Ben Kellie Email & Phone Number

After over a decade in aerospace, culminating in the sale and exit of The Launch Company, I am now on sabbatical to create room to explore new horizons. I am interested in improving the way hard tech is developed and understanding the “why” that drives us to take on massive challenges. I still do work with select teams through my design firm Laylu to help develop their hard tech offering or turn around a struggling design. I am also volunteering in the community and exploring inner space, rather than outer space, for a bit.At The Launch Company, our mission was to revolutionize access to space by developing standardized launch sites with automated operations. We did complex ground support equipment design for every major New Space firm, and also bootstrapped hardware to space with our ground and in-orbit fueling fittings. I sold the company to Voyager Space in 2021 and left in spring of 2023. Previously I led the field development of the first SpaceX landing barges “Just Read the Instructions” and “Of Course I Still Love You” through first builds and multiple missions at sea. I also served as 'Deck Boss' on mission and led the refitting and repair post-mission in port.My first role after graduate school was as a Responsible Engineer for SpaceX at Vanderburg SLC-4E. I joined during the early days of building that site and owned the design, build, and test of multiple ground fluids systems before being named Lead Engineer for the inaugural flight from the site, Flight 6 of Falcon 9. This put me in charge of procedure development for ground system launch readiness, and also had me running field operations with two teams across a day and night shift.

Listed skills include Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Matlab, Solidworks, and 21 others.