For the first time since Stoke was founded in 2020, Lapsa publicly put out a target launch date for Nova, saying the company is aiming for “early” 2027 to launch. Of course, he is fully aware that problems can, and often do, occur during stage testing and final integration of the vehicles.
“I feel good about that launch date,” he said. “I think that’s pretty realistic. But as you know, in our industry, we’ll go when we’re ready.”
During an Ars site visit to the company’s factory in Kent, Washington, last fall, it was clear that the company is in advanced stages of assembly of flight hardware and has additional vehicles in flow. The Nova rocket is real and represents a bold effort to build a small, fully reusable vehicle. The industry will be watching closely, especially now that Stoke has raised so much funding.
Block 2 is new
The Nova Pathfinder vehicle has a diameter of about 12.5 feet, slightly larger than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 vehicle, although it is considerably shorter. The Block 2 version of Nova is intended to have a 15-foot diameter, Lapsa said.
Like Pathfinder, the Block 2 version of the Nova rocket will use the methane-liquid-oxygen-fueled Zenith engines—although there will be more of them. The upper stage will similarly use hydrogen-liquid oxygen for propellant.
“Probably the biggest change on the whole vehicle is that we will have a cylindrical second stage,” he said. “That’s an area where, inside our walls for years, we’ve been wrestling with how do we delete the taper on Pathfinder’s upper stage, and I think we’ve got a pretty slick approach to doing that.”
Pathfinder’s upper stage has a more conical shape, constraining the volume of the payload fairing. Stoke is targeting 2029 for the debut launch of Block 2.
As Ars recently reported, satellite operators are presently in ‘panic mode’ when it comes to launch availability. Stoke can address some of these issues with Nova Pathfinder, but to play a major role in constellations, it will need the larger Block 2 vehicle to compete with SpaceX’s reusable rockets, as well as Blue Origin’s New Glenn, Relativity Space’s Terran R, and Rocket Lab’s Neutron vehicle. Lapsa said he believes there is demand for all of the above.
“The space economy will grow exactly as fast as we can launch rockets,” he said. “It will not grow faster. It cannot grow faster. And there is a lot of pent-up demand for rockets flying. The mismatch between supply of launch and demand is enormous.”