{"id":17645,"date":"2020-09-09T21:04:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T13:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/relativity-and-reach-stoke-and-starfish-blue-origin-veterans-spark-space-startups\/"},"modified":"2020-09-09T21:04:28","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T13:04:28","slug":"relativity-and-reach-stoke-and-starfish-blue-origin-veterans-spark-space-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/relativity-and-reach-stoke-and-starfish-blue-origin-veterans-spark-space-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"Relativity and Reach, Stoke and Starfish: Blue Origin veterans spark space startups"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andrew
During his time at Blue Origin, Andrew Lapsa won the AIAA Liquid Propulsion Young Professional Award in 2017. Now he\u2019s the CEO of his own startup, called Stoke Space. (Blue Origin Photo via Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture turned 20 years old this week \u2014 and although the privately held company hasn\u2019t yet put people into space, or put a rocket into orbit, it has spawned a new generation of space startups.<\/p>\n

One of those startups, Relativity Space, pulled up stakes in Seattle early on and moved to Southern California. Now it\u2019s making a multimillion-dollar splash and putting the pieces in place for the first launch of its Terran rocket from Florida.<\/p>\n

Relativity is also going through a leadership transition: Jordan Noone, the venture\u2019s co-founder and chief technology officer, announced today on Twitter that he\u2019ll step back and become an executive adviser \u201cin preparation for starting my next venture.\u201d Relativity\u2019s other co-founder, Blue Origin veteran Tim Ellis, will stay on as CEO.<\/p>\n

Other startups are in semi-stealth mode. Here are three notable Seattle-area ventures with Blue Origin connections:<\/p>\n

Stoke Space Technologies<\/h4>\n

Incorporated last October in Renton. Stoke\u2019s co-founders are CEO Andrew Lapsa, who was responsible for all aspects of development and operation for Blue Origin\u2019s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 and BE-3U engines; and Thomas Feldman, an engineer who played a key role in designing components for the more powerful BE-4 engine, fueled by liquefied natural gas.<\/p>\n

Stoke\u2019s website says the company is \u201cbuilding technology to seamlessly connect Earth and orbit.\u201d In May, the company won a $225,000 SBIR Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation to work on an integrated propulsion solution for reusable rocket upper stages.<\/p>\n

Stoke says it\u2019ll use the NSF funding \u201cto develop new technology enabling space launch vehicles to re-enter the atmosphere and land propulsively at a target destination for reuse.\u201d SpaceX\u2019s Falcon rockets and Blue Origin\u2019s yet-to-be-built New Glenn rocket are designed with first-stage reusability in mind. Stoke is looking ahead to the next giant leap in reusable rockets.<\/p>\n

In addition to Lapsa and Feldman, LinkedIn lists three other Stoke employees with Blue Origin experience. And they have  job openings for a lead system architect and a \u201cSuperhuman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reach Space Technologies<\/h4>\n

Incorporated in February in Maple Valley. Reach\u2019s website is still password-protected, but LinkedIn lists Mike Krene, former senior propulsion engineer at Blue Origin, as founder and CEO. Krene spent a decade at Blue Origin, and before that, he dealt with propulsion systems at SpaceX and Pratt & Whitney.<\/p>\n

The venture says it aims to \u201caccelerate the time and reduce the cost for new launch startups to get to commercial viability, thereby growing the overall launch market.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur engine systems also provide a high-value, commercially focused propulsion option for existing NewSpace and traditional launch providers,\u201d Reach Space says on its LinkedIn page.<\/p>\n

The company says it has between two and 10 employees, including \u201cleading engineers with experience across many flight and development rocket engine systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starfish Space<\/h4>\n

Incorporated last November in Kent, where Blue Origin is headquartered. Starfish Space\u2019s co-founders are Trevor Bennett, a former flight sciences engineer at Blue Origin; and Austin Link, who spent three years at Blue Origin as a flight sciences simulation engineer. Ian Heidenberger, Starfish\u2019s principal roboticist, was an autonomous-controls engineer at Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

Starfish says it\u2019s a venture-backed startup but has not yet revealed details about its investors or investments. It\u2019s working on an \u201con-demand, in-space transportation service,\u201d including a space tug that could be used to relocate, deorbit or extend the life of satellites. It\u2019s also developing the software to support rendezvous and proximity operations \u2014 with an emphasis on electric propulsion.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, Jeff Bezos told me his goal for Blue Origin was to build the \u201cheavy-lifting infrastructure\u201d for a wider space industry ecosystem, just as the U.S. Postal Service, UPS and the internet furnished the infrastructure that got Amazon off the ground. Now it looks as if Blue Origin is providing a seedbed for that ecosystem, even before the company has fully occupied its own niche in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Correction for 12:35 a.m. PT Sept. 10:<\/strong> We\u2019ve fixed the spelling of Ian Heidenberger\u2019s name. <\/em><\/p>\n

This report was first published on Cosmic Log. Hat tip to Isaac Alexander.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During his time at Blue Origin, Andrew Lapsa won the AIAA Liquid Propulsion Young Professional Award in 2017. Now he\u2019s the CEO of his own startup, called Stoke Space. (Blue Origin Photo via Twitter) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture turned 20 years old this week \u2014 and although the privately held company […]<\/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":[509,291,4789,1685,4344,345],"class_list":["post-17645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-reach-space","tag-relativity-space","tag-starfish-space","tag-stoke-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17645"}],"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=17645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}