> Epic Aerospace: Epic is manufacturing inexpensive space tugs to deliver satellites into geostationary orbit. The 21-year-old founder has been building rockets since he was 16, and is now managing a team of seven aerospace engineers with Epic Aerospace. The founder describes propulsion as one of the biggest problems for satellite companies, in that it can take up to two years to qualify new satellite systems and can cost up to $30 million. The problem they’re solving is moving satellites from low Earth orbit directly into geostationary orbit. Epic’s tug is half the cost of the competition and is reusable. They’re currently working with Satellogic, and chasing what the founder says is a $3.1 billion geostationary insertion market.
So, uh... what's the big propulsion breakthrough? They have no website (well, they have this: http://epic-aerospace.com/) and I can't find any search results. They don't list the founder's name, and the only person I can find or other mention other than the ycombinator article is this: https://github.com/OmarBessa
I agree it's a big market, and it costs a lot more than $30 million to prove out a new propulsion system, especially one that can repeatedly take satellites from LEO to GEO.
If it's some reusable tug, I'm guessing it's able to be refueled in orbit? That'd be pretty epic indeed, because I'm not sure of anyone doing that these days. Though transferring fuel in zero g is a real interesting problem.
So, uh... what's the big propulsion breakthrough? They have no website (well, they have this: http://epic-aerospace.com/) and I can't find any search results. They don't list the founder's name, and the only person I can find or other mention other than the ycombinator article is this: https://github.com/OmarBessa
I agree it's a big market, and it costs a lot more than $30 million to prove out a new propulsion system, especially one that can repeatedly take satellites from LEO to GEO.
If it's some reusable tug, I'm guessing it's able to be refueled in orbit? That'd be pretty epic indeed, because I'm not sure of anyone doing that these days. Though transferring fuel in zero g is a real interesting problem.