Ex-Arizona punter Kyle Ostendorp is exploring the moon as a NASA engineer

Figuratively speaking, Kyle Ostendorp was sending punts to the moon for the Arizona football program less than a year ago. Now, the former UA punter is literally exploring the moon.

After Ostendorp played his fifth and final season at Arizona last season, he became a chemical and mechanical system modeling engineer for NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Ostendorp’s job description: developing system models with software engineering “to determine optimal configurations for systems to extract water from the moon and martian surface to turn it into rocket propellant ... and creating habitable spaces on other planets,” he said.

“It has been confirmed that there is water embedded in the moon and martian surfaces,” Ostendorp added. “So we’re just looking at ways and optimal configurations on how to extract that water from the moon or martian surface, and convert it into rocket propellant or you can drink it.”

It’s “complicated stuff that we’re working on,” said Ostendorp, who was hired by NASA in April.

“I don’t think it has hit me yet because I was thrown into the fire so fast,” Ostendorp said. “I know it’s almost a year since I played football. The last six months have flown by. It hasn’t settled in yet.”

The path to Houston started in 2019 when Ostendorp, a Phoenix native and Desert Vista High School graduate, signed with the UA football team and former head coach Kevin Sumlin, who coached both UA and Houston. Ostendorp emerged as the starting punter midway through his freshman season.

Ostendorp jokingly blames himself for the seven-game losing streak Arizona went on to end the 2019 season after starting 4-1, “because I started those last eight games as a freshman,” he said. That skid later carried into the 2021 season at 20 games.

“I was like, ‘Damn it, ever since I took over the starting role, we started losing. It’s my fault,’” he joked.

During the pandemic-influenced season in 2020, Ostendorp “snapped my ankle” before the canceled season opener against Utah.

“I twisted my punting ankle real bad. I already have ‘cankles,’ like I have big legs, but my ankle just ballooned up,” said Ostendorp. “It was crazy. I had a ligament tear in my foot and couldn’t even flex my foot. For punting, that’s not good. Looking back on it, I should’ve medically redshirted, because I could’ve played again this year with those weird rules, but six years is a lot for college.”

Ostendorp missed his entire second season at the UA, which was the year Sumlin was fired and replaced by former Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch.

“Fisch came in and we could immediately tell he was going to be a great coach, but he just had nothing to work with,” Ostendorp said. “Our roster was decimated from COVID and we had a lot of people leave after Sumlin left.”

In 2021, Ostendorp set an Arizona record with a 49.2-yard punt average, which also led the Pac-12, earning him All-Pac-12 First Team honors. In Arizona’s 1-11 season in Fisch’s first year at the helm, Ostendorp was the only Wildcat to earn all-conference honors.

Ostendorp’s punting average increased by nearly 10 yards between his first and third season at Arizona, and said the “coaching change helped a little bit.” Arizona also “ended up switching footballs, which ended up helping,” converting from Nike Vapor One footballs to Nike Vapor Elite footballs, “a thicker football that resembles a ‘Wilson Duke’ and has a bigger sweet spot with a little more blunt nose.”

“They fly better and have a better spiral,” Ostendorp said.

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Engineers, man.

In addition to managing the schedule of a Power 4 football player, Ostendorp received a master’s degree in “aerospace engineering with an emphasis in fluid mechanics.” Ostendorp was the UA student-athlete valedictorian in 2022. His “ability to handle both football and engineering and maintain excellence in both” helped him stand out when he applied to NASA.

“I had a perfect GPA and I was the valedictorian, but I was able to manage 50-60 hours of football every week on top of that,” he said. “I know they say it’s only 20 hours of football, but it’s never actually that between the travel time, the workouts, the meals, the volunteering stuff. I think showing that I can handle a rigorous course schedule and also play football at the same time — and excel at both, it stood out to them.”

While at the UA, Ostendorp interned at Arizona Public Service for “software engineering and system modeling, which was beneficial for me getting this job.”

Ostendorp finished his football-playing career in 2023, helping the Wildcats to a 10-3 record and a win over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl.

“Ending on the Alamo Bowl win was the best way to go out,” Ostendorp said.

Ostendorp’s time at Arizona “definitely had a lot of lows, but it ended up paying off for the long term,” he said.

“A lot of us banded together and put our trust in Fisch and the team and finished on a high note,” said Ostendorp. “I can’t complain. I wouldn’t trade the first four years for anything different, because we put in the hard work and saw what happened last year.”

Ostendorp admitted he “didn’t nearly have a good enough final year to get into the (NFL),” and averaged 42.4 yards per punt his final season.

“I was too inconsistent my final year. All honesty, I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” he said. “My punts were very good in terms of hang time and direction compared to where it was the couple years before. But at the end of the day, I was kind of over with football. Once the Alamo Bowl was done, I knew my career was over, because I had a good degree to fall back on. I figured it was a good time to leave football.”

Ostendorp “applied to a bunch of different companies” and “submitted over 300 applications,” before he landed two job offers from NASA in Houston and Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunstville, Alabama. Ostendorp said NASA “called me an hour later and said, ‘Wow, we’ve never seen a resume like yours before. Let’s schedule an interview for tomorrow night.’ ... They extended a job offer and I accepted immediately.”

Ostendorp’s football background and engineering prowess “has prepared me to go in and do a lot of interesting work in my first year at NASA,” he said.

“Sometimes the younger employees aren’t given a lot of responsibility, but I’ve been kind of the opposite,” said Ostendorp.

In Year 1 at NASA, the former Arizona punter is “getting a lot of responsibility and my work is getting shown off, which is important,” he said.

“In five to 10 years, I see myself taking in as many hard tasks and projects as possible, continue to learn and evolve and grow as an engineer, then become more and more important in the company and become a chief engineer role,” Ostendorp said. “I have great mentors, so I’ve seen the things they’ve done, and I want to mimic that.

“I’m with some of the smartest and most brilliant people in the entire country in terms of engineering. Having them on my side has been cool for the first six months. I’m curious to see where that’s going to take me.”