Scott Shambaugh - Founder at Leonid Space

Scott Shambaugh

Founder at Leonid Space

Denver, Colorado, United States

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Summary

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Rockstar

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Top School

Scott Shambaugh is a founder and systems engineer with a decade of experience building guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) and propulsion systems for rockets and satellites, most recently leading ADCS and propulsion at Capella Space and founding a stealth space startup in Denver. He blends hands-on spacecraft hardware delivery—driving propulsion systems from kickoff to on-orbit within 1.5 years—with software tooling for orbit design, dynamic simulation, and control algorithms. Prior roles at ULA and Lockheed Martin underpin his expertise in multi-engine thrust-vector control, 6DOF simulations, and flight-proven launch software, while work on autonomous ground vehicles broadened his embedded and systems-software skillset. An active open-source Python contributor, he has improved core scientific libraries like SciPy and Matplotlib—adding rotation math, quaternion fixes, and 3D plotting features—demonstrating both numerical rigor and practical visualization chops. Collected across industry and academia, his record shows a knack for turning first-principles analysis into production-ready flight systems and developer tools.

10 years of coding experience

6 years of employment as a software developer

Bachelor of Science (BS) Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (BS) Mechanical Engineering at University of Southern California

Master of Science (MS) Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Master of Science (MS) Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University

Phillips Academy

Github Skills (13)

algorithms10

rotation10

python10

plot3d10

scientific-computing10

numpy10

matplotlib10

3d10

cython9

data-visualisation9

data-visualization9

data-visualizations9

data-science8

Programming languages (15)

PowerShellJavaC++RustCTeXSassHTML

Github contributions (5)

scipy/scipy

Oct 2020 - Mar 2025

SciPy library main repository

Role in this project:

Back-end Developer

Contributions:177 reviews, 18 PRs, 296 comments in 4 years 5 months

Contributions summary:Scott primarily contributed to the `scipy/scipy` repository by adding documentation examples and enhancing the `Rotation` class. These enhancements included features like mapping the double coverage of rotation space and adding a power operator, while also fixing quaternion inversion. Further improvements included documentation updates and adding the `approx_equal` method. The user also contributed to the testing suite.

scipypythonscientific-computing

matplotlib/matplotlib

Nov 2021 - Oct 2022

matplotlib: plotting with Python

Role in this project:

Back-end Developer

Contributions:275 reviews, 27 commits, 82 PRs in 10 months

Contributions summary:Scott primarily focused on enhancing the 3D plotting capabilities of the matplotlib library. Their contributions included adding a roll angle feature to 3D plots, which involved modifying core files such as `axes3d.py` and updating the gallery examples to showcase the new functionality. They also addressed existing issues and improved documentation. The user demonstrated a good understanding of the existing codebase, particularly in the areas of 3D visualization and plotting.

pythondata-sciencegtkdata-visualizationplotting

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