Timeline

As STAR Systems founder, Morris Jarvis likes to say: speed is a question of money, how fast do you want to go? If we had full funding, we could begin doing full flight tests in two years and start flying paying passengers in four. Our efforts have largely been bootstrapped by core team members, our personal supporters, