Valley of Depth

Engineering Mass Abundance, with Neel Kunjur (CTO of K2 Space)

7 snips
Sep 25, 2025
Guest
Neel Kunjur
Neel Kunjur, the CTO and co-founder of K2 Space, leads the charge in building mega and giga-class satellites. He explains how K2 is redefining satellite capabilities with in-house subsystems that dramatically cut costs. The conversation explores why larger, high-power satellites are critical for new mission architectures, the untapped potential of Medium Earth Orbit, and innovative designs like large reaction wheels. Neel also shares insights on their ambitious plans to scale production and tackle future space infrastructure.
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ADVICE

Vertical Integration To Cut Costs

  • Vertically integrate hard-to-source, mission-critical subsystems to control cost and speed.
  • Build subsystems in-house (reaction wheels, thrusters, power) rather than rely on slow vendor chains.
INSIGHT

Scaling Introduces New Engineering Challenges

  • Scaling component size introduces new failure modes like bearing instability and balancing challenges.
  • K2 built and flew a 100 N·m reaction wheel at dramatically lower cost than legacy vendors.
ADVICE

Build High-Power Tech From The Start

  • Design for the final high-power regime from day one instead of iterating up from low power.
  • Invest in radiation-tolerant, high-voltage systems when building >~20 kW spacecraft.
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