WASHINGTON — German launch vehicle startup Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has replaced its chief executive as it works towards a second chance for its first launch.
In an April 11 statement not widely publicized by the company, RFA announced that Stefan Tweraser, who had been chief executive since October 2021, had been replaced by Indulis Kalnins.
The announcement did not give a reason for the change, but it suggested that the company was seeking someone with expertise in the aerospace industry to lead the company. Kalnins is on the aerospace faculty of a German university, Hochschule Bremen, and has been managing director of OHB Cosmos, which focused on launch services.
“For the tasks that now lie ahead, we are focusing on technical progress and the path to the launchpad,” Jean-Jacques Dordain, chairman of the supervisory board at RFA, said in a statement. “With the wide range of skills that Dr. Kalnins brings to a highly motivated team, we believe that RFA is well on its way to continuing to prepare for the first launch attempt as the priority to get access to the market of launch services.”
Tweraser, by contrast, came from outside the space industry. He joined RFA after past work that included being a consultant at McKinsey & Company, country director for the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region at Google and executive at music streaming company Deezer.
At the time RFA hired him, his experience outside the industry was seen as an asset. “We deliberately looked for someone with extensive experience in managing enterprises outside the space sector to bring new expertise and additional impetus to the next steps of RFA’s development,” Dordain said in a 2021 statement about hiring Tweraser.
“Under his leadership, we will further professionalize RFA’s processes and structures. This will help us to transform our rapid technological progress into a sustainable business model,” Stefan Brieschenk, chief operating officer of RFA, said of Tweraser in that same statement.
RFA now appears more focused on getting its first rocket off the pad. The company was working towards a first launch of its RFA ONE rocket from SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands last year, but the first stage of the rocket was destroyed in a static-fire test in August 2024.
“We must focus all our energy on the technology and the first launch,” said Marco Fuchs, chairman of the board of OHB, which owns a majority stake in RFA, in the statement about the leadership change. “I am very pleased that we have been able to appoint a recognized expert for RFA in Kalnins. I have known Dr. Kalnins for almost 30 years and therefore know about his exceptional expertise.”
“I have known RFA since it was founded almost seven years ago and have always followed its progress with great interest,” Kalnins said in the statement. “I have been working with RFA for some time now, so I know that I have a great, motivated and technically excellent team that is eager to get off to a successful launch as quickly as possible.” He did not elaborate on the work he had been doing with RFA prior to be named chief executive.
RFA is working towards a second attempt at a first flight for RFA ONE. It secured a launch license from the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority in January for the vehicle, allowing the company to conduct up to 10 launches a year from SaxaVord. Tweraser said in a January interview with CNBC that the company was “racing towards the third quarter” for a launch.
“For us, the most important thing is launching this year,” Brieschenk said in an April 2 interview with NASASpaceflight.com, but said the company has not set a specific launch window yet as it make upgrades to the first stage. “We’re probably, say, anywhere between six and eight months, basically, before the first launch attempt.”
