{"id":17432,"date":"2022-01-19T21:25:33","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T13:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/radian-aerospace-comes-out-of-stealth-and-raises-27-5m-for-orbital-space-plane-development\/"},"modified":"2022-01-19T21:25:33","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T13:25:33","slug":"radian-aerospace-comes-out-of-stealth-and-raises-27-5m-for-orbital-space-plane-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/radian-aerospace-comes-out-of-stealth-and-raises-27-5m-for-orbital-space-plane-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Radian Aerospace comes out of stealth and raises $27.5M for orbital space plane development"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"355\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/220119-radian-630x355.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-668930\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/220119-radian-630x355.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/220119-radian-1260x709.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/220119-radian-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/220119-radian-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/220119-radian.jpg 1656w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption>An artist\u2019s rendering shows Radian\u2019s reusable space plane. (Radian Aerospace Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>More than five years after its founding, Renton, Wash.-based Radian Aerospace is emerging from stealth mode and reporting a $27.5 million seed funding round to support its plans to build an orbital space plane.<\/p>\n<p>The round was led by Boston-based Fine Structure Ventures, with additional funding from EXOR, The Venture Collective, Helios Capital, SpaceFund, Gaingels, The Private Shares Fund, Explorer 1 Fund, Type One Ventures&nbsp;and other investors.<\/p>\n<p>Radian has previously brought in pre-seed investments, but the newly announced funding should accelerate its progress. <\/p>\n<p>One of the company\u2019s investors and strategic advisers, former Lockheed Martin executive Doug Greenlaw, said Radian was going after the \u201cHoly Grail\u201d of space access with a fully reusable system that would provide for single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) launches.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019ll take much more than $27.5 million to grab the grail: In the late 1990s, NASA spent nearly a billion dollars on Lockheed Martin\u2019s X-33 single-stage-to-orbit concept before the project was canceled in 2001. But Radian\u2019s executives argue that technological advances have now brought the SSTO vision within reach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we are doing is hard, but it\u2019s no longer impossible thanks to significant advancements in materials science, miniaturization and manufacturing technologies,\u201d Livingston Holder, Radian\u2019s co-founder and chief technology officer, said today in a news release.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Why Do Rockets Need Stages? The Quest to Build a Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xykHuImBQ0o?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Holder was part of the U.S. Air Force\u2019s&nbsp;Manned Spaceflight Engineer&nbsp;program in the 1980s \u2014 and went on to become a program manager at Boeing, focusing on reusable space systems. The design for Radian\u2019s space plane was inspired by Boeing\u2019s 1970s-era concept for a Reusable Aerodynamic Space Vehicle, or RASP.<\/p>\n<p>For the past few years, Radian has been working on rocket engine development at its Renton headquarters and at a testing facility near Bremerton, Wash. Ars Technica reported that the liquid-fueled engine is designed to provide about 200,000 pounds of thrust, and that the space plane would be powered by three of the engines. The current design would support carrying up to five people and 5,000 pounds of cargo into orbit, Ars Technica reported.<\/p>\n<p>Radian says its space plane, called Radian One, would make sled-assisted takeoffs and airplane-like runway landings, with a turnaround time of as little as 48 hours between missions. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver time, we intend to make space travel nearly as simple and convenient as airliner travel,\u201d said Richard Humphrey, Radian\u2019s CEO and co-founder. \u201cWe are not focused on tourism, we are dedicated to missions that make life better on our own planet, like research, in-space manufacturing and terrestrial observation, as well as critical new missions like rapid global delivery right here on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Previously:<\/strong> Radian Aerospace pursues an unorthodox plan for orbital space plane<\/h4>\n<p>The company hasn\u2019t announced a timetable for development or operations, but its founders hope to have the plane available to service commercial space stations that could be in orbit by the 2030s. Radian says it already has launch service agreements with commercial space station ventures as well as in-space manufacturers, satellite operators and cargo companies, plus agreements with the U.S. government and \u201cselected foreign governments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For what it\u2019s worth, one of Radian\u2019s early-stage investors is Dylan Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space Holdings. Voyager Space is one of the partners in a commercial space station project known as Starlab.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn demand space operations is a growing economy, and I believe Radian\u2019s technology can deliver on the right-sized, high-cadence operations that the market opportunity is showing,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI am confident in the team working at Radian and look forward to cheering them along in this historical endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update for 12:15 p.m. PT Jan. 20: <\/strong>In an emailed response to GeekWire\u2019s questions, Radian CEO Richard Humphrey confirmed that there are 18 full-time employees in Renton, and that the latest funding round brings total investment to $32 million.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis funding will primarily be used to support our next series of risk-reducing milestones that include main engine testing, composite tank testing, design maturation, aero analysis and customer development,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Humphrey said Radian is \u201cplanning to undergo an upgrade\u201d at the Bremerton engine testing facility and expects to resume increased testing by midyear.<\/p>\n<p>He declined to be more specific about Radian\u2019s partners or potential customers. \u201cNearly all of our agreements are subject to NDA [non-disclosure agreements] so we are not able to share the specific names or values,\u201d he said. \u201cNotable is that we have a number of mission sets that we are focused on that include habitation, Earth observation, in-space servicing, downmass, launch and delivery, and over a dozen companies have signed on across all those areas.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s rendering shows Radian\u2019s reusable space plane. (Radian Aerospace Illustration) More than five years after its founding, Renton, Wash.-based Radian Aerospace is emerging from stealth mode and reporting a $27.5 million seed funding round to support its plans to build an orbital space plane. The round was led by Boston-based Fine Structure Ventures, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4447],"class_list":["post-17432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-radian-aerospace"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}