Four Founders, No Throne

Space hardware does not reward hero culture.

The systems are too complex, the margins are too thin, and the consequences of weak decisions are too real. Engines, vehicles, avionics, structures, test infrastructure, suppliers, procedures, financing, and mission architecture all have to move together.

That is why Stellar Alpina was not built around a single throne.

It was founded by four co-founders with shared roots, complementary strengths, and one operating belief: the company must be accountable as a system.

Shared DNA

The founders of Stellar Alpina all grew out of the same ecosystem: ARIS, the Academic Spaceflight Initiative Switzerland.

ARIS was where student rocketry became serious engineering. It was where ambitious ideas met real constraints: cold test sites, long nights, uncertain budgets, pressure before ignition, and the hard discipline of making hardware work outside the comfort of theory.

That experience shaped the company’s DNA.

Stellar Alpina is the continuation of that culture: student pioneers becoming moonshot engineers, carrying the same build-test-learn mindset into commercial space hardware.

Simi Wespi: propulsion obsession

Simi Wespi’s path has been defined by rocket propulsion.

At ARIS, he led Project Perseus, where a small team built and fired a rotating detonation rocket engine in under six months. The project made Switzerland the seventh nation ever to hotfire such an engine and showed what focused young engineers could achieve with limited resources and high conviction.

At Stellar Alpina, Simi carries that propulsion vision forward: turning RDREs from experimental demonstrations into practical engines for satellites, transfer vehicles, and future lunar infrastructure.

Rick Röthlisberger: systems under pressure

Rick Röthlisberger brings the systems perspective.

Before Stellar Alpina, he worked at Rocket Factory Augsburg as Main System Architecture Responsible and Deputy Head of Systems Engineering. He contributed to failure investigation, system architecture, and launcher development in an environment where decisions had direct hardware consequences.

At ARIS, he was already deep in competition rocketry and systems engineering. That background gives him a holistic view of how vehicle, propulsion, avionics, ground systems, operations, and architecture need to fit together.

At Stellar Alpina, Rick helps make sure the company does not only build impressive components, but coherent systems.

Patrick Egli: from CAD model to ignition

Patrick Egli is the bridge between design and test.

During his time with Project Hephaestus at ARIS, his work spanned the development cycle from detailed engine components to hot-fire operations on the test stand. That experience matters because hardware is never only about design intent. It is about whether the part can be manufactured, assembled, checked, connected, fired, and trusted.

At Stellar Alpina, Patrick helps turn engineering ambition into hardware that is ready for test. Engines may get the spotlight, but reliable ignition depends on the procedures, infrastructure, and discipline around them.

Victor Elliesen: ecosystem, direction, and execution

Victor Elliesen’s route into space was not the classical aerospace path.

He began with a commercial apprenticeship in Obwalden before finding his direction through ARIS and the engineering-facing work around ambitious space projects. That path shaped a founder who understands both the technical culture and the ecosystem required to make deep-tech companies real.

At Stellar Alpina, Victor helps connect ambition, business execution, partnerships, and the belief that Zurich can become a hub for world-class space hardware.

No throne

The shared leadership model is not a branding gesture. It is a practical decision.

Space hardware requires disagreement without ego, speed without recklessness, and accountability without theatre. It requires founders who can stress-test ideas, discard them, rebuild them, and still move in the same direction.

That is the meaning of “Four Founders, No Throne.”

No single hero. No founder mythology. No dependency on one voice.

Instead: four founders, shared responsibility, and one trajectory.

From test stand to the Moon

Stellar Alpina is building high-performance propulsion, modular in-space vehicles, and lunar delivery systems from Switzerland.

That mission will require capital, industrial partners, test infrastructure, talent, and time. But it also requires the right founding culture: one that can handle pressure, make decisions, and keep building when the work becomes difficult.

The company began with four founders who had already learned that lesson in the field, on test stands, in failure reviews, and through years of student rocketry.

Now the same DNA is being applied to a larger ambition.

From ARIS to Zurich.

From student pioneers to commercial space hardware.

From test stand to the Moon.