Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Maine firm successful­ly launches prototype rocket

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BRUNSWICK, Maine — A Maine company developing a rocket to propel small satellites into space passed its first major test Sunday.

Brunswick-based bluShift Aerospace launched a 20-foot prototype rocket, hitting an altitude of a little more than 4,000 feet in a first run designed to test the rocket’s propulsion and control systems.

It carried a science project by Falmouth High School students that measured flight metrics like barometric pressure, a special alloy that’s being tested by a New Hampshire company and a Dutch dessert called stroopwafe­l, in an homage to its Amsterdam-based parent company. Launch organizers said the items were included to demonstrat­e the inclusion of a small payload.

The company, which launched from the northern Maine town of Limestone, the site of the former Loring Air Force Base, is one of dozens racing to find affordable ways to launch so-called nano satellites. Some of them, called Cube-Sats, can be as small as 10 centimeter­s by 10 centimeter­s.

BluShift CEO Sascha Deri said the company is banking on becoming a quicker, more efficient way of transporti­ng satellites to space.

“There’s a lot of companies out there that are like freight trains to space,” Mr. Deri said. “We are going to be the Uber to space, where we carry one, two or three payloads profitably.”

Another aspect that makes bluShift’s rocket different is its hybrid propulsion system.

It relies on a solid fuel and a liquid oxidizer passing either through or around the solid fuel; the result is a simpler, more affordable system than a liquid fuel-only rocket, said spokespers­on Seth Lockman.

The fuel is a proprietar­y biofuel blend sourced from farms, Mr. Deri said.

“It’s a very nontoxic fuel. I like to say that I could give it to either one of my little daughters. Nothing bad would happen to them, I swear,” he said. “So it’s very much nontoxic. It’s carbon neutral.”

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