Alumnus Builds a Career in Rocket Propulsion

Roderic Vanderscoff (LS ’14) always had his eyes on the stars. His love for space exploration was forged in his youth, informed by penchants for stargazing and science fiction, and conversations with his grandfather, an aerospace engineer who worked on the Apollo program. 

“I kind of always knew that I had a love for space,” said Vanderscoff, who graduated from UC Davis with a B.S. degree in physics. “It just sort of manifested in different ways at different ages.”  

Today, Vanderscoff is following in his grandfather’s footsteps. As head of product owners at Pangea Propulsion, a private aerospace company based in Barcelona, Spain, he oversees the ideation, design and development of Pangea’s rocket engines and in-space propulsion systems. The company’s prominent clients include the European Space Agency and CNES, France’s space agency, among others.  

“The vast majority of my career has been in propulsion development, and it’s always been the most interesting area to me, and it’s an extremely challenging problem,” Vanderscoff said. “Getting into space is really hard, and even once you’re in space, getting from point A to point B is also a very difficult thing.” 

In an industry replete with eye-catching components featuring the latest technologies, propulsion is literally and figuratively the flashiest. Watch any rocket launch and you won’t miss the fiery plume shooting from the vessel’s engine as it barrels towards the heavens. 

Such displays certainly caught Vanderscoff’s attention. He’s spent more than a decade ruminating over the engineering problems posed by propulsion systems, exploring various avenues to advance and improve the technology. It’s no easy feat, especially when combustion gasses that can reach 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit are separated by a layer as thin as only a few stacked coins from cryogenic oxygen, which operates at about -300 degrees Fahrenheit.  

“A rocket engine is like a constant explosion, but just in a very specific direction and in a controlled manner,” Vanderscoff said.

Vanderscoff’s job is to essentially take a chaotic, and potentially destructive, process and refine it so humanity can further explore the cosmos.  

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