Leanne Dummer is head of the Operations Department, leading cross functional groups in support of our various programs and corporate initiatives. She is responsible for Procurement, Information Technology, Quality, Safety, and Facilities Management with an emphasis on driving standardized operational excellence.

Dummer’s 20+ years of experience spans across operational leadership roles in manufacturing, quality, materials, supply chain, systems/process integration, and facility management in the electronics manufacturing industry. She started her career working for TUV Management Service, an EU regulatory agency, where she spent time testing electronic products to immunity and emission standards, and performing safety compliance, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 audits.

From there, she was recruited by Picosecond Pulse Labs, now Tektronix, as the Director of Quality where she successfully developed and implemented a quality management system from the ground up. After that she served in manufacturing and quality leadership roles for Spectra Logic Corporation where she was responsible for the assembly, integration, test and the quality of robotic data archival systems while leading continuous improvement efforts and several new system integrations. Most recently, she was the Group Operations Manager for Progeny Systems LLC (a DOD contractor and subsidiary of General Dynamics Mission Systems) with oversight of all Pennsylvania manufacturing operations and facilities.

She recently led efforts to integrate production and security required infrastructure in a new facility supporting increased manufacturing volume and the required DCSA open area storage approval.

Dummer has a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado and a holds a DOD secret level security clearance.

Tamir Klaff is the Director of Robotics & Surface Systems (RSS) at Astrobotic, leading a multidisciplinary team of engineers in the development of space robotics and lunar surface systems technologies. Klaff is an organizational leader with over 30 years of experience working in technical program management, project management, business development, and technical consulting.

Klaff has extensive experience in supporting U.S. Department of Defense and other government programs in multiple domains and, since 2017, he has worked exclusively as a director supporting the growth of robotics, aerospace & defense, and unmanned systems startups.