Fuel up (9/2/22)

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In today's newsletter:⛽ GEO gas pump✈️ yuri + spaceplane📚 Weekend recs

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Orbit Fab Announces In-Space Refueling Prices

Prices at the pump may have cooled off and started coming down here on Earth, but topping off the tank in geostationary (GEO) orbit will still cost you a pretty penny.

How much?

Orbit Fab has announced a flat rate price of $20M for hydrazine fill-ups in GEO, which it aims to start in 2025. While we had to make the gas prices joke up top, bear in mind that A) everything in space is expensive and B) operating in GEO is especially pricey, with spacecraft that cost hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.

And that’s how you could back into the $20M price, and why the pitch starts to make sense. Rather than let spacecraft run out of fuel and have to go through the rigamarole of launching a replacement, Orbit Fab is offering to refill fuel and squeeze more life (and $$$) out of the satellite.

Orbit Fab will sell up to 100 kg of hydrazine for $20M a pop in a special orbit above GEO. In selecting where to place its first tankers and what fuel to offer, Orbit Fab is “following the customers,” CEO Daniel Faber told Payload. The company has contracts with both government and commercial entities.

RAFTI

Orbit Fab is selling RAFTI, its fueling port, to customers today. Payload saw it in person a couple weeks ago...and it's tiny.

RAFTI has "been adopted and designed into almost 250 spacecraft,” Faber said. Those spacecraft will be able to refuel directly at an Orbit Fab depot. Alternatively, RAFTI-equipped spacecraft operators can call for an Orbit Fab fuel shuttle, which will take the goods directly to them.

• Note that these 250 spacecraft don't all have refueling purchase orders. Their operators are just thinking proactively and giving themselves the "optionality" for refueling, Faber said.

• Orbit Fab has named one refueling customer, Astroscale US, which is developing robotic satellite servicers and life extension vehicles. Under the terms of the initial deal, Orbit Fab will supply Astroscale’s fleet of LEXI servicers with one metric ton (1,000 kg) of fuel.

Missing the port?

For spacecraft that need modifications on-orbit for refueling, operators will have to call one of the many “tow truck” operators, Faber said. He counts ~110 companies working on these tow trucks, a broad term that encompasses space tugs, orbital transfer vehicles, satellite servicers/inspectors, etc.

Transparency

By publishing pricing details, Faber said Orbit Fab is sending a clear signal to the market and helping companies build the cost of refueling into financial models and business plans. The Colorado startup is taking a page out the SpaceX playbook—years ago, the launcher kicked off the then-unprecedented practice of transparently posting its prices online, rather than making customers go through multiple rounds of sales calls.

“I’m a firm believer that that’s one of the frictions in the industry that we have to get away from,” Faber said. “Everything gets so much easier when there’s transparency.” The company has started with hydrazine/GEO pricing because A) the fuel is the most popular with Orbit Fab’s customers and B) “geostationary orbit is effectively a single inclination and a single altitude,” making it conducive to standard pricing.

But the startup is also thinking through custom pricing plans for refueling services in LEO, and will have more to say on that front soon.

yuri yeets to space...soon

yuri’s ScienceTaxi will fly to the ISS on Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser in 2024, the companies recently announced.

Confused?

OK, OK…we’ll break it down piece by piece.

1. Founded in 2019, yuri (the lower-case Y being the company’s preference) is developing the ScienceTaxi incubator for cost-effective access to microgravity research opportunities.

2. The German space biotech startup has raised $4.3M to date, with the company extending its seed round in July.

3. In August, yuri signed an LoI with The Exploration Company for a demo flight on Nyx, a reusable robotic spacecraft in development, in 2024.

Now, yuri’s also hitching a ride to space aboard Dream Chaser, a reusable spaceplane that is an integral pillar of Sierra’s end-to-end “platform” in LEO.

ScienceTaxi specs:

• Able to host up to 38 individual experiment units (dubbed “ScienceShells”).

• Offers temperature control, real-time data collection, and full automation (the vessel is uncrewed).

• Equipped with a centrifuge, allowing experiments to be conducted with Earth, Moon, or Mars gravity as a reference.

What they’re saying

“Controlled microgravity research is now possible on any orbital or suborbital platform thanks to our agreement with yuri and its ScienceTaxi and ScienceShells,” said Sierra Space SVP and GM of space destinations Neeraj Gupta.

“Scientists around the world can secure their research slots on ScienceTaxi with a variety of different experiments possible, such as cell, plants, and crystal experiments,” explained yuri co-CEO Mark Kugel.

What’s next? The first Sierra Space Dream Chaser spaceplane is currently scheduled to be launched aboard the second ULA Vulcan flight to the ISS in early 2023.

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