K2 Space Corporation

A lot of people associate space with their childhood - at K2 Space Corporation we hope to help make those childhood dreams a reality. We're excited to introduce the next member of our team, Daniel S., our Satellite Manufacturing Engineer, who comes to us from SpaceX. Tell us about yourself Danny After college I started my own drone company, then quickly found myself at SpaceX out of sheer enthusiasm and excitement. I never would have thought that chasing my dreams would land me in the space industry. At SpaceX I had the opportunity to support design and manufacturing for Falcon and Dragon, which helped surge our rate across vehicles and exposed me to the exciting challenges with building next-gen flight hardware. This opportunity led me to K2, where we are spooling up an early program and building out the next generation of satellites. What was your first memory of space? My earliest memories of space come from my uncle, who spent many years supporting space programs at Northrop Grumman before his retirement. My own introduction to engineering came through NASA Shuttle Lego sets and the various science projects he would bring me to work on, which helped grow both my skills and my passion for engineering and space. What space application are you most excited for moving forward? I am excited about the technologies in this industry that we haven't even heard about yet. SpaceX has done an amazing job reducing launch costs, and other companies will gradually follow suit. This will foster a new generation of space companies, like K2, that will change the world as we know it. From moon bases to mega-scale satellites, our expansion into the universe is going to be fascinating!

Today’s successful catch of the Superheavy booster represents an important step towards full reusability. Congrats to the team at SpaceX on the monumental achievement.

A lot of people associate space with their childhood - at K2 Space Corporation we hope to help make those childhood dreams a reality. We're excited to introduce the next member of our team, Adrian Aguilar, our Environmental Test Technician, who comes to us from SpaceX and Millennium Space Systems, A Boeing Company. Tell us about yourself Adrian I'm originally from North San Diego County and went to college in Orange County where I met my wife. We're the proud parents of our 2 year old son. In college I studied music, but still found myself fascinated by all things space. SpaceX gave me a shot as an apprentice in composites lamination. After BFR (RIP) was redesigned to use stainless steel (now Starship), I found a new home in avionics. Between SpaceX and Millennium Space Systems, I've learned a great deal about avionics test, manufacturing, and inspection and have had the honor of working with so many talented people. What was your first memory of space? When I was 6 years old, my parents took me to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. I remember enjoying astronaut ice cream and being in awe of all the amazing things we saw, including the longhorns on the tram ride, walking along a catwalk and watching a space shuttle test out its Canadarm. What space application are you most excited for moving forward? I’m most excited about affordable commercial and human spaceflight. I love the idea of human spaceflight being as common and safe as air travel is now. Just imagine a world where someone might casually say, "Oh me? I just got back from a week at the new lunar resort. Breathtaking Earth rises."

What if your next internship gave you the opportunity to build hardware powering massive 20kW, 1 ton+ spacecraft— spacecraft that could one day help explore every moon and planet in our solar system? At K2 Space that could be a reality. Summer 2025 intern applications are now open for our Mechanical, Electrical, Software, and GNC teams. K2 Space is a highly collaborative environment and our interns will work with mentors and other team members to execute complex projects while maintaining a significant level of ownership and autonomy. Check out our careers page to apply!

A lot of people associate space with their childhood - at K2 Space Corporation we hope to help make those childhood dreams a reality. We're excited to introduce the next member of our team, Holger Kibur, our Software Engineer, who comes to us from UC Irvine. Tell us about yourself Holger I was born in Tallinn, Estonia, and lived there for six years before immigrating to the San Francisco Bay Area with my mother. My interest in computers was sparked early on when I was given a laptop that was always broken. To keep using it, I had to keep fixing it, which ultimately inspired me to learn more about computers and software engineering. That fickle computer propelled me toward earning a degree in computer engineering from UC Irvine. Outside of work, I love to write and perform music. During college, I was a drummer and bassist in a funk band, and I’m excited to continue that hobby. I aspire to one day write and release an album as a solo act or as part of a band. What was your first memory of space? In high school, I co-founded a rocketry club. We quickly learned that rocketry is very difficult, and although it wasn’t very successful, we managed to fill a few tubes with KNDS and set them off. This exposure to the complexity of space launch pushed me down an engineering rabbit hole, where I taught myself CFD in order to figure out which combination of hardware store pipe fittings would yield the most efficient nozzle. Through efforts like this, I came to the conclusion that sending things to space is the pinnacle of engineering challenges and would provide me with the ultimate opportunity to solve hard problems. What space application are you most excited for moving forward? I’m really excited about the exploration of Jupiter’s moons, specifically Europa and Titan. These places are so unlike anything else humans have ever encountered that we are bound to discover something remarkable. Missions like these require significant advancements in space technology, both in scale and complexity. I hope that my efforts here at K2 can eventually help enable the sending of exploration vehicles deep into the outer solar system.

