SAN FRANCISCO – Southern California startup General Galactic plans to launch a 500-kilogram satellite later this year to demonstrate a new multimode propulsion system.
As early as October, General Galactic plans to test the Genesis platform, which combines chemical and electric engines, when the Trinity mission reaches low Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Transporter 18 rideshare.
“While we are not a propulsion company in the sense that we are trying to sell propulsion systems, our propulsion technology will enable a wide range of missions over the next few years,” said General Galactic Chief Executive Officer Halen Mattison. space news. “It is based entirely on water-to-water electrolysis and is significantly more efficient than many other options on the market.”
Mattison, a former SpaceX engineer, and Luke Neise, a former Varda Space Industries engineer, founded General Gaoptic in El Segundo, California, in 2023 with a grand vision.
“We want to become a large-scale operator in the space sector, effectively functioning like a galactic energy and logistics company,” Mattison said. “The same electrolyzer technology that we are demonstrating for the first time at Trinity will form the building blocks of the propellant factories we want to deploy to the Moon and eventually Mars, enabling refueling operations not only for us but also for launch companies and others who want to operate in that field.”
quick maneuverability
General Galactic has raised about $10 million to date to develop its water propulsion system, which is scheduled to launch in October on a satellite provided by an unnamed partner. The Genesis platform is designed to improve satellite maneuverability with chemical engines for quick maneuvers and Hall thrusters for long burn times.
“This will be the most agile and most capable spacecraft architecture ever put into service,” Mattison said. “So what the Space Force calls sustained maneuver, quick maneuverability”
Through Trinity and subsequent missions, General Galactic intends to demonstrate maneuverability in a way that will capture the attention of professional and amateur satellite trackers.
“We not only make changes from a business development perspective, but we execute operations and operations in ways that observers and adversaries may take note of,” Mattison said. “Virtually every space object and launch is tracked. There is a massive race to create more maneuverable, more capable spacecraft.”
Sis-Moon Space and Beyond
General Galactic is meeting with commercial, civilian and military customers ahead of Trinity’s launch. Beyond Trinity, General Galactic plans to send satellites to mid-Earth and geostationary orbit, “to cis-lunar space, and ideally beyond,” Mattison said. “We want to make sure we’re building a platform that can support all of that.”
The water electrolysis propulsion system has been spaceflight tested. NASA’s four satellite polarimeters that integrate the corona and heliosphere (punchThe mission, scheduled to launch in 2025, will be equipped with thrusters that split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis. And Tethers Unlimited is water electrolysis thruster called Hydros C At the 2021 NASA Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator CubeSat.
Mattison said Genesis is designed to provide “higher specific impulse” than previous generations and be easier to manufacture.
“We design the electrolyzer completely in-house to support higher production capacity,” Mattison said. “We’re doing what we need to do to scale this into something that will further enable the huge demand in missions that we’re seeing.”
long term potential
General galactic engineers chose water-fueled thrusters due to their current and long-term potential.
“In the short term, we will provide innovative capabilities to move things in space,” Mattison said. “As soon as we have the ability to source water outside of Earth’s gravity, we will have a new baseline for how human activities take place extraterrestrial.
Eventually, water for Genesis’ engines could come from on-site sources like lunar ice.