Author Topic: Altius Space Machines Thread  (Read 326123 times)

Offline jongoff

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Altius Space Machines Thread
« on: 09/17/2010 09:21 am »
Hey guys,
As some of you noticed on the Masten Space Systems thread, I left Masten a few months ago to found my own company.  I was going to put-off starting an ASM thread until we had something more visible progress-wise to talk about (like signed contracts, technical work we're doing, etc), but for those who are curious, here's a quick intro to what we're trying to accomplish:

http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/09/the-business-of-altius-space-machines/

I'm going to be on the road a lot over the next two weeks, but I'll try to pop in here occasionally in case people have questions.

~Jon

Offline HappyMartian

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #1 on: 09/17/2010 01:14 pm »
Hey guys,
As some of you noticed on the Masten Space Systems thread, I left Masten a few months ago to found my own company. 

~Jon

Congratulations! I wish you and your company the best of luck!

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Offline Chris Bergin

Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #2 on: 09/17/2010 01:37 pm »
Good luck with this Jon and thanks for starting a thread here about it.

Great name too :)
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Offline Lee Jay

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #3 on: 09/17/2010 01:48 pm »
Hey guys,
As some of you noticed on the Masten Space Systems thread, I left Masten a few months ago to found my own company.  I was going to put-off starting an ASM thread until we had something more visible progress-wise to talk about (like signed contracts, technical work we're doing, etc), but for those who are curious, here's a quick intro to what we're trying to accomplish:

http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/09/the-business-of-altius-space-machines/

I'm going to be on the road a lot over the next two weeks, but I'll try to pop in here occasionally in case people have questions.

~Jon

Colorado, huh?  I'm in Colorado.  Maybe I can get some pictures or video when you are up and running.

I took this picture from my back yard, at over 20 miles away.  ;-)

http://photos.imageevent.com/sipphoto/samplepictures/20D28316-2.jpg

Offline jimvela

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #4 on: 09/17/2010 02:21 pm »
Colorado, huh?  I'm in Colorado.  Maybe I can get some pictures or video when you are up and running.

Yea, it is always a good day here in Colorado when any kind of startup comes to town- and seeing a space startup in the neighborhood always makes me pretty happy.

Offline jongoff

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #5 on: 09/17/2010 03:27 pm »
Colorado, huh?  I'm in Colorado.  Maybe I can get some pictures or video when you are up and running.

Yea, it is always a good day here in Colorado when any kind of startup comes to town- and seeing a space startup in the neighborhood always makes me pretty happy.

And Louisville's just a hop, skip, and a jump down the road from where you're at.  I'll actually be back out there in about a week to bring my family out to check the area out (and do a bunch of business logistics meetings).

~Jon

Offline jongoff

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #6 on: 09/17/2010 03:31 pm »
Hey guys,
As some of you noticed on the Masten Space Systems thread, I left Masten a few months ago to found my own company.  I was going to put-off starting an ASM thread until we had something more visible progress-wise to talk about (like signed contracts, technical work we're doing, etc), but for those who are curious, here's a quick intro to what we're trying to accomplish:

http://selenianboondocks.com/2010/09/the-business-of-altius-space-machines/

I'm going to be on the road a lot over the next two weeks, but I'll try to pop in here occasionally in case people have questions.

~Jon

Colorado, huh?  I'm in Colorado.  Maybe I can get some pictures or video when you are up and running.

Cool.  It'll be quite a while before a) we have our shop up and running enough to have much to show, and b) before we have any cool space machines to show off.  But once we're actually physically relocated to Colorado, we're definitely up for visitors.

We may at some point have a customer who makes us sign in blood that we absolutely won't let people see or hear about what we're doing for them, but until that point, my intention is to be just as open as MSS has been.

~Jon

Offline Lee Jay

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #7 on: 09/17/2010 05:06 pm »
Cool.  I work just a few minutes South of Louisville, at the National Wind Technology Center.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=39.910477,-105.228338&spn=0.014994,0.020256&t=h&z=16

Offline jongoff

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #8 on: 09/17/2010 06:29 pm »
BTW, there isn't anything real there yet, but I figured an updates thread like this would be lacking if I didn't include a url to the official company website:

http://www.altius-space.com

Offline Zond

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #9 on: 09/17/2010 06:51 pm »
How are you planning to avoid becoming SBIR/pork shop nr. 859396?

Offline jongoff

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #10 on: 09/17/2010 07:47 pm »
How are you planning to avoid becoming SBIR/pork shop nr. 859396?

I'll go into that more later, but short answer is that I have a good enough team that I'm pulling together, that I'm pretty confident we can raise money for one or more of these projects.  The key is picking stuff that doesn't need $20M+ to commercialize.  If you have an excellent team, a good business and technology case, and you aren't looking for insane amounts of money, there's a lot more of a chance of closing financing.

But for the near term, yes we'll be going after SBIRs, etc.  Until we have together enough of a team and enough of a reputation to go after bigger fish.

~Jon

Offline mlorrey

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #11 on: 09/17/2010 11:50 pm »
So any particular projects you going to focus on?
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Offline simonbp

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #12 on: 09/18/2010 10:32 pm »
The glideforward idea sounds neat; what size carrier aircraft would you need? (I'm guessing less than an L-1101 and more than a Piper Cherokee...)

Online docmordrid

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #13 on: 09/19/2010 02:09 am »
WK2?  Seems to be at the upper end of that range.  WK1 smaller & has also done the job rather well.  So has Proteus (tSpace IIRC)
DM

Offline jongoff

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #14 on: 09/21/2010 05:53 am »
The glideforward idea sounds neat; what size carrier aircraft would you need? (I'm guessing less than an L-1101 and more than a Piper Cherokee...)

For nanosat launch, with just the first stage reusable, there are several options we've looked at.  Depending on assumptions we've looked at a range of vehicles between 1000-3500kg GLOW, so there are several aircraft options, ranging from some Scaled planes like WK1 or Proteus, to some modified UAVs or UAV-converted aircraft. 

For a fully-reusable launcher like what we'd like to evolve to (something in the 125-250kg payload class), you're looking at closer to 9000kg GLOW, so the options start narrowing quite a bit.

~Jon
« Last Edit: 09/21/2010 05:55 am by jongoff »

Offline jongoff

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #15 on: 09/30/2010 04:05 pm »
Small FYI, Altius signed its first contract last night.  I'll need to get clearance from the company we're contracting for before I can share details, but I should hopefully have something to say by early next week.

~Jon

Offline neilh

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #16 on: 09/30/2010 09:55 pm »
Small FYI, Altius signed its first contract last night.  I'll need to get clearance from the company we're contracting for before I can share details, but I should hopefully have something to say by early next week.

~Jon

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Offline wjbarnett

Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #17 on: 10/01/2010 01:25 am »
Excellent Jon!  Great to have an order backlog! Now you just have to deliver!
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Offline Lars_J

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #18 on: 10/01/2010 04:39 pm »
Good news! Now where is the scoop? :D

Offline jimvela

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Re: Altius Space Machines Thread
« Reply #19 on: 10/01/2010 05:02 pm »
Small FYI, Altius signed its first contract last night.  I'll need to get clearance from the company we're contracting for before I can share details, but I should hopefully have something to say by early next week.

~Jon

Congratulations, Jon!  Have  you settled into your new diggs yet?

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