Hans Koenigsmann is one of SpaceX's earliest, longest-tenured, and most-revered employees.
When Elon Musk started the company in 2002, he was joined by two other "founding" employees, Tom Mueller in propulsion and Chris Thompson in structures. Koenigsmann was the next hire, brought on to develop avionics for the Falcon 1 rocket.
Koenigsmann remained at the company for two decades before leaving SpaceX in late 2021. During that time, he transitioned from avionics to lead mission assurance and safety while also spearheading every major failure investigation of the Falcon 9 rocket. He was a beloved leader and mentor for his employees within the company's demanding culture.
Because of this experience and his prominence during SpaceX's first crewed flights, Koenigsmann has become one of the most well-known German rocket scientists active today. And now he has announced he is going to space on a future New Shepard suborbital flight alongside his friend Michaela "Michi" Benthaus as early as next month. She's notable in her own right—a mountain biking accident in 2018 left her with a spinal cord injury, but she did not let this derail her from her dream. She will become the first wheelchair user to fly in space.
In the following conversation, Ars speaks with Koenigsmann about how this mission came together and what it's like for a long-time SpaceXer to work with a former competitor, Blue Origin. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Ars: How did this come about?
Hans Koenigsmann: A few years ago, Michi asked me for some help in finding donations for a parabolic flight. I basically just pointed her at OHB, and they gave her a little donation for the travel costs she had, and it was good. Then I met her again at a drone competition in Munich, where I was invited to be a juror. I was told I could invite friends and family. She and somebody else were the only people who I knew in Munich. So I just invited them, and she came there. And because the drones were kind of lame, we started talking about other things.