QuesTek Highlights New Alloys Advancing Reusable Rocket Propulsion at European Industry Summit Keynote

MAASTRICHT, Netherlands, Dec. 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- QuesTek Innovations Executive Vice President of Market Operations Jason Sebastian, PhD detailed recent materials advancements in space exploration during a keynote speech at the Stainless Steel World Conference & Expo in Maastricht. The speech, delivered during the event's Sustainability Day on November 19, outlined challenges and opportunities facing space OEMs as they develop novel materials and make advancements in reusable rockets.

"Now, I'm not a rocket scientist. I guess I'm a rocket materials scientist," Sebastian joked before defining the core challenge of materials engineering for space applications. "There are three main properties that you're concerned with: Tensile strength, fatigue strength and burn resistance. But there are fundamentally trade-offs here. Elements like aluminum and titanium that you can add to nickel superalloys to provide strength are exactly the elements that exacerbate the burn resistance and make it worse."

Drawing on recent collaborations with leading private sector space companies, Sebastian showed how QuesTek's ICMD® materials engineering and design platform is producing breakthroughs in both materials performance and development time. ICMD®, launched in 2023, was built on computational models developed by QuesTek in order to resolve client challenges in hundreds of engagements, including those completed on behalf of clients such as NASA. The software has a growing global subscriber base of OEMs and academic institutions and was named to TechRound's SaaS66 list of the top software platforms in Europe.

QuesTek announced expanded additive manufacturing capabilities for the platform earlier this year. In his keynote, Sebastian explained that developing novel materials for additive manufacturing is the key to balancing the tradeoffs involved in rocket design.

"To get the most out of materials and really get the most out of your closed cycle engine development, you want burn resistant alloys that are also printable," Sebastian told the capacity crowd at the Maastricht Exhibition & Conference Centre. "Additive manufacturing is so important because of the complexity of these engine designs."

Sebastian cited a recent example in which a printable material designed using ICMD® was able to reduce dramatically the number of parts on a rocket. The new parts — too intricate to be manufactured by any other method — were printed and flew on test rockets within a year.

For industry leaders, the approach Sebastian outlined enables higher burn resistance without losing strength while simultaneously reducing development and qualification timelines.
It also supports more complex regenerative cooling pathways and accelerates closed-cycle engine commercialization.

"This opportunity to deliver a keynote at such a large and highly regarded conference in The Netherlands was the perfect capstone to our strategic expansion in Europe this year," says Bill Mahoney, COO of QuesTek Innovations. "Jason expertly outlined the materials engineering landscape and how QuesTek is leading the path forward."

For more on QuesTek's work in the space industry, see Fast Company's 2025 Most Innovative Companies in space (QuesTek is number 6) and Jason Sebastian's interview on Fox News following the successful launch and platform landing of SpaceX's Starship rocket.

About QuesTek

Headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, QuesTek's Materials by Design® technology and ICMD® software platform are proven to reduce the development time and cost and increase the performance of novel materials. In its market space, QuesTek is the first provider to execute the full cycle from novel design to production, certification, and flight operations with proprietary materials, in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional, or purely algorithmic methods. questek.com

Media Contact:
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SOURCE QuesTek Innovations