BluShift Aerospace (sometimes stylized as bluShift Aerospace) is an employee-owned American aerospace firm based in Brunswick, Maine. Targeting the growing smallsat and cubesat launch markets, bluShift is developing suborbital sounding rockets and small-lift orbital rockets which will be launched from a proposed new spaceport in Maine. The company has received primary funding from NASAs SBIR grant program, the National Science Foundations I-Corps grant program, the Maine Technology Institute, and the Maine Space Grant Consortium. The company has active operations at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station and Loring Air Force Base.
History
bluShift Aerospace was founded on the vision of rockets powered by a bio-derived fuel, making them safer for handlers and the environment. This new propulsion technology will allow bluShift to offer cost-competitive rideshares for small numbers of cubesats at a time, to client-preferred orbits, with low wait times to launch. All of their vehicles currently in development will use their proprietary biofuel and liquid nitrous oxide as propellants in a hybrid rocket engine, with the size and number of engines scaling for different sized rockets.
Timeline
In mid-2013, brothers Sascha and Justin Deri discovered an organic substance on Justin's farm in Maine; they began testing the substance as a potential rocket fuel. In March 2014, Sascha founded bluShift and began iteratively testing the new bio-derived solid fuel, sourced from the same organic substance found on his brother's farm.
In 2016, the company moved from Massachusetts to Brunswick Landing in Maine.
In 2017, bluShift optimized its biofuel formulation with the help of a grant from the Maine Technology Institute.
In 2019, bluShift optimized its modular hybrid rocket engine with the help of a NASA SBIR grant. State Senator Shenna Bellows sponsored legislation to support the development of a spaceport and launch site in Maine. The company's first test launch was initially planned for 2019, but was postponed to early 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic reached Maine in March 2020, the launch was postponed further, first being scheduled for 21 October 2020.
In 2020, bluShift concluded its engine test firing campaign, with 154 successful static fires, and attempted its first test launch. bluShift performed a low-altitude test launch of the Stardust rocket at the beginning of 2021, marking the first commercial bio-fueled rocket launch, as well as the first commercial rocket launch in New England.
In March 2021, bluShift opened to public investment and funding, with a primary goal of US$500,000 and a secondary goal of US$1,070,000. As of July 2021 they had surpassed $620,000 in investments. In early September when the first round of investing closed, they had raised over $800,000. They opened a second round of investing in late 2021, and by April 2022 when that round ended, they had reached $1.1 million.
In June 2021, bluShift announced they had received their first purchase order from Virginia-based company Max IQ to launch scientific experiment payloads for universities and other research institutions. The agreement calls for up to 60 small satellites to be launched at a cadence of no less than twice per year.
In October 2021 the company began constructing the full-scale MAREVL engine and performing a series of static fire tests, preceding the launch of Starless Rogue Beta, a scaled down version of the Starless Rogue suborbital launch vehicle. The first successful static fire of the full-scale MAREVL 2.0 engine was completed in March 2022. Several more static fire tests are planned for 2022.
In December 2021, after the team had scouted out locations earlier in the year, narrowed down a list of several potential sites on the coast of Hancock County and Washington County, and following the regulatory approval process with the local governments, the launch site was announced to be about 30 miles east of Bar Harbor near the towns of Jonesport and Beals.
The company plans to begin launching to orbit by early 2024. Due to Maine's high latitude, their orbital rockets will launch to high-inclination and polar orbits. They also are considering Wallops LC-1 and Cape Canaveral LC-48 as potential suborbital and low-inclination orbital launch sites, respectively, to use in the future.