Tag: New Frontier Aerospace

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3D-printed rocket engine gets tested at New Frontier

Mjölnir rocket engine hot-fire test
Flames stream from New Frontier Aerospace’s Mjölnir rocket engine during a hot-fire test. (NFA Photo)

Kent, Wash.-based New Frontier Aerospace says it has put its 3D-printed Mjölnir rocket engine through a series of successful hot-fire tests, in preparation for an initial flight test of a hypersonic drone that could take place as early as next year.

Mjölnir is named after the hammer that was wielded by Thor in Norse mythology (and in Marvel movies). The first job for this hammer would be to propel an uncrewed aerial system called Pathfinder for a series of hovering tests, currently set for 2026. Eventually, Pathfinder could be used for weapons testing or for suborbital point-to-point cargo transport.

The engine is also slated for use on New Frontier’s Bifröst orbital transfer spacecraft, which is due to fly into space by 2027. (Continuing with the Norse mythology theme, Bifröst was the rainbow bridge that connected the realm of humans with the realm of the gods.) Mjölnir, which is fueled by liquid natural gas, will also be marketed to other aerospace ventures as a standalone product.

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NASA awards millions to small businesses for space tech

Illustration: New Frontier's Bifrost orbital transfer spacecraft
Artwork shows two views of the Bifröst orbital transfer spacecraft. (New Frontier Aerospace Illustration)

Two Washington state aerospace companies — Tukwila-based New Frontier Aerospace and Spanaway-based HyBird Space Systems — are among 95 ventures that have won project development funding from NASA through its Small Business Innovation Research program.

The Phase II SBIR grants are valued at up to $850,000 each. These grants follow up on earlier Phase I funding for the projects, and will be distributed over a 24-month contract period.

Each small business was also eligible to apply for up to $50,000 in funding from NASA’s Technical and Business Assistance program to help the companies identify new market opportunities and work on their commercialization strategies.

The total outlay for 107 projects comes to $93.5 million, NASA said.

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New Frontier bridges past and future of hypersonic flight

David Gregory and Bill Bruner at New Frontier Aerospace HQ
New Frontier Aerospace’s chief operating officer, David Gregory (at left), lays his hand on the company’s Mjölnir rocket engine while CEO Bill Bruner holds a 3D-printed model of the company’s hypersonic rocket ship. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

TUKWILA, Wash. — Thirty years after the first flight of a pioneering reusable rocket ship known as the Delta Clipper Experimental, or DC-X, a commercial venture is aiming to bring its legacy to life in the Seattle area. Even its name — New Frontier Aerospace — is a callback to the earlier days of America’s space effort, going back to John F. Kennedy references to outer space as part of his “New Frontier.”

“We’re sort of like the grandson of DC-X,” New Frontier’s co-founder and CEO, Bill “Burners” Bruner, said at the startup’s headquarters in Tukwila.

But he doesn’t see New Frontier as a space launch venture in the strictest sense of the word. “We’re not doing the squat, or cylindrical or conical shapes that we were talking about in those days,” he told me. “We’re proposing to combine the hypersonic research of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and some of those geometries, with reusable rockets to attack the trillion-dollar air transportation market instead of the $11 billion space launch market.”

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Small businesses win NASA’s support for space tech

Illustration: Power beaming system at work in lunar crater
One grant would support the development of a lunar power distribution system. (NASA Illustration)

NASA’s latest round of small-business grants will support aerospace-related technologies ranging from a new kind of spacecraft docking mechanism to a power beaming system suitable for use on the moon.

Those are just two of the projects receiving Phase I grants from the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, also known as SBIR and STTR.

The grants will go to 300 proposals from 249 small businesses and 39 research institutions across the country. Each proposal team will receive $150,000 to establish the merit and feasibility of their innovations, representing a total agency investment of $45 million. SBIR Phase I funding supports projects for six months, while the STTR Phase I funding is meant to cover 13 months of work.

“NASA has a key role to play in growing the aerospace ecosystem in our country,” Jenn Gustetic, director of early stage innovation and partnerships for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release. “Through these early-stage small business awards, we are inviting more innovators into this growing arena and helping them mature their technologies for not only NASA’s use, but for commercial impact.”

Gynelle Steele, deputy program executive for NASA’s SBIR/STTR program, said the grants are meant to “nurture pioneering ideas from a diversity of innovators across the country that may not attract the initial private industry funding needed to thrive.”

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