Stoke Space Secures $100M Series B to Advance Fully Reusable Nova Rocket Toward Flight

Stoke Space has closed a $100 million Series B funding round aimed at propelling its fully reusable Nova rocket through critical development phases and initial flight tests. The investment marks a significant milestone in the company’s ambition to revolutionize space logistics with rapid-turnaround launch vehicles designed for full-stage reusability.

New Funding Pushes Stoke Toward Full-Stack Testing

The latest capital infusion brings Stoke Space’s total raised funds to over $175 million. The Series B round was led by Industrious Ventures and included participation from the University of Michigan’s endowment fund, Sparta Group (a Koch Industries subsidiary), Long Journey Capital, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures—Bill Gates’ climate-focused investment firm. Notably, the U.S. Innovation Technology Fund (USIT) also joined the round, signaling growing national interest in domestic launch capabilities amid rising geopolitical tensions.

The funding will be used primarily to complete development of Stoke’s first orbital-class vehicle—Nova—a two-stage rocket with both stages designed for full reusability. According to CEO Andy Lapsa, the funds will cover remaining engine development milestones and support an integrated flight test campaign scheduled for late 2025 or early 2026.

Nova Rocket: A Fully Reusable Architecture

Unlike partially reusable systems such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9—which discards its upper stage—Nova is being developed as a fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) system. This design aims to dramatically reduce turnaround time between launches and lower per-mission costs by eliminating expendable components entirely.

The first stage is expected to use multiple oxygen-rich staged combustion engines fueled by liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid methane (LCH4), optimized for vertical takeoff and landing (VTVL). For the second stage—a historically challenging component for reusability—Stoke has pioneered a novel toroidal aerospike engine integrated into a heat-shielded base structure capable of surviving atmospheric reentry without ablative materials or parachutes.

This unique design allows the second stage not only to survive reentry but also land vertically using retropropulsion—a capability no other operational system currently offers. If successful, Nova would become the first orbital-class vehicle with both stages capable of rapid reuse without refurbishment-heavy procedures.

Testing Progress and Infrastructure Development

In September 2023, Stoke successfully completed a static fire test of its second-stage engine at its Moses Lake facility in Washington state. The test demonstrated stable combustion across multiple thrust levels using the toroidal aerospike configuration—a key technical risk area due to its unconventional geometry and cooling requirements.

Additionally, Stoke has been expanding its ground infrastructure at Moses Lake Municipal Airport under agreements with local authorities. These include upgrades to vertical integration facilities and tank farms needed for cryogenic propellant handling during full-stack testing campaigns planned for late 2025.

The company has also secured FAA experimental permits for suborbital testing of individual stages and is reportedly preparing booster recovery trials similar in concept to early Falcon 9 Grasshopper hops.

Strategic Significance Amid Shifting Launch Landscape

The push toward full reusability comes amid rising demand from both commercial satellite operators and government customers—including NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense—for more flexible launch options. With Russia’s Soyuz increasingly sidelined due to sanctions and China’s Long March family restricted from Western payloads due to ITAR concerns, U.S.-based alternatives are gaining strategic importance.

Lapsa emphasized that Stoke’s architecture is designed not just for cost savings but also operational responsiveness: “We’re building toward daily launch cadence,” he stated during an October press briefing. This aligns with emerging DoD concepts like Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS), which prioritize rapid on-demand access over traditional months-long mission planning cycles.

If Nova proves successful in achieving fast turnaround between flights—as little as 24 hours per vehicle—it could offer unique value propositions for military ISR satellites or responsive replenishment missions in contested orbital environments.

Competitive Landscape: Differentiation vs Incumbents

While competitors like Relativity Space (Terran R), Rocket Lab (Neutron), and Blue Origin (New Glenn) are also pursuing partially or fully reusable medium-lift vehicles, Stoke’s focus on full-stack reuse sets it apart technically—and potentially economically—in the long term.

• Relativity’s Terran R: Targets partial reuse; upper stage remains expendable initially.
• Rocket Lab Neutron: Reusable first stage; second stage recovery not yet prioritized.
• Blue Origin New Glenn: Large-scale launcher; upper stage remains expendable at least through early flights.

This positions Stoke uniquely if it can demonstrate reliable reuse of both stages without extensive refurbishment—a goal that remains technically unproven but increasingly plausible given recent progress on thermal protection systems (TPS), active cooling methods, and advanced composite structures used in Nova’s design.

Looking Ahead: Path Toward Orbital Demonstration

The next major milestone will be full-stack integration followed by suborbital hop tests of each stage independently before attempting an orbital flight test as early as Q4 2025. According to internal timelines shared with investors, Stoke aims for operational readiness by late 2026 if all major technical hurdles are cleared within budgeted timelines.

This includes completing qualification testing on avionics systems built around fault-tolerant architectures suitable for autonomous guidance during high-stress maneuvers such as boost-back burns and supersonic retropropulsion landings—especially critical for second-stage recovery scenarios where margin is minimal after orbital insertion burns.

A Broader Vision Beyond Launch

Lapsa hinted that long-term applications may extend beyond Earth orbit logistics into cislunar transport or even Mars cargo delivery—leveraging high-cadence operations enabled by full reusability rather than brute-force heavy-lift capacity alone. “Reusability isn’t just about cost,” he noted. “It’s about building infrastructure that scales.”

If realized at scale, such infrastructure could underpin future DoD space mobility concepts or commercial refueling depots in low Earth orbit—areas increasingly prioritized under recent U.S. Space Force doctrine updates emphasizing agile logistics chains beyond geostationary orbit (GEO).