Sagi Kfir, Esq.

Sagi Kfir is an attorney practicing in the commercial aerospace industry for over 20 years. Sagi is an acknowledged leader in the commercial space industry specializing in corporate matters, transactions, regulatory, export control, risk management, litigation, and intellectual property.

His broad legal and aerospace industry experience spans private, commercial, and government clients on matters pertaining to traditional and non-traditional space activities.

Prior to his current solo practice, Sagi served as Senior Managing Counsel and lead regulatory and compliance attorney at Blue Origin. During his time at Blue Origin, Sagi worked directly with Congress, the National Space Council, the Federal Aviation Administration and other federal agencies on pressing regulatory and policy matters impacting the commercial spaceflight industry. This included finding practical solutions to the evolving regulatory challenges and structures for space operations, and the prospects for space travel for ordinary citizens within the next 5 to 10 years and beyond.

Previously, Sagi was General Counsel, VP Regulatory, and Cofounder at Deep Space Industries. Focusing on his legal practice in the commercial space sector, Sagi facilitated the corporate establishment of Deep Space Industries, founded in 2012. He was responsible for all legal, corporate, and regulatory matters. Deep Space Industries was a company building spacecraft technology for private missions in deep space. They focused on the production of small satellites and produced the Comet propulsion system, which uses water as a propellant. On December 3, 2018, SpaceX Falcon 9 launched using thrusters from DSI carrying four of its satellites.

Watch Deep Space Industries’ mission.

The company looks to develop and build spacecraft technology that can allow private companies and government agencies to traverse through the solar system. Deep Space Industries, however, was acquired by Bradford Space in 2019 but did so while claiming to maintain the goal of eventually extracting resources from asteroids in space by using smaller spacecraft.

Read Deep Space Industries Acquired by Bradford Space.

In 2012, Sagi joined The EarthLight Foundation, also known as New Worlds Institute, where he was General Counsel.

Between 2002 and 2012, Sagi was Senior Corporate Counsel at Critical Air Medicine, where he was responsible for all legal matters for the national aviation medical transport company. They are a charter air ambulance service operating from San Diego, California.

Sagi earned his J.D. in Law in 1999 from the University of Miami. He earned his Bachelor‘s Degree of Art in International Relations in 1994 from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in political economies of Germany and Middle-East, and Germany/Middle-East relations. He also earned a Minor in Ancient Law with focused coursework in Near East law, history, and economics.

Starting his legal career in Florida representing Fortune 500 aviation companies in product liability and insurance defense, Sagi moved on to serve as general counsel of an aviation company in California for eleven years.

In 1992, Sagi was a Congressional Intern at the U.S. House of Representatives where he performed research and analysis for the House Foreign Affairs Committee under Congressman Lawrence Smith. He also conducted extensive research on regulatory framework and policy for the export of dual-use space and aeronautical technologies and examined U.S. foreign aid and military assistance to Iraq.

In 1997, he became Law Clerk at Leesfield, Leighton, Rubio & Mahfood and in 1998 for the U.S. Department of Justice, Aviation & Maritime Litigation Section.

Sagi continued as Associate Attorney in 1999 at Anania, Bandklayder, Blackwell & Baumgarten where he independently handled court appearances on behalf of Fortune 500 companies in a broad range of litigation matters, including aviation accidents and aviation commercial disputes among others.

Sagi’s accomplishments include the passage of commerce-enabling federal space legislation, particularly the passage of Title IV of the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 which was the first law enabling commercial space resource utilization. Sagi also served as Chair of the Space Law Committee of the American Bar Association, and actively participated in domestic and international space law and policy organizations. His goal is to enable the exploration of deep space.

Sagi is also a member of the NASA Advisory Council in the Regulatory and Policy Committee, The Florida Bar, the California Bar, and is also involved with nonprofit space organizations such as the Earthlight Institute and the National Space Society and is a member of the International Institute of Space Law.

Sagi was also featured in the documentary Xploration Outer Space.

Visit his LinkedIn profile.