Ethan Sinclair is a spacecraft mechanical engineer at Turion Space, leading propulsion system structure development for the company’s Droid.alpha satellites under a STRATFI contract with the Space Force.
Where it all began: Sinclair’s interest in space started where many illustrious space industry careers start: science fiction. From a love of Star Wars and Star Trek grew an interest in astrophysics, and a fascination with the mysteries of the universe. While in school at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he began working in the cubesat lab and wound up leading the mechanical team.
After school, Sinclair joined SpaceX to work on the Dragon capsule, designing custom tooling to support the program ahead of the first crewed launch.
“It was really cool going into the main clean room, and like seeing them use the tooling to lift the primary structure of the capsule, some of the stuff I designed,” Sinclair told Payload. “And then that summer they launched [Demo-2 astronauts] Bob [Behnken] and Doug [Hurley]. So I got to be with the whole Dragon team watching that, and just seeing them sweating bullets, you know? And I was like, ‘Yeah, this is definitely what I want to keep doing in my career.’”
Scale down: After his time at SpaceX, Sinclair made the leap to Turion. Sinclair moved across the country to join the company when it was a small startup of seven people (though he’s now one of 140+).
“I really just jumped in and got the [design] for Droid.001…it was at a preliminary design stage, and I carried it through the full design and the build,” Sinclair said. “So the first day, I get in. I’m already looking at designing and laying out where the different components of the satellite go—like the magnetorquers and the reaction wheels— the first week, jumping into how we’re going to build this.”
Now that the company has grown, with its systems developed and matured, Sinclair is looking ahead to his future at Turion—and the upcoming advanced and ambitious programs he’s hoping to contribute to down the line.
“I’m just stoked to keep pushing the boundaries at Turion,” Sinclair said. “The founders have a bold vision to keep progressing, and getting to unleash the space economy. I’m pretty stoked about continuing the work we’re doing with RPO and non-Earth imaging, and then seeing where we go from there in terms of developing debris-removal capabilities.”
