Christian Maender

Christian Maender serves as Executive Vice President for Space Commercialization at Axiom Space, a privately funded space infrastructure developer. In this role, he brings his expertise to Axiom’s leadership team to leverage microgravity as a next-generation platform for innovation and discovery. He spearheads market and business development efforts while guiding the company’s development of its product and service offerings.

Prior to joining Axiom, Maender had a 17-year career at NASA involved in all things related to conducting research and technology demonstrations on the International Space Station (ISS). This included roles designing and managing science experiments for research customers and managing whole science missions on the ISS for NASA and its international partners. Ultimately responsible for all the strategic research planning for the ISS, he helped lead transition of the ISS Program from construction phase to full operations for science, research and technology demonstrations. He has extensive history working with a variety of customers implementing diverse strategies to expand the commercialization of low Earth orbit and delivering in-space services and solutions to a variety of commercial, government and academic customers.

Maender is the recipient of numerous awards, including the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, and has co-authored numerous publications derived from ISS research in which he participated. He holds both a BS and MS in biomechanical engineering from Tulane University