US-based Stoke Space Raises $1 Billion to Develop 15-Ton-Class Reusable Rocket

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 8, US commercial space company Stoke Space completed the first close of a $1 billion Series E funding round, bringing its cumulative funding to $2.3 billion. The new capital will be used to advance the first orbital launch of Nova Pathfinder, expand manufacturing and launch capacity, and accelerate development of the higher-capacity, fully reusable Nova Block 2 launch vehicle. Nova Block 2 is designed with a low Earth orbit capacity of 15 tons, with a first flight target of 2029.

This funding round was co-led by Point72 Ventures and Spark Capital, with participation from General Innovation, Glade Brook Capital, US Innovation Technology, Washington Harbour Partners, Woven Capital, Y Combinator, and other new and existing investors. Stoke Space has completed the first close of its $1 billion Series E funding round.

Nova Pathfinder is Stoke Space's first orbital-class launch vehicle. It is currently undergoing full-vehicle integration and qualification, with its first orbital launch planned for the first half of 2027, followed by multiple missions from 2027 to 2028. In addition to commercial payload launches, the vehicle will also validate core technologies required for full recovery of both stages, reentry thermal protection, and rapid reuse.

Nova Block 2 expands capacity beyond Pathfinder, featuring a 5-meter-class fairing. In a fully reusable configuration, it can deliver 15 tons of payload to low Earth orbit and has a geostationary transfer orbit capacity of more than 4 tons. The first stage will be equipped with 14 Zenith engines, twice the 7 engines used on Pathfinder; Zenith uses liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen propellants with a full-flow staged combustion cycle.

The Block 2 second stage continues to use an actively cooled metallic base heat shield system and uses liquid hydrogen to provide cooling during reentry. The new Andromeda second-stage propulsion system will be equipped with 12 independent engines, each corresponding to two thrust chambers, for a total of 24 thrust chambers; in the event of a single engine failure, the system is designed to allow the failed unit to be shut down and the remaining engines to continue the mission. This system increases thrust by more than 5 times compared with the Pathfinder second-stage design, with a designed specific impulse exceeding 440 seconds.

Stoke Space is also expanding its Moses Lake test site in Washington State, increasing the site area from 75 acres to 550 acres for testing engine components, propulsion systems, and complete rocket stages. The launch and recovery facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida will serve both Pathfinder and Block 2. A new payload processing facility has entered the construction phase, some long-lead ground equipment for Block 2 has already been ordered, and an offshore recovery platform is in design and construction.