Castelion

Test cadence at our Midland, TX, motor site continues to increase. Hardware-rich development forces our assumptions, modeling, and design choices to be maximally grounded in reality to achieve the best possible system design

Castelion is growing fast with exceptional talent from across the industry. 8 new team members have joined us in the past few weeks.   Pictured here (left to right) are:   Austin Kainoa Lee - Manufacturing Engineer I. Kainoa is a new Mechanical Engineering grad who led his Baja SAE Team at school.   Kristoffer Edlund - Sr. Manufacturing Engineer. Kristoffer most recently spent 7 years in SpaceX as a Senior Manufacturing and Structures Engineer where he supported manufacturing of the Crew Dragon and Starlink spacecraft.    Tegan Counts - Head of Radar Seeker Development. Tegan has 20 years of radar experience at Raytheon and L-3 Mustang where he directly contributed to the the development of seekers for SM-6, AMRAAM, Standard Attack Weapon and Small Diameter Bomb.   Dr. Charles Hansen - Principal Radar Engineer. Charlie previously spent 21 years at Raytheon, where he played a key role in the development of high resolution radars for air-to-air weapons and aircraft, and served as the principal investigator for DARPA programs related to electronic warfare.   Steven Laolagi - Mechanical Technician. Steve spent the past 9.5 years at SpaceX as a Senior Structures Technician and spent the previous 7 years at Robinson Helicopter.   

Castelion's first intern Jack Gangi is wrapping up his summer with the company and heading back the University of Michigan to continue his degree in Engineering Physics. Jack had this to say about his summer with us: "My experience interning at Castelion has been one of a kind. I was able to take projects from early design phases to reality as a responsible engineer - designing two recovery prototype designs that resulted in a cheaper and more effective recovery system. I also assisted in the design of the nose cone and avionics assemblies by making prototype models, conducting fit checks, routing harnessing, and supporting thermal and vibe testing. Truthfully, I don't think I could've asked for a better internship experience."

Castelion team continuing to drive rapid hardware development ahead of upcoming flight tests of our new hypersonic platform. Check out some of the new hardware.

"𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞" - Paul Perry on what Responsible Engineering means at Castelion during a recent all hands. Our team believes in: • 𝐈𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞, 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐢𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 • 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 • 𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 We're hiring across the company - check out our open recs or reach out to [email protected] if this approach resonates with you

We’re excited to welcome our three newest teammates at Castelion - Zachary Taylor, Nandini Mukherjee and George Skeris. All three of them have immediately contributed to delivering for our customers and we’re proud of what they’ve already been able to accomplish.   Zach joins Castelion as our Principal Dynamics Engineer. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alabama, and is currently pursuing his PhD there as well. He most recently led Dynamics at ABL and comes with experience from Raytheon Missile Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Millennium Space. Zach’s deep skillset in advanced engineering analysis has helped to drive system architecture from his first day at Castelion.   Nandini holds a MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Caltech. She brings with her extensive expertise in robotics and advanced mechatronics engineering – skills that she’s leveraging to design Castelion’s vehicle control mechanisms.   George holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UF. George spent more than 5 years at SpaceX designing high performance test equipment for Crew Dragon, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy qualification and acceptance testing. George is now leading development on Castelion’s launcher system.   Welcome to Castelion! 

Successful static fire of new Castelion 7" diameter motor complete this weekend - our first in Texas!   The team shipped factory equipment from CA to TX, set up two new production and test facilities, cast and fired a new motor design in less than a month. 

Castelion is proud to be featured as a leading Emerging Innovator in Hypersonics in Booz Allen Hamilton's new report "Top 10 Emerging technologies for the DoD and National Security" https://lnkd.in/euNqu-Gv

Castelion convoy rolling out to West Texas for the next iteration of our solid rocket motor factory - pace of learning and improvement matters for production just as it does for design.

Welcoming our new LSVR MKR18 to El Segundo this week. We’ll be making upgrades to convert this vehicle into a launcher system for our upcoming flight tests - and it’s a fun ride.