Nathaniel Young

When Nathaniel Young’s first small solid-rocket motor finally hot-fired, it set him on a path to become a propulsion engineer.

“To see the explosive power come out of something that I created made me never want to do anything but be a rocket propulsion engineer,” he says.

Young is an aerospace engineering Outstanding Graduate for the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. During his undergraduate education, Young worked on various propulsion projects, including one that helped him land a full-time role at SpaceX.

For his honors thesis, he designed, built and successfully hot-fired a regeneratively cooled, bi-propellant liquid rocket engine, a system critical to reusability. To his knowledge, no student at ASU or in Arizona had previously successfully hot-fired a regeneratively cooled engine.

Building on his experience from two internships at Northrop Grumman and utilizing the machine shop at ASU’s Chandler Innovation Center, he used metal 3D printing to manufacture the engine and created his own thermal, structural and fluid models to guide the design, all while teaching himself key concepts.

His engine completed seven hot-fire tests, totaling more than 80 seconds of burn time without damage

“It is by far the most advanced student chemical propulsion research project ever at ASU,” says Young. “I had limited funding, time and prior knowledge, but I did it anyway. I believe this project has been the physical manifestation of my hard work and was key to my employment at SpaceX.”

He also used the project to mentor other students through his leadership in the Sun Devil Rocketry Club, where he served as the liquid propulsion team lead and solid propulsion research co-lead.

“Teaching others in a topic I love so dearly was very fulfilling, and I can’t wait to see the engineers that they will become,” he says.

Young credits his success in part to the support of his honors thesis directors, Professor Marcus Herrmann and Associate Professor Ryan Milcarek, who empowered him to explore complex propulsion concepts.

After graduation, Young will join SpaceX as a propulsion engineer working on Raptor, the engine that powers Starship. In this role, he will help design and run tests and analyze performance data to improve future iterations of the engine. He says the position is a dream come true and aligns with his long-term goal of advancing rocket technology to support human life beyond Earth.

Favorites

Hobby: Rock climbing, specifically bouldering and building rocket engines
Performer: Frank Ocean
TV show: Breaking Bad
Movie: Interstellar
Sports team: Arizona Cardinals

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ spring 2026 class.

Written by Roger Ndayisaba