What is Stoke Space?
Stoke Space was founded in 2020 by Andy Lapsa, a former Blue Origin employee, along with a few other fellow Blue Origin and SpaceX employees. The firm is based in Kent, Washington and currently has 85 employees. First founded on an integrated propulsion solution for reusable launch vehicle upper stages, the company is now developing a fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle. Nova is the first launch vehicle to feature a fully-reusable second stage. The prosperous SpaceX's flourishing Falcon 9, in comparison, only reuses the first stage and the fairings.
The Nova Launch Vehicle
The Nova’s first stage will be powered by seven methalox (LNG/LOX) powered full flow staged combustion cycle engines. Both the first and second stage will be capable of Falcon 9-style RTLS landings. Another major amenity of the Nova rocket is rapid turnaround time and minimal refurbishments. In other words, Stoke aims to make a single unit capable of being reused as fast as possible. THe startup currently aims for a turnaround time of less than 24 hours. In comparison, the Falcon 9 had a record turnaround time of about 4 days. The Nova rocket aims to significantly reduce costs with full reusability under high launch cadence.
The Hopper is a prototype of Nova’s reusable second stage. It features a capsule design with an active regeneratively cooled heat shield at its base. As its source of propulsion, it is powered by a hydrolox powered (LH2/LOX) single expander bleed cycle engine with 15 thrust chambers (will have 30 later on) for structural integrity. This engine is planned to be the first of its kind. On September 17th, 2023, the Hopper 2 performed a successful test flight, reaching an altitude of 30 feet while being in airborne for about 15 seconds before landing in its designated landing zone. Following this success, $100 million was raised for Stoke in a Series B funding round led by Industrious Ventures. Other major milestones the firm has reached in the past was a successful flight test of the reusable Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL), which uses differential throttling for attitude control.
According to Stoke Space, it is the fastest company to go from initial funding to demonstrating an orbital-class VTVL rocket, the second company in the world to fly a prototype of a fully reusable upper stage rocket, and the third US company to develop a liquid hydrogen rocket engine.
