Quote from: Action on 10/08/2025 03:48 pmQuote from: jongoff on 10/08/2025 01:36 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 10/08/2025 12:56 amGoing need close to $1B to get operatonal level. Neutron's $400-500m development is just for Neutron and its new infrastfucture. Using lot of RL's existing infrastructure, eg factories, control centre, ground station and use business stuff. Stoke has build company and all this are stuff from ground up.I've been in their factory several times. They have a small team (~300 last I heard), and have been amazingly capital efficient. I think they actually had a shot of making it into flight operations with their previous raises. I think this gives them more of a warchest, both to give them more chances and time to get to a healthy operational cadence, and to upper stage recovery and reuse. Maybe enough for performance upgrades to Nova. Remember -- while Rocket Lab has a lot of infrastructure they can leverage, Stoke is also working towards a much smaller initial RLV, which may not take as much money to field.Exciting though, I hope they're able to close this round, and continue executing as well as they have.~JonI think it’s prudent, if you have the opportunity, to get ahead of your funding needs. The economic environment is uncertain. Conditions aren’t bad right now, but they could easily turn, making capital harder or more expensive to raise.This isn’t so much about enabling heavy near-term spending, though being well-funded does help you move quickly, it’s about ensuring resilience if funding markets tighten. Having that cushion lets them stay the course and make good long-term decisions even when financing becomes less attractive or less available.Easier to raise money with favourabe terms when they have good cash reserves. This approach has worked well for RL.
Quote from: jongoff on 10/08/2025 01:36 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 10/08/2025 12:56 amGoing need close to $1B to get operatonal level. Neutron's $400-500m development is just for Neutron and its new infrastfucture. Using lot of RL's existing infrastructure, eg factories, control centre, ground station and use business stuff. Stoke has build company and all this are stuff from ground up.I've been in their factory several times. They have a small team (~300 last I heard), and have been amazingly capital efficient. I think they actually had a shot of making it into flight operations with their previous raises. I think this gives them more of a warchest, both to give them more chances and time to get to a healthy operational cadence, and to upper stage recovery and reuse. Maybe enough for performance upgrades to Nova. Remember -- while Rocket Lab has a lot of infrastructure they can leverage, Stoke is also working towards a much smaller initial RLV, which may not take as much money to field.Exciting though, I hope they're able to close this round, and continue executing as well as they have.~JonI think it’s prudent, if you have the opportunity, to get ahead of your funding needs. The economic environment is uncertain. Conditions aren’t bad right now, but they could easily turn, making capital harder or more expensive to raise.This isn’t so much about enabling heavy near-term spending, though being well-funded does help you move quickly, it’s about ensuring resilience if funding markets tighten. Having that cushion lets them stay the course and make good long-term decisions even when financing becomes less attractive or less available.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 10/08/2025 12:56 amGoing need close to $1B to get operatonal level. Neutron's $400-500m development is just for Neutron and its new infrastfucture. Using lot of RL's existing infrastructure, eg factories, control centre, ground station and use business stuff. Stoke has build company and all this are stuff from ground up.I've been in their factory several times. They have a small team (~300 last I heard), and have been amazingly capital efficient. I think they actually had a shot of making it into flight operations with their previous raises. I think this gives them more of a warchest, both to give them more chances and time to get to a healthy operational cadence, and to upper stage recovery and reuse. Maybe enough for performance upgrades to Nova. Remember -- while Rocket Lab has a lot of infrastructure they can leverage, Stoke is also working towards a much smaller initial RLV, which may not take as much money to field.Exciting though, I hope they're able to close this round, and continue executing as well as they have.~Jon
Going need close to $1B to get operatonal level. Neutron's $400-500m development is just for Neutron and its new infrastfucture. Using lot of RL's existing infrastructure, eg factories, control centre, ground station and use business stuff. Stoke has build company and all this are stuff from ground up.
Stoke Space@stoke_space·Big news – we’ve raised $510M in Series D funding!Total funding is now at $990M. This capital will accelerate our fully reusable Nova rocket development and Launch Complex 14 activation at Cape Canaveral.Incredibly grateful to our investment partners and excited to keep the momentum going!
Stoke is working toward a 2026 launch of the medium-lift Nova rocket.
Stoke Space@stoke_spaceWater suppression test at LC-14 complete. ✅ Flowed the diverter and rain birds in a “launch like” scenario.
