WASHINGTON – A Maine startup took its first, albeit small, step into space on January 31 with the successful launch of a rocket testing the engine technology it plans to use in future small launch vehicles.
The Stardust 1.0 rocket from the bluShift Aerospace in Braunschweig, Maine, launched around 3 pm in the east of the Loring Commerce Center, a former Air Force base in northern Maine. The rocket fired its hybrid rocket engine for about 10 seconds on a very low altitude flight, with the rocket falling from a parachute back to the ground minutes later.
Two attempts at launch earlier in the day were aborted. The first abortion occurred when the ignition of the rocket went off, but an oxidizer valve did not open. The second miscarriage occurred when the ignition device failed to light. The company fixed both problems in time for a third launch attempt, which proved successful later in the day.
“I don’t think we could have asked for anything better,” Sascha Deri, chief executive of bluShift, told reporters by phone after the launch. The rocket fell just below the planned peak of about 1,500 meters, he said, possibly because some grains of fuel in the rocket’s hybrid engine eroded during the first aborted launch attempt. Otherwise, “it went perfectly”.
The rocket carried three payloads, each the size of a three-unit cube, for two companies and a high school, as well as souvenirs carried by the company. However, the main purpose of the launch was to test the company’s technology, which it plans to expand later to suborbital and orbital launch vehicles.
“The main objective is to demonstrate that we are capable of more than just building a cool new rocket engine, that we are able to build complete rockets, acquire customers, go after a niche market that others are not pursuing in a unique way , so that we can attract private investors to finance the next stage of our company, ”said Deri in a January 30 briefing on the launch.
The successful launch could help the company raise a $ 650,000 angelic spin so it can look for a larger suborbital vehicle, the Stardust 2.0. That vehicle could fly as early as the end of this year, he said after the launch of Stardust 1.0, and be powerful enough to reach the edge of space, but provide only about half a minute of microgravity.
The larger hybrid engine developed for Stardust 2.0 would serve as a “fundamental building block” for a larger suborbital launch vehicle, Stardust Rogue, and for Red Dwarf, a launch vehicle designed to put up to 30 kilograms in orbit. These vehicles would require additional rounds of financing, with Red Dwarf ready for launch before 2024.
All of these vehicles will be powered by versions of the hybrid engine tested on the Stardust 1.0 launch. This engine uses nitrous oxide and a patented “bi-derivative” solid fuel. Deri declined to provide details about the fuel, except that it is non-toxic and easy to transport, and that it can be “produced on farms across America”.
Hybrid engines – so called because they use solid fuel and liquid propellants – have been struggling to find a niche in the space industry. The most well-known application of hybrid engines was on Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne suborbital space plane and its successor, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. However, problems in the development of this hybrid propulsion system have caused long delays in the development of SpaceShipTwo, and few other companies have considered using it.
Deri said a bluShift technical consultant was involved in the work three decades ago by the American Rocket Company, or Amroc, which was trying to develop a launch vehicle using hybrid engines. “We were able to take advantage of his wise advice and guidance not to repeat some of the mistakes of the past,” he said. “Hybrid engines certainly have their unique challenges.”
Despite these challenges, he said bluShift was attracted by the less complexity and cost that such engines promise compared to liquid propellant engines, while switching performance. “We will never become Formula 1 rockets,” he said. “We are trying to become the Toyota Tercel: something reliable, that gets there and is economical.”
This approach, he said, will allow him to stand out in a marketplace crowded with small launch vehicle companies, with 100 or more in various stages of development, according to some estimates. A particular focus will be on civilian and academic customers who today have opportunities to launch rides.
A flight test, even at low altitude, puts bluShift ahead of some other launch vehicle developers who have yet to fly, but does not guarantee long-term success. Vector Space Systems conducted two low-altitude flight tests of its Vector-R rocket in 2017. However, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2019 after one of its major investors withdrew and only recently has it resumed operations under new ownership.