Jonathan Huffman is the Founder and CEO of Orbital Arc, a Houston-based deep-tech spacecraft propulsion startup developing the patent-pending RIOT Drive (Relativistic Ion Thrust Drive), a next-generation ion engine designed to revolutionize in-space propulsion.

Jonathan earned an MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler and spent 8 years in deep tech and life science consulting at CREO Inc., a four-time Inc. 5000-awarded management consulting startup, where he joined as employee number 7.

Jonathan conceived the RIOT Drive concept while moonlighting as a sci-fi world builder for a video game, spending a year and a half self-teaching plasma physics before concluding the technology was viable and could be built in his garage.

Orbital Arc was selected for the Techstars Industries of the Future Accelerator (cohort 3) and is backed by both Techstars and Capital Factory, with a successful sub-scale physics demonstration completed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (TRL 3).

Orbital Arc's RIOT Drive targets thrusters at 25 to 33 percent of the cost of traditional Hall thrusters, using naphthalene fuel at under 1 percent of the cost of xenon, with the vision of enabling affordable solar system exploration and roundtrip missions to Mars.