Pavani Peddada

Pavani Peddada serves as Lead Program Manager for the Lazuli Space Observatory, directing Program Management for Project Pearl LLC. With more than 30 years of hands-on spaceflight experience, she brings deep technical authority and proven leadership across the full lifecycle of complex space projects — from early concept through launch and on-orbit operations.

Ms. Peddada’s leadership is grounded in 30 years leading development and implementation teams on NASA’s most demanding Earth and planetary science missions — including NEO Surveyor, Europa Clipper, Sentinel-6A, SWOT, and OCO-2. Directing multi-institutional teams, managing international partnerships, and navigating the complexity of flagship-class missions at JPL prepared her to advance Project Pearl toward its scientific goals.

Her approach to program management is shaped by experience across the disciplines that make a mission succeed — payload systems, optical and detector development, and verification and validation. That breadth gives her a deep respect for the world-class experts she works alongside. She leads with the understanding that great missions are built by great teams, and her role is to create the conditions for those teams to do their best work