bluShift Aerospace is an employee-owned American aerospace firm and launch provider based in Brunswick, Maine. It is focused on developing suborbital and small-lift orbital rockets powered by biofuel for the growing smallsat/cubesat launch market. bluShift aims to provide geo-independent agile launch capabilities and has received funding from venture investors, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and NASA's SBIR grant program. Their key technology is the MAREVL engine, and they partner with organizations like Max IQ to offer space education programs.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
bluShift Aerospace produces the Starless Rogue launch platform designed to enable a low barrier to entry for diverse payloads into the suborbital space ecosystem.
A bluShift Aerospace technical adviser was involved three decades ago in work by the American Rocket Company (Amroc) that attempted to develop a launch vehicle using hybrid engines.
bluShift Aerospace launched the Stardust 1.0 rocket on 2021-01-31 from the Loring Commerce Centre in northern Maine.
bluShift Aerospace aims to raise a $650,000 angel round of investment to pursue a larger suborbital vehicle called Stardust 2.0.
All bluShift Aerospace vehicles in the Stardust family will be powered by versions of the hybrid engine tested on the Stardust 1.0 launch.
The hybrid engine tested on Stardust 1.0 uses nitrous oxide as oxidizer and a proprietary bio-derived solid fuel that bluShift Aerospace describes as nontoxic, easy to transport, and producible on farms across America.