Dr Edward Lu

LeoLabs

Biography

Dr. Edward Lu is the Founder & Chief Technology Officer of LeoLabs. As a physicist, engineer, pilot, former NASA astronaut, educator, and serial co-founder, Dr. Edward Lu helps protect satellites from hitting debris and asteroids from hitting Earth.

His NASA career spanned 12 years, including flights aboard the Space Shuttle (STS-84 and STS-106), Soyuz TMA-2, and the International Space Station (ISS - Expedition 7). In addition to LeoLabs, he also co-founded the planetary defense and science non-profit B612 Foundation in 2002. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Asteroid Institute, which is a program of B612 Foundation.

Ed flew aboard the Space Shuttle twice and on the Russian Soyuz to the ISS, where he did a six-month tour. He has logged over 206 days in space and an EVA (spacewalk) totaling six hours and 14 minutes. In 2003, in the weeks following the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, Ed was called upon by NASA to launch to the ISS to maintain operations on orbit with a two-person skeleton crew. He completed the Russian Soyuz training in just nine weeks and became the first American to launch as the Flight Engineer aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Ed and Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko then spent six months aboard the ISS, demonstrating that the station could be maintained while carrying on productive scientific research with only two people.

Recognitions in Ed’s NASA career include administration’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, as well as the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, Russian Medal of Merit for Spaceflight, Gagarin Medal, Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Komorov Medal, Beregovoy Medal, and three NASA Spaceflight medals. In 2024, Ed was inducted into the International Astronautical Federation’s Hall of Fame.

Ed has published peer-reviewed papers on astrodynamics, planetary science, high energy astrophysics, plasma physics, solar physics, cosmology, and statistical physics. He has also published technical policy related editorials in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Scientific American. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a Doctorate in applied physics from Stanford University.