Investors are so stoked about this fully reusable rocket that they just ponied up another billion dollars to help get Stoke Space's Nova Pathfinder Block 2 off the ground.
I'll show myself out. For so many reasons.
More seriously, Stoke Space was founded in 2020 by former Blue Origin and SpaceX employees, and has yet to get a single rocket into orbit. But investors like what they've seen so far, investing a total of $2.3 billion or so in the company's efforts to design and build a rival to SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 medium lift rocket.
So you might wonder what's the big deal, since there's already a Falcon 9 flying about 150 times last year alone.
We actually discussed this issue back in August, looking at reports of satellite operators are "in panic" over a gap in available launch capacity as SpaceX retires Falcon 9 over the next few years to focus its efforts on Starship and building out orbital data centers.
Blue Origin's New Glenn can compete with Falcon 9 on price, but only for larger payloads. And while the booster is designed for reuse, it isn't designed for rapid reuse, limiting its launch cadence. ULA's Vulcan Centaur is tailored mostly to pricy national security launches. Both New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur still have teething issues. Other would-be competitors aren't yet ready for primetime.
“I think it’s fair to say there’s more than a bit of a panic about the availability of launch,” Stoke's Devon Papandrew told Ars Technica last month. “Even if the four medium-lift new entrants all achieve their goals in terms of flight success and cadence, it’s actually not going to make that much of a difference in demand right away. I’ve been saying for a while that I think 2028 is when this problem becomes really acute.”
Stoke hopes to have its reusable Nova Pathfinder fully operational by then, but there are serious limitations. Falcon 9 can put 17,500 kg (38,600 lb) into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and still land the booster on a drone ship, but Pathfinder can't keep up. Although the rocket has a fully reusable mode, that's good for just 3,000 kg (about 6,614 lb) to LEO, or 7,000 kg (about 15,432 lb) on missions that expend the second stage.
That's where Pathfinder Block 2 comes in, hopefully sometime in 2029 — and that has investors eagerly writing checks to Stoke.
“We have already started development on a larger vehicle, and we felt like now is the time to pour gas on that fire and really start full-force development of the larger vehicle, and so that’s the reason for the timing,” Stoke co-founder and CEO Andy Lapsa said on Tuesday, talking about the ONE BILLION DOLLARS the company just raised.
Block 2 is supposed to nearly match Falcon 9's lift to LEO at 15,000 kg (33,069 lb), but with a kick. Block 2 will lift that much while recovering the booster and the second stage — something Falcon 9 can't do at all. If customers are willing to pay a little more to expend the second stage, Block 2's lift increases to 23,000 kg (51,000 lb).
Can Stoke actually get that done before 2030?
It would certainly be an impressive feat, and more impressive still if Pathfinder Block 2 could match cadence with demand for launch capacity that's going nowhere but up. SpaceNews reported on Tuesday that "the Pentagon has more than doubled the number of national security launch services it expects to procure, from 151 in its 2022 baseline to 337" between now and 2032.
That's an additional $17 billion on the table just in national security launches over the next five years, which is just one reason investors keep pulling out their checkbooks for companies like Stoke.
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