Kristian von Bengtson (born August 1974) is a Danish

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

, specializing in crewed spaceflight, a resident of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and married to animation director Karla von Bengtson. He is most notable for his involvement in founding

Copenhagen Suborbitals Copenhagen Suborbitals is an amateur, crowd-funded, and open-source human space program. Since its beginning in 2008, Copenhagen Suborbitals has flown five home-built rockets and two mock-up space capsules. Their stated goal is to have one of th ...

and European launcher company

Orbex Orbital Express Launch Ltd., or Orbex, is a United Kingdom-based aerospace company that is developing a small commercial orbital rocket called Prime. Orbex is headquartered in Forres, Moray, in Scotland and has subsidiaries in Denmark and Germany ...

. Kristian von Bengtson has participated in various space projects, simulated Mars habitation and is a trained architect from

School of Architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is an institution specializing in architectural education. Africa ...

in Copenhagen 2001 and also has a master's degree in aerospace science from the

International Space University The International Space University (ISU) is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications for peaceful purposes, through international and multidisciplinary education and research programs. ISU was f ...

ISU in

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

, France (2006).

Work on Copenhagen Suborbitals

On 1 May 2008 Kristian von Bengtson, along with

Peter Madsen Peter Langkjær Madsen (; born 12 January 1971) is a Danish convicted murderer and former entrepreneur. In April 2018, he was convicted of the 2017 murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall on board his submarine, '' UC3 Nautilus'', and sentenced ...

, founded

. He was the lead spacecraft designer and functioning flight director until his departure in 2014.

Work for Mars One

On 24 March 2014 Kristian von Bengtson joined

Mars One Mars One was a small private Dutch organization that received money from investors by claiming it would use it to land the first humans on Mars and leave them there to establish a permanent human colony. From its announcement in 2012 to its ...

as their Outpost and Capsule Project Manager.http://www.mars-one.com/news/press-releases/mars-one-welcomes-outpost-architect-kristian-von-bengtson Press release from the Mars One website He resigned in May 2015.

References

Rocket scientists Space advocates 1974 births Living people Copenhagen Suborbitals {{Denmark-bio-stub