Christian Lindener, formerly responsible for Innovation and Company Building at Airbus, has left the company to become an entrepreneur and bring satellites to market in record time with Reflex Space.
Christian joined Reflex Aerospace as co-founder at the start of April. Reflex Aerospace is a Berlin and Munich-based, new space start-up that aims to transform the market with high-performance satellites tailored to individual requirements. Through software-based operations and service-oriented offers, the company meets the needs of its customers at a significantly lower cost and more flexibly than established manufacturers today. New methods, such as 3D printing, shorten the production time of satellites to less than a year.
At Reflex Aerospace, Lindener joins highly experienced fellow campaigners from the space industry. Co-founder and CEO, Walter Ballheimer, had previously founded German Orbital Systems and was CTO at Exolaunch. Further high-profile additions from the aerospace and defence industry will be announced in the coming weeks.
Together with partner companies Mynaric and Isar Aerospace, Reflex Aerospace also leads the UN:IO consortium, which is currently assessing the establishment of a constellation of 400 satellites for broadband internet on behalf of the European Commission.
“Whether communication, navigation or climate observation: space technologies shape our lives on Earth,” said Christian Lindener. “The potential of the global space market will triple to over one trillion dollars per year by 2040. If you want to be part of this, you need one thing above all: speed, speed, speed. By joining the Reflex Aerospace team, I’m at the very first address.”
CEO Walter Ballheimer said, “The classic space industry is centralized, national and bureaucratic. Next Space, on the other hand, is open, global and entrepreneurial. This is exactly where we build on Chris’ strengths: He is already a legend in the international start-up world. At Reflex Aerospace, he will expand our partner network and drive strategy and upcoming funding rounds.”
Christian Lindener is one of Europe’s most distinguished experts in growing innovative tech start-ups with private venture capital. Born in Brazil, he grew up in Mexico and studied in the US, Spain and Austria. He successfully established funding programs and brought to market more than 50 tech startups from Switzerland, Austria and Germany. As CEO of the venture capital firm Wayra Germany, he also prepared young tech companies for integration into Telefonica‘s corporate portfolio. He joined Airbus in 2019 and most recently led the internal Innovation Management and external Company Building of all Group Divisions as Head of Airbus Scale.