A lot of people associate space with their childhood - at K2 Space Corporation we hope to help make those childhood dreams a reality. We're excited to introduce the next member of our team, Amir Bigdeli, our Senior Electrical Engineer, who comes to us from Tesla and Amazon Project Kuiper. Tell us about yourself Amir I was born in Iran and moved to the U.S for school in my teens. I grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, before moving to the west coast. I began my engineering studies at a community college before transferring to Virginia Tech, where I earned a bachelor’s in electronics and a master’s in power electronics. I landed internships at VPT Power, GE Aviation and SpaceX, which allowed me to live in new parts of the U.S., which was both eye-opening and refreshing. After graduating, I worked on Cybertruck electronics at Tesla and later focused on phased array antennas and high-speed RF designs at Amazon Kuiper. What was your first memory of space? I visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in DC when I first moved to Virginia - it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Walking through centuries of technological progress and the history of human spaceflight was unmatched. On top of that, I took an astronomy class in college that really opened my eyes to the vastness of the universe and how much exploration lies ahead of us. What space application are you most excited for moving forward? I’m fascinated by the possibility of shifting satellites between orbits with ease. I believe unlocking this capability will open so many doors for future exploration!

Our Head of Software, Michael S., had the chance to share the K2 mission with those at RustConf in Montreal last week. Our software team loved spending the week meeting so many fellow Rustaceans! The software team at K2 is building our stack primarily in Rust due to its reliability and ecosystem of passionate users that continue to make the language better. We see Rust as a key enabling technology that allows our team to be more effective across the entire software stack - from embedded software on microcontrollers to GNC algorithms. If you're a Rust developer (or C++ developer willing to learn Rust) who wants to take Rust to new heights, we are hiring! Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gM8n-Jqy

Last weekend, we had the pleasure of hosting a tour of our HQ as part of the Brooke Owens Fellowship Alumni Summit. Along with the tour, the Brookies engaged in a thoughtful Q&A with Neel Kunjur – our co-founder and CTO. We’re excited to continue supporting Brookies, and to see how this impressive group contributes to our industry through their thriving careers.

A lot of people associate space with their childhood - at K2 Space Corporation we hope to help make those childhood dreams a reality. We're excited to introduce the next member of our team, Jesse Klekamp, our Head of Talent, who comes to us from SpaceX. Tell us about yourself Jesse I grew up in Colorado but have called Southern California home since attending Scripps College. I studied International Relations, specifically African Politics, but made the transition into the space industry when I joined SpaceX in 2014. I love gardening, checking out new trails with my dog, hosting dinner parties, and chipping away at one of my bucket list goals of publishing a cookbook. What was your first memory of space? The only piece of jewelry my dad ever wore was a navy watch with a pearlescent face that showed the moon phases. I loved looking at it and matching it to the moon outside, always amazed that something so vast and seemingly magic could be so well understood to be reflected by a watch.? What space application are you most excited for moving forward? I joined SpaceX when rocket reusability was still an outlandish idea rather than a regular occurrence. I’m most excited to see other seemingly impossible moonshots - both literal and figurative - that we haven’t dreamed up yet.

A lot of people associate space with their childhood - at K2 Space Corporation we hope to help make those childhood dreams a reality. We're excited to introduce the next member of our team, Paul DeTrempe, our Senior GNC Engineer, who comes to us from Draper and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Tell us about yourself Paul I grew up in the Bay Area and moved to LA after grad school. I’ve lived in the LA area for the past 4 years and enjoy taking advantage of all of the outdoor activities SoCal has to offer. Outside of work you can find me rock climbing, running, hiking, and surfing! What was your first memory of space? One of my first memories of space was staying up late in high school to watch the Mars Curiosity rover landing. I loved the excitement of the “Seven Minutes of Terror” while the NASA live stream showed people in mission control waiting with bated breath to see whether or not their years of effort would pay off. I started playing Kerbal Space Program that week and decided I wanted to work on spacecraft pretty soon after that. What space application are you most excited for moving forward? I’m excited for lower launch and satellite costs to enable more scientific missions to the outer solar system. The moons of the gas giants are incredibly geologically interesting. I’m excited for missions to Jupiter and Saturn to reveal more about the origins of the solar system and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.