// ENGINEER
Pádraig
Lysandrou
About Me
I grew up in Indiana building rockets and hacking electronics. At Cornell University, I focused on designing, building, and testing avionics and GNC subsystems of multiple spacecraft. I also ran the Cornell Maker Lab — a hands-on resource for student prototype development. I was a PhD student at CU Boulder, where I earned my master's degree in the Entry Systems Design Lab under Robert D. Braun, developing algorithms for powered descent guidance and rocket landing.
Currently, I am a Guidance, Navigation, and Control Engineer at SpaceX, working on the Starship and Lunar Starship programs. I'm also building a rocket powered lander in my garage.
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Experience
Education
University of Colorado Boulder
Entry Systems Design Laboratory under Dr. Robert D. Braun. Research on online optimization algorithms for powered descent guidance.
MS Thesis ↗
Cornell University
Minors in Archaeology and Aerospace. Concentration in signals and control systems. Director, Cornell Maker Laboratory 2016–2018.
Work
SpaceX
GNC Algorithm and Simulation Development for Starship and Lunar Starship programs. Responsible engineer for Lunar Landing Guidance and Control and Starship Flight 9.
SpaceX — Starlink ACS
Environmental test campaigns on V1.0 Starlink ADCS hardware, gimbal actuator control board design, and flight simulation framework development.
SpaceX — Starlink ACS
Designed, built, and tested flight hardware and software for next-generation constellation star trackers. Wrote online debris filtering algorithms.
Cornell Space Systems Design Studio
Led avionics across Violet nanosatellite, CUGrav cubesat, and Akash Systems satellite. Six semesters bringing Violet to full functionality through PIRs and PSR with AFRL.
SpaceX — Dragon RF
TDRSS reradiation system for Dragon S-band testing. PDR/CDR with SpaceX and JPL Deep Space Network team.
SpaceX — SLC-39A/40
Instrumentation and range operations hardware for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.