Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is making his first investment in a space company, backing the satellite propulsion company Phase Four’s latest fundraising round.
Phase Four plans to raise at least $10M in a Series C round which is expected to close in the coming weeks; a special purpose vehicle organized by Bridenstine’s Artemis Group will contribute $2M to the deal.
“As the NASA administrator, I had a lot of challenges with traditional Hall thrusters,” Bridenstine told Payload. “When I came across this company that’s doing electric propulsion, they can provide as much thrust and as much efficiency as a traditional hall thruster, but do it with a variety of different fuels, I got excited about it.”
Engine fuel: Phase Four CEO Steve Kiser said the company will use the funding to manufacture Valkyrie, an electric thruster that will be used in new LEO spacecraft like those being built for the US military’s proliferated satellite networks.
Kiser also said the funds wiukd be used to develop company’s monopropellant system, which can run electric thrusters or a chemical engine with the same fuel, with hopes that the company will start taking orders for it in the first quarter of 2025.
The ability to use a single fuel to improve the efficiency of overall propulsion is a “game changer,” according to Bridenstine.
Boomer sooner: As an Oklahoma Congressman, Bridenstine backed creating the Space Force and said fuel flexibility is geopolitically vital. Most electric thrusters rely on fuels like krypton and xenon, supplies of which are controlled by China and Russia. Rising costs of the noble gasses could cramp US spacecraft plans.
“We’re out building these proliferated LEO constellations, in large part to complicate the targeting solution for the enemy, and at the same time, we’re giving the enemy control over the fuel supply of those satellites,” Bridenstine said. “I think that’s a mistake for our country,”
One potential fuel Phase Four is studying is iodine—which in the US is sourced from, you guessed it, Oklahoma.
