Stoke Space aims to take reusable rockets to new heights with $9M seed
Many launch providers think reusability is the best way to lower the cost and delay involved in getting to space. SpaceX and Rocket Lab have shown reusable first stages, which take a payload to the edge of space — and now Stoke Space Technologies says it is making a reusable second stage, which will take that payload to orbit and beyond, and has raised a $9.1 million seed round to realize it.
Designing a first stage that can return to Earth safely is no small task, but the fact that it only reaches a certain height and speed, and doesn’t actually climb into orbit at an even higher velocity, means that it is simpler to try. The second stage takes over when the first is spent, accelerating and guiding the payload to its destination orbit, which generally means it will have traveled a lot farther and will be going a lot faster when it tries to come back down.
Stoke thinks that it’s not just possible to create a second stage that’s reusable, but crucial to building the low-cost space economy that will enable decades of growth in the industry. The team previously worked on the New Glenn and New Shepard vehicles and engines at Blue Origin, the Merlin 1C for the Falcon 9 at SpaceX and others.
“Our design philosophy is to design hardware that not only can be reused, but is operationally reusable. That means fast turnaround times with low refurbishment effort. Reusability of that type has to be designed in from the beginning,” said Andy Lapsa, co-founder and CEO of Stoke.
Beyond the fact that the vehicle will employ a ballistic reentry and powered landing, Stoke did not comment on the engineering or method by which it would accomplish the Herculean feat of bringing down a few tons of precision equipment safely from 400 kilometers up and traveling some 28,000 km/h. (Though Lapsa did mention to GeekWire that a “good, high-performing stable injector” is the core of their engine and therefore of the system around it.)
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Image Credits: Stoke Space Technologies