A drone’s eye still of Ripley hotfiring to go with the video we shared earlier this week. Have you entered to win our Ripley patch contest? There’s still time—scroll back through our timeline for details.
Ursa Major has quietly closed $100 million in new funding, according to documents viewed by TechCrunch and multiple sources.Funders to the Series D include BlackRock and Space Capital. The funding was reportedly closed last October.The new capital came less than a year after the company closed an $85 million Series C. All told, the company has now raised around $234 million. The company sought the funding at a $400 million pre-money valuation.
How it started How it's goingAt left is our original design of Ripley, then a 35K lbf rocket engine. At right is the current 50K lbf version, which has been through several hotfire tests this year.
What LV is Ripley being used it?.
Who are they building Arroway for and why is DoD funding it. Only potential customer I can think of is ULA and follow on RLV to Vulcan.
Do we consider High-Test Peroxide storable? I mean sure it's relatively storable, in the sense that it's not boiling off constantly, but it is slowly decomposing constantly. It can't just sit in the tank for actual years like nitrogen tetraoxide or the hydrazines, can it?
Quote from: JEF_300 on 05/23/2023 03:47 pmDo we consider High-Test Peroxide storable? I mean sure it's relatively storable, in the sense that it's not boiling off constantly, but it is slowly decomposing constantly. It can't just sit in the tank for actual years like nitrogen tetraoxide or the hydrazines, can it?At high concentrations, like 95% and above, and when kept cool, close to its freezing point (or even actually frozen), then, yes, you can keep it for many years or even decades with basically no decomposition at all. This paper (also attached) mentions on page 8 a set of drums with 90% peroxide kept at 5°C for 17 years, with essentially no decomposition at all; and one drum kept outdoors in Texas for 17 years, where concentration dropped from 90% to 84%.There are of course other considerations, like making the tanks of compatible materials, and before filling the tanks you need to make sure they are clean from various contaminants that can act as catalyzers or reactants. But those are not more onerous than for many other common industrial chemicals.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 05/23/2023 06:08 pmWho are they building Arroway for and why is DoD funding it. Only potential customer I can think of is ULA and follow on RLV to Vulcan.Arroway is around 1/3 the thrust of BE-4 (890kN vs. 2.45MN). So unless a Vulcan follow-up wants to move from two large engines to nine small ones (to facilitate first-stage recovery?), I don't see the point.It's kind of unfortunate for Ursa Major, Arroway happens to be almost the same size as Aeon R, Archimedes, Miranda, and Prometheus. I imagine that Rocket Lab at least would have considered outsourcing the engines if they were commercially available, but they're coming online too late for Neutron.
Quote from: trimeta on 05/23/2023 07:38 pmQuote from: TrevorMonty on 05/23/2023 06:08 pmWho are they building Arroway for and why is DoD funding it. Only potential customer I can think of is ULA and follow on RLV to Vulcan.Arroway is around 1/3 the thrust of BE-4 (890kN vs. 2.45MN). So unless a Vulcan follow-up wants to move from two large engines to nine small ones (to facilitate first-stage recovery?), I don't see the point.It's kind of unfortunate for Ursa Major, Arroway happens to be almost the same size as Aeon R, Archimedes, Miranda, and Prometheus. I imagine that Rocket Lab at least would have considered outsourcing the engines if they were commercially available, but they're coming online too late for Neutron.They must have customer to justify development cost of this engine. For ULA it would need to be new RLV but don't assume another F9R clone. There were slides of LV with 2 engine pods attached to a booster tank.
