Phantom Space Corporation, a space applications company, has an agreement to purchase more than 200 rocket engines from Ursa Major, an American, independent, pure-play, rocket propulsion company.
The order includes Ursa Major’s 5,000-Pound Thrust Hadley engines and the new 50,000-pound thrust Ripley engines. By using Ursa Major’s Hadley engines, Phantom’s Daytona rocket is slated for orbital launch in 2023, just three years after Phantom Space was formed. Under the terms of the agreement, Ursa Major will supply hundreds of their Hadley engines in different configurations that include ground test and upper-stage vacuum variants, as well as numerous Ripley engines for planned upgrades to the Daytona vehicle.
Phantom’s agreement with Ursa Major is emblematic of a new way to access space quickly, affordably and reliably and breaks from the long-established process of either purchasing Russian or Ukrainian engines that are no longer available, or building engines in-house at great expense and program risk. With this deal, Phantom and Ursa Major will add critical launch capacity to the market at a time when several record-sized orders for launch vehicles have appropriated available launch capacity over the next decade.
Phantom will use the 5,000-lbf Hadley and the 50,000-lbf Ripley in launch configurations optimized for cost, performance, time-to-market, and reliability. The first iteration of Daytona will have nine Hadley engines for its first stage and a single Hadley for its upper stage. An upgraded Daytona will debut in 2024 using a single Ripley engine on the first stage with a Hadley engine for the upper stage. The larger Laguna rocket, set for 2025, will be powered by a combination of Ripley and Hadley engines to increase the mass performance of the vehicle.
Ursa Major designs, tests, and manufactures its engines from its state-of-the-art facility in Berthoud, Colorado, using market-leading technology in computer-aided design, 3D printing, and proprietary alloys. To date, Ursa Major engines have accumulated more than 35,000 seconds of run-time, more than a typical engine is tested prior to first flight.
Phantom’s current, two-stage, Daytona launch vehicle transports satellites up to 450 kg. in mass into Earth’s orbit and is powered exclusively by Ursa Major engines. Phantom has already taken delivery of its first batch of Ursa Major Hadley engines and, this summer, Phantom will integrate them with Daytona for a hot-fire test at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Phantom is developing new satellite launch capabilities at a fraction of the cost of larger providers by leveraging existing supply chains and mass-production technology. While the company’s initial focus is providing small-launch transportation for customers’ satellites, it also designs and builds satellites and satellite constellations to customers’ specifications using its own proprietary satellite designs.
Phantom is also developing “Phantom Cloud,” a data backhaul network for orbiting satellites to transmit satellite imaging and other data to the Earth in near real-time. Phantom is also designing, building, and launching a 72-satellite constellation to support various IoT applications for Ingenu Inc. Phantom was selected by NASA to provide launch services to the agency’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) missions.
Ursa Major focuses solely on propulsion to lower the cost and risks of the most expensive, time-consuming and risky aspect of space launch. The company houses its engineering, manufacturing and testing functions at the same 90-acre facility, resulting in higher-performing engines produced quickly and at a lower cost. Unlike other propulsion systems, Ursa Major engines can be used on multiple vehicles and for various use cases, creating efficiencies that help customers get to launch three times faster without relying on foreign-made technology or incurring the high cost of building engines in-house.
“Phantom’s strategy leverages a mature U.S.-only supply chain to deliver the lowest cost US built small launch vehicle on the market,” said Jim Cantrell, CEO of Phantom Space. “Ursa Major is a core component of this strategy with flight-ready, reliable, high-performance engines that are configurable for not only our workhorse Daytona and Laguna launch vehicles but also a family of enhanced future launch configurations. Ursa Major’s combination of affordability and a ‘get it done’ attitude has made them a complete pleasure to work with.”
“Together, Ursa Major and Phantom Space are proving to satellite operators, government partners, and the rest of the industry that they’re no longer stymied by outdated, and now unavailable, rocket engines,” said Joe Laurienti, founder and CEO of Ursa Major. “We invite the U.S. space industry to reimagine their programs with the revolutionary assumption that they have virtually on-demand access to domestically made, high-performing, affordable, and reliable propulsion.”
Founded by inventors and entrepreneurs Jim Cantrell, Michael D’Angelo, and Michal Prywata, Phantom Space Corporation is a space applications company applying mass production to launch vehicles and satellites to create low-cost and accessible space applications. Phantom’s vision is to become the “Henry Ford of Space” by lowering the cost, schedule, and technology access barriers to space through mass manufacturing of launch vehicles and satellites. A United States controlled and operated enterprise, Phantom is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, with multiple launch operations centers.
Ursa Major is America’s only independent pure-play rocket propulsion company, bringing high-performance, oxygen-rich staged combustion engines to market for space launch and hypersonic applications. Ursa Major customers, ranging from “New Space” startups to enterprise-level aerospace leaders and the U.S. government, get to launch faster, more reliably, and cost-effectively. The company employs the most sought-after engineers from top space programs and universities and is backed by world-class investors including XN and Explorer 1 Fund. Headquartered in Berthoud, Colorado, Ursa Major was named one of the best places to work by Built in Colorado two years in a row.
