
TransAstra
Operator of spacecrafts. Spacecraft manufacturing.
segment:
Mining in deep space. Hardware for spacecrafts.
company website:
https://www.transastracorp.com/
ownership_type:
private
country of registration:
USA
Trans Astronautica is a startup founded by Joel Sercel in 2015, but till the beginning of 2020, there hasn’t been any progress.
During 2015- 2020, Joel Sercel held the position of Chief Technology Officer at Momentus and, respectively, took part in the development of the engine on the water, the successful testing of which the company reported in 2019. As it turned out, the company falsified the results of engine testing. Ultimately, after the Momentus, Joel Sercel is 2020 focused on the development of a similar business (focused on in-orbit services).
TransAstra’s business plan starts with the transportation of satellites to orbit and extends to refueling rockets with resources harvested from asteroids.
The company’s core technology is Omnivore, a solar thermal rocket engine designed to run on water, ammonia, hydrogen, and other fuel sources. Based on Omnivore engine, the company offers a Worker bee – a family of orbital logistics flight systems that will service LEO, MEO, GEO, HEO, and lunar orbits. The Demonstration mission is planned for LEO in 2023.
The Worker Bee space tugs are one element of TransAstra’s Apis family of flight systems. Apis would be a fleet of OTVs and mining vehicles that will supply and service cislunar orbits. The Apis family also includes a 250-kilogram Mini Bee technology demonstrator and a larger Honey Bee and Queen Bee spacecraft designed to harvest propellant from asteroids.
The company’s technology development is supported by grants from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.
As of Kokorich and Sercel ties, the latter spent a year in Momentus in 2019 and presided over the development of several important patents covering more than 70 innovations, grew the engineering team from five to 50, and planned to use Momentus’ Vigoride space tug to Demonstrate TransAstra’s mining technologies, but left the company soon and continued his operations in TransAstra.
1. Lunar Mining Outpost, Sutter Asteroid Survey, Mini Bee Asteroid Mining Demonstration – NASA project.
NASA
1. Blue Origin,
2. Honeybee Robotics,
3. NASA
2022 Smallsat show
$3M from NASA
Dauria, Destinus, SteamJet Space, Astro digital, Momentus, ExactFarming, Avant space
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