CANDACE JOHNSON is
showing me a photo
taken in Kourou, French
Guiana, on Dec. 12, 1988.
It’s a grainy, black-and-white picture.
But her recollection of that day is
crystal clear: The photo was taken on
the eve of the launch of the first Astra
satellite, made by European aero-
space company SES, which Johnson
cofounded. (Another visionary entre-
preneur, Rupert Murdoch, was her
very first customer, and he used that
inaugural satellite to launch his Sky
Television Network.)
The image, uploaded to John-
son’s computer and shared with
me over Zoom, depicts two rows of
people, the team behind the Astra-
1A launch. Some are standing and
some are crouching. Most of them
are wearing white button-down
shirts, khakis, and rectangular name
badges. But Johnson is easy to spot.
Out of the group of nearly 30, she’s
the only one in culottes—and the
only woman on the team.
“Had I not been there, none of
those men would have been there,”
says the entrepreneur, who pushed
and fundraised for years in order to
pull off the ambitious launch. “So it
didn’t really occur to me that I was
the only woman.”
Since that day in Kourou, Johnson
has helped put many more satel-
lites into orbit. (It’s earned her the
nickname “Satellady.”) She has also
found herself the only woman in
the picture—and the C-suite, and
the boardroom—countless more
times. Eventually that feeling started
to wear on her, and she decided
to do something about it: For the
past three decades, she has devoted
herself not only to innovating and
investing in space-based technologies
but also to connecting with and ex-
panding the constellation of women
who work in the field. “We’re always
helping each other,” says Johnson.
The fact that women like Johnsonhave had to resort to setting up their
own networks in a field traditionally
dominated by men is not new. Since
the days of Sputnik and Explorer 1,
women in the space industry have
largely toiled away in the shadows
of men. (And women of color? Even
more so—just watch Hidden Figures,
the film that chronicles the careers of
three Black, female mathematicians
who worked at NASA during the
Space Race days.) But here’s a new
wrinkle: Back when Johnson was
getting started, the commercial space
sector was tiny. She was a rarity not
just because she was a woman but
also because she was an entrepre-
neur. Until the turn of the century,
nearly every project that aimed
beyond the Earth’s atmosphere was
the domain of government-run space
agencies, not commercial companies.
No longer. Today, private money is
flowing into a range of space-based
innovations at light speed. According
to BryceTech, a research firm thatASTRA WEEKS: Johnson, third from right in the front row, with her Astra-1A team in 1988. She says she didn’t think much of the group’s
gender split at the time, but she has since turned her attention to meeting, connecting, and promoting the growing ranks of women
working in the private space industry.
OPENING SPREAD: COURTESY OF THALES ALENIA SPACE; THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF MARCEL TOCKERT/PHOTOTHÈQUE DE LA VILLE DE LUXEMBOURG