{"id":17501,"date":"2021-09-03T20:14:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T12:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/stoke-space-stakes-its-claim-in-the-launch-industrys-rush-to-fully-reusable-rockets\/"},"modified":"2021-09-03T20:14:25","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T12:14:25","slug":"stoke-space-stakes-its-claim-in-the-launch-industrys-rush-to-fully-reusable-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/stoke-space-stakes-its-claim-in-the-launch-industrys-rush-to-fully-reusable-rockets\/","title":{"rendered":"Stoke Space stakes its claim in the launch industry\u2019s rush to fully reusable rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Three-pack
Stoke Space puts its \u201cthree-pack\u201d of thrust chambers through a hot-fire test. (Stoke Space Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In just six months, Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space Technologies has turned a blank stretch of ground in Moses Lake, Wash., into a bridgehead for building a fully reusable rocket optimized for satellite launches.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was barren desert as recently as April,\u201d co-founder and CEO Andy Lapsa told GeekWire, \u201cand we were able to get all of the facilities up and running in order to run long-duration, liquid-hydrogen, liquid-oxygen rocket engine testing out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2.3-acre test facility at Moses Lake\u2019s airport already has seen action: Last month, Stoke Space completed a manufacturing demonstration of a full-scale second stage for its yet-to-be-named rocket. The two-year-old startup has also done full-power test firings of components for its second-stage rocket engine, a triplet of thrust chambers that Lapsa calls the \u201cthree-pack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did them on time and under budget actually, which I\u2019m very proud of,\u201d said Lapsa, a veteran of Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture. \u201cYou don\u2019t hear that too much in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Bezos and his billionaire rival at SpaceX, Elon Musk, Lapsa and his teammates at Stoke Space are chasing the dream of full rocket reusability. Their aim is to bring down the cost of access to orbit and open up a new wave of space applications.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets have shown the way with first-stage reusability, but even those launch systems throw away the second stage after one use. Reducing that cost is what SpaceX\u2019s Starship development program is all about. Blue Origin is also pursuing second-stage reusability as it works on its orbital-class New Glenn rocket, with a program code-named Project Jarvis.<\/p>\n

Lapsa lauds the commitment that those bigger launch companies have made to full reusability, but says his venture is taking a different approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first place to start is with the second stage,\u201d he said. \u201cThe full system is designed to be 100% reusable at a high cadence, and I think the industry is still searching for that solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Lapsa talks about high cadence, he means being able to launch the same low-cost rocket on a daily basis without having to go through detailed inspections or component replacements \u2014 just fuel it up and lift off, following the model set for commercial aviation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still early days: Lapsa said that so far, the full-power thrust chamber firings have lasted no more than 10 seconds, and he\u2019s reluctant to provide details about the levels of thrust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting with these thrust chambers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have turbo machinery which is going to be testing pretty soon. We\u2019ll step into full engine testing, which will be amazing. We have some more facility building to do in order to be able to do that. And in parallel, we\u2019ll be working on the full stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lapsa said Stoke Space\u2019s workforce has grown to 18 employees, with more hires ahead. The team, which includes folks with experience at Blue Origin, SpaceX and Spaceflight Inc. under their belts, will have to hustle to stick to the timeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to fly this thing by the end of next year,\u201d Lapsa said.<\/p>\n

Lapsa isn\u2019t ready to say where the flight tests will take place, but he did drop some hints about the flight profile. Like Starship, they\u2019ll be vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing trials. Unlike Starship, the descents won\u2019t require belly flops or other exotic maneuvers. \u201cOur entire profile will have the acceleration vector along the center-line axis,\u201d Lapsa said.<\/p>\n

One of the key technologies has to do with the second-stage heat shield: Rather than making use of ceramic tiles, Stoke Space plans to construct a ductile metallic heat shield from everyday materials.<\/p>\n

\"Stoke
Stoke Space built a manufacturing demonstrator for its second-stage booster. (Stoke Space Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eventually, Stoke Space aims to field a fully reusable rocket with a quick turnaround that\u2019s well-suited for satellite launches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Starship-class vehicle is good for certain things, like colonizing Mars,\u201d Lapsa said. \u201cBut I think when you look exclusively at the satellite market, there are very few customers who want to fly that many things all at once. And there are very few customers who want to share a ride with that. We see that already as a pretty big headwind in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Stoke Space have the wherewithal to reach its goal of 100% rocket reusability? SpaceX is thought to be spending billions of dollars on Starship, while Jeff Bezos has said he cashes in a billion dollars\u2019 worth of Amazon stock every year to fund Blue Origin. In contrast, Stoke Space has brought in $9.1 million in seed funding so far, plus development grants from NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Space Force.<\/p>\n

Lapsa said Stoke Space is looking at different ways to bring in further capital, but for now, getting to the next stage of second-stage development is the first priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur approach to grants is, if there are opportunities to help attack things we\u2019re already doing, we\u2019ll go after it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut otherwise, we\u2019re heads down \u2014 and trying to move just as fast as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stoke Space puts its \u201cthree-pack\u201d of thrust chambers through a hot-fire test. (Stoke Space Photo) In just six months, Kent, Wash.-based Stoke Space Technologies has turned a blank stretch of ground in Moses Lake, Wash., into a bridgehead for building a fully reusable rocket optimized for satellite launches. \u201cIt was barren desert as recently as […]<\/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":[4727,345],"class_list":["post-17501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-rockets","tag-stoke-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17501"}],"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=17501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}