Rick Röthlisberger is Co-Founder at Stellar Alpina, a Swiss SpaceTech startup headquartered at Innovation Park Zurich that is revolutionizing in-space mobility through rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) technology.

Rick is an ETH Zurich-educated engineer and alumnus of ARIS, the Academic Spaceflight Initiative Switzerland, where the founding team developed the world's first student-built rotating detonation rocket engine in 2024.

Rick and his co-founders operate with a philosophy of radical speed and iterative hardware testing, proving a concept from founding to hotfire in just 82 days in a field where development cycles are typically measured in decades.

Stellar Alpina secured CHF 3.5 million (approx. USD 4.5 million) in pre-seed funding led by Founderful, with participation from deep-tech VC LP&E, and has been recognized as a Watchlist Company in the Swiss deep-tech ecosystem.

Stellar Alpina achieved Europe's first known commercial RDRE hotfire milestones, completing eight detonative hotfires and demonstrating up to five stable detonation waves with Engine 0, positioning the company to reshape orbital and cislunar mobility infrastructure.