Launch startup iRocket<\/b> plans to go public in a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with a blank check company backed by former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. <\/p>\n
iRocket announced the SPAC deal with BPGC Acquisition Corp.<\/strong> (BPGC) on Wednesday, a deal that values the company at $400 million. iRocket\u2019s full name is Innovative Rocket Technologies Inc. <\/p>\n The company is developing the Shockwave launch vehicle for small to medium-sized payloads. The rocket is in development and has never flown. <\/p>\n iRocket says the vehicle is being developed to be reusable, with a turnaround time of less than 24 hours between launches. The company has a patent on liquid rocket engines, which it calls MACH-i Landing Engine technology and is also developing solid rocket motors for boosters, missiles, and interceptors.<\/p>\n iRocket says it has more than $1 billion in letters of intent and MoUs with \u201cseveral potential customers for national security and commercial satellites,\u201d but has not announced any launch contracts. The company received $1.8 million in funding from AFWERX in 2023, and has a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the Air Force Research Laboratory signed in 2023 for engine development. <\/p>\n \u201cThis partnership with BPGC Management LP and Wilbur Ross reflects a shared vision to advance global space access and accelerate innovation in launch technology,\u201d CEO Asad Malik said. \u201cOur reusable, high-performance vehicles are built to reduce cost per mission, increase launch cadence, responsiveness, and strengthen critical capabilities for allies and strategic partners around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n iRocket follows Firefly Aerospace as the second launcher to announce plans this month to go public \u2014 but Firefly is taking the route of a traditional IPO, not a SPAC. <\/p>\n SPACs have been in the news this week after direct-to-cell company Lynk Global canceled its SPAC deal with a blank check company led by Aaron Rodriguez. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Launch startup iRocket plans to go public in a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger with a blank check company backed by former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. iRocket announced the SPAC deal with BPGC Acquisition Corp. (BPGC) on Wednesday, a deal that values the company at $400 million. iRocket\u2019s full name is Innovative Rocket […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48779,"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":[],"class_list":["post-48777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48777"}],"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=48777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}