A Brunswick-based aerospace company hopes to clear an important hurdle in the next few months when it tries to conduct a 60-second test burn of a rocket engine on the ground.
bluShift Aerospace recently secured half of the $1 million in funding that it needs for the test, which it hopes to complete in April, according to CEO Sascha Deri. The company must secure the remaining funds and pass that ground test before it can demonstrate that its newest rocket is capable of commercial flight.
Since 2016, bluShift has been building and working on launching rockets that are powered with environmentally friendly biofuels. Its eventual goal is to carry small experiments and satellites to space.
The test in April will be on a large, heavy-duty engine at bluShift’s test site in Brunswick Landing. While the startup has only managed to run an engine for 20 seconds until now, the new one will need to run for a minute to reach space, Deri said. If bluShift succeeds, it can start work on a lightweight version of the engine and begin testing launches.
The test burn will be conducted under a concrete bunker for safety, Deri noted.
Inside the company’s new office sit the deconstructed remains of the last rocket it tested, which was 20 feet long. The next rocket is going to be 50 feet long, and the company must first conduct a low-altitude launch before demonstrating that it can reach space, Deri said.
To push ahead with its testing, the startup is also continually trying to raise additional money, including the remainder of the $1 million for the April test and another $3 million for the eventual launches.
The company’s previous funding has totaled $3 million. It recently had to furlough its seven employees when that money ran out, but bluShift is now able to bring them back after the recent investment from serial entrepreneur Brady Brim-DeForest through his firm Late Stage Capital, according to Deri. That funding will also allow bluShift to hire more employees in the coming months.
“People don’t even think of Maine as a place to invest in,” Deri said. “That’s actually been one of our biggest challenges, is being taken seriously as a space company.”
There are three projects that could get a ride on the rocket that bluShift is now developing, including a University of Maine professor’s experiments with water purification, an experiment from Southwest Research Institute to simulate lunar gravity, and the one Deri is most excited about: student experiments from the education-oriented company MaxIQ Space.
One of bluShift’s potential launch sites is Down East, two nautical miles off the coast of Steuben, Deri said. That far away, the noise shouldn’t bother people or wildlife, but launching over the ocean could prove tricky if anything goes wrong, so the site of the low-altitude test is still to be determined, Deri said.
The timeline for the rocket tests depends on the success of bluShift’s fundraising and technology, Deri said, but he hopes to do the low-altitude launch before the end of this year. By the middle of 2025, Deri hopes the new rocket will go to space.
“I’m hopeful that we will demonstrate that Mainers are capable of many things,” Deri said. “Yes, we’re capable of doing forestry products. We’re capable of doing a lot of neat things in the marine industry and agriculture. We make wonderful beer. But we are very capable of leaning-in in the high-tech industry.”
