Silicon Valley’s most successful incubator is doubling down on space tugs
Summary
Elon Musk may want to retire on Mars and SpaceX may enable him to do so, but whats significant about the firm is that it earns money providing space services in demand right now.TransAstra founder and CEO Joel Sercel will, in theory, perform a similar sleight of hand: When its first spacecraft, dubbed Worker Bee, reaches orbit in 2023, it will show off a novel thruster technology called solar thermal propulsion, and earn money by precisely positioning satellites launched on larger rockets. For hard tech companies, the bigger question is usually, can you make it?Everything that happens in space depends on propulsion: What makes the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket great is its Merlin engine; future rockets like Blue Origins New Glenn or SpaceXs Starship will rise and fall on their own next generation thrusters.Sercel says that what sets TransAstra apart is its solar thermal propulsion system, which sits in a sweet spot: More powerful than systems which convert solar power to electricity, and cheaper and more flexible than tugs using traditional chemical rockets.The secret sauce for TransAstra almost seems too good to be true: A solar-powered engine capable of using almost any volatile chemical as fuel. The technology promises incredible efficiencyjust focus sunlight on a fuel as universal as water, and point the resulting steam in the opposite direction you wish to go.It was dreamed up in the 1950s by Krafft Ehricke, a German who had emerged from the Nazi rocket programs of World War II and emigrated to America in the US effort to scoop up scientists before the Soviet Union. Ehricke worked for NASA and then US defense contractors, dreaming up advanced space tech to carry humans into the cosmos.NASA has considered solar thermal propulsion for its spacecraft, but ruled out pursuing the idea seriously at the turn of the century. Larger and cheaper modern rockets have, arguably, changed this calculus.Derleth, the NASA official, says Sercels team developed novel approaches to building this kind of engine, using inflatable, folded solar focusing lens and a special honeycomb ceramic to heat propellants.