Deluge Test Video
The Port of Moses Lake confirmed that the loud boom heard this evening north of Moses Lake was part of a carefully controlled test performed by tenant Stoke Space, using inert materials so there would be no chance of danger. The components behaved as expected.
“At approximately 8:50 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21, Stoke Space conducted a planned structural test at our Moses Lake facility as part of our Nova rocket’s qualification program,” Stoke Space Technologies Spokesman John Taylor wrote in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald. “The purpose of the test was to pressurize a propellant tank to its structural margins, eventually reaching its designed failure point – a standard engineering procedure during qualification testing.”[...]“The tank was filled with liquid nitrogen, an inert and non-flammable fluid used to safely simulate the extremely cold temperatures the rocket will experience during flight. The loud sound heard across the area occurred when the tank reached its planned breaking point. Although the noise was louder than expected, the test proceeded as designed, and there was never any danger to our team or to the surrounding community.”
Andy Lapsa@AndyLapsaThis was a planned test to structural limit as part of our structural qualification program. In addition to the multiple prior test objectives, this was the purpose of the “tiny tank”…
Stoke Space@stoke_spaceThe testing continues... 📋 Here, we have our LOX (liquid oxygen) skid flowing nitrogen at fast fill setpoint pressure.
Wait for it... The difference a year makes at our SLC-14 launch site.
Operation Start Date: 07/01/2026Operation End Date: 12/31/2026LV Stage 1 - SuborbitalLV Stage 2 - Orbital
Explanation of the degree to which the information is commercial or financial, or contains a trade secret of privilege: The Confidential Materials contain specific proprietary technical and commercial information relating to the development of Stoke’s Nova launch vehicle that are both commercially sensitive and constitute trade secrets.
The company has begun building flight hardware for the first Nova rocket. The vehicle’s software is maturing. Work is well underway on the development of an automated flight termination system. “Having a team that’s been through this cycle many times, it’s something we started putting attention on very early,” Lapsa said. “It’s on a good path as well.”And yet the final, frenetic months leading to a debut launch are crunch time for any rocket company: first assembly of the full vehicle, first time test-firing it all. Things will inevitably go wrong. The question is how bad will the problems be?For as long as I’ve known Lapsa, he has been cagey about launch dates for Stoke. This is smart because in reality, no one knows. And seasoned industry people (and journalists) know that projected launch dates for new rockets are squishy. The most precise thing Lapsa will say is that Stoke is targeting “next year” for Nova’s debut.The company has a customer for the first flight. If all goes well, its first mission will sail to the asteroid belt. Asteroid mining startup AstroForge has signed on for Nova 1.
@Harry__StrangerLC-14 looks clean and may be getting much closer to supporting Nova testing.
WSJ, citing multiple people familiar with the matter, reported that Altman contacted at least one rocket manufacturer last summer, including 'Stoke Space'. It said proposals included OpenAI investing in Stoke Space to secure a controlling stake, and that the investment size could amount to billions of dollars.[...]Altman's goal is to establish artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in space. Earlier, Bezos also said last month that he would establish AI data centers in space. Altman recently said on a podcast, "Over time, I think many places around the world will be covered with data centers," showing interest in building space data center
Today, the company announces the next chapter in that extraordinary story: Infinite Flight, a deep-space memorial mission to be carried aboard Stoke Space’s Nova rocket, a fully and rapidly reusable medium-lift launch vehicle.Targeted for Q4 2026, Infinite Flight is the second mission in Celestis’ Voyager Service, and will mark only the second commercial deep-space memorial mission in history, both conceived and flown by Celestis.Launching from Stoke’s historic Space Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the very pad that carried astronaut John Glenn into orbit aboard Friendship 7, Infinite Flight bridges past and future. Where Mercury opened the heavens to humankind, Celestis now carries humankind’s memory outward among the planets.Each participant’s memorial capsule, containing a small portion of cremated remains or DNA, will be placed aboard Nova’s upper stage. After reaching orbit, Nova will execute a dedicated engine burn, propelling the Celestis spacecraft beyond Earth’s gravitational influence and into a heliocentric (solar) orbit. There it will remain, voyaging endlessly through deep space, a permanent monument to life, love, and discovery.
Fresh hotfire of Zenith—stepping into gimbal testing with flight-like feedlines and engine layout.
5x sped-up version of the video showing our gimbal-testing more clearly.
AstroForge has signed on for Nova 1...Celestis targeted for Q4 2026... into a heliocentric (solar) orbit.
