Jesse Klekamp

At K2 Space, we're Building Bigger to deploy the largest satellites ever on orbit. Jason Willoughby, our Head of Vehicle Operations, leads the effort to take the spacecraft from integration and test through launch and into mission operations. With Gravitas, a key focus for the K2 team has been defining how we operate the vehicle on orbit. Drawing from experience across a wide range of mission types, the team has worked to make operations more streamlined, more flexible, and less dependent on constant human intervention. The goal is a system that can be monitored and managed with far less overhead, while pushing more capability directly onto the vehicle itself.

I'm excited to announce we have achieved our Tier 1 mission success criteria and have begun gathering a tremendous amount of data on how this brand new spacecraft performs. On March 30th, 13:17:08Z, the Gravitas spacecraft separated from the SpaceX Transporter-16 stack to begin its mission as one of the highest power free-flying satellites ever launched. Immediately after separation, the spacecraft autonomously: - Executed detumbling maneuvers - Established two-way communications with the ground (on our very first ground station pass) - Deployed its 20kW solar arrays - Slewed to a safe and stable attitude to await further ground commands These actions alone are a testament to the incredible work of our in-house engineering, software, and GNC teams to build a robust spacecraft. Since then, our operations team completed all initial system activations and checkouts, confirming the vehicle is in a power positive and thermally stable state with no major anomalies observed at this time. We completed this phase of the mission ahead of schedule. Next up we will be powering up and downlinking data for all payloads aboard the Gravitas spacecraft in support of our customers and partners while continuing to put the spacecraft through its paces. As we noted ahead of launch: The goal of this mission is to experiment and push our systems to the limit to inform future missions. I look forward to sharing more on our successes and challenges as the mission proceeds. Video of our satellite below; link to full T-16 webcast: x.com/SpaceX/status/…

We have shipped our 20kW satellite - Gravitas - to the launch site. Given the supply chain to operate at this power regime doesn’t exist, we had to build 85% of the satellite in-house. This includes building our own large solar arrays, high power propulsion system, large batteries, large reaction wheels and much more. This launch will represent the first time all of these systems are test on orbit together. Internally at @K2SpaceCo, we’ve thought about a few levels of success for this mission - we expect mission success to fall somewhere along this spectrum: - Tier 1 (Baseline mission success): Deploy solar arrays, establish comms, operate the satellite —> we’ve now got an operational 20kW satellite on orbit - Tier 2: Power on the payloads, activate the 20kW propulsion system —> we’re completing payload missions and have fired the highest power hall thruster ever flown on orbit - Tier 3: Orbit raise the satellite, test performance in high radiation environments (like 2,000km) —> we’ve collected massive amounts of data on the performance of the platform in very very difficult environments More than anything, Gravitas represents the start of an iterative journey, where we will take the data we receive from this first satellite and incorporate it into the next wave of satellites launching next year. We’re excited to start this journey, we’ll report back as we get more data. Thanks to Tim for covering our story on TechCrunch techcrunch.com/2026/03/19/k2-…

At K2 Space, we're Building Bigger to deploy the largest satellites ever on orbit. Our Head of Software, Michael Saqr, leads the team responsible for the systems that allow our spacecraft to operate autonomously in space. In the earliest phase of a mission, the vehicle must stabilize itself and execute critical operations without commands, and even data, from the ground. That first period of flight is critical to bringing the spacecraft into a safe, stable state and setting the foundation for the rest of the mission.

At K2 Space, we're Building Bigger to deploy the largest satellites ever on orbit. Our Head of Structures and Mechanisms, Drew Miller, leads everything mechanical on the spacecraft, from the primary structure to the large deployable systems that generate the power behind the 20 kW spacecraft. Each satellite carries two very large solar arrays designed in-house here at K2, "they are huge", generating roughly 10 kW each. Seeing them go from a stowed launch configuration to their full deployed span on orbit will be one of the most exciting moments of the mission.

Polaris Dawn astronaut Sarah Gillis performed the first known violin solo in space, playing "Rey's Theme," from the "Star Wars" series. The violinist shares how she prepared for the out-of-this-world moment to inspire the world.

Congrats @SpaceX team on 300 rocket landings!

Get in losers, we're going launching 💅

Starlink is self-orienting and connects in minutes as long as it has a clear view of the sky 🛰️🌎

.@Delta flight attendant Kelsey on flight 1312 from SEA to LAX tonight is the best flight attendant I’ve had, hands down. Clone her, celebrate her, and please assign her to all my flights from here on out. ❤️

@JuiceboxCA You can generally tell a lot about the HR department based on reporting structure. VP of HR report into CFO? They view humans as resources. VP report to CEO? More likely your get resources for your humans out of your HR team…

Wait til you realize HR is more for the company than for you.

@JuiceboxCA Define success at every level and with every partner. If you’re not actively defining it, your success is still being measured, you just don’t know how. From an individual meeting to your annual review, learn how to break success down into actionable bites.

What’s an underrated career hack more young employees should pursue?

After 167 days in space, the longest duration mission for a U.S. spacecraft since the final Skylab mission in 1974, Dragon and the Crew-1 astronauts, @Astro_illini, @AstroVicGlover, Shannon Walker and @Astro_Soichi, returned to Earth this morning!

@TrungTPhan @De_Ihlenfeldt thought you would enjoy this map collection!

Found an insane collection of maps from Reddit. The best ones 🧵 1/ Each section of this map contains 10% of the world's population.

We still have so far to go in realizing equality for women.

Lets go!

Starship takes flight

Boy you’d think a country that can equip every cop like a soldier could equip every doctor like a doctor

How come every cop is outfitted like an Avenger but health care professionals are out there fighting COVID wearing barrels on suspenders

Super exciting day coming up!