EP 118 — CisLunar Industries' Gary Calnan On How a Space Furnace Accidentally Created a Power Electronics Company

<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/garycalnan/"><u>Gary Calnan</u></a>, CEO and Co-Founder of <a href="https://www.cislunarindustries.com/"><u>CisLunar Industries</u></a>, built power electronics to melt metal in orbit. A research partner noticed the same hardware could reshape electric propulsion. That pivot turned a space debris recycling startup into a power electronics company with a test platform on a NASA mission and Lockheed Martin and Safran serving as subcontractors on its Space Force program.</p><p>Gary tells Dave Graff how a finance career, nine weeks at the International Space University, and $4.7 million in total funding built a 20-person team now chasing dominance across the space power stack.</p><p><strong>Topics discussed:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Pivoting from in-space metal processing to power electronics</p></li><li><p>Building modular, scalable power processing units for diverse space applications</p></li><li><p>Using SBIR contracts to bring primes in as subcontractors</p></li><li><p>Why non-space backgrounds created an advantage in architecture design</p></li><li><p>Capital efficiency with $4.7M raised and $8M in contracts</p></li><li><p>Dual-use potential in directed energy and drone defense</p></li><li><p>Recruiting from Maxar, Blue Origin, Blue Canyon, Tesla, and Lucid</p></li><li><p>Preparing to scale manufacturing for an accelerating customer pipeline</p></li></ul><p><strong>Listen to more episodes: </strong></p><p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dib-innovators/id1720062726"><u>Apple </u></a></p><p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z3PpCHsglA3uk2S6dCRBP"><u>Spotify </u></a></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX2eBOnzz1SX0Psj6BmbdCw"><u>YouTube</u></a></p><p><a href="https://radicl.com/dib-innovators-podcast"><u>Website</u></a></p><p><br></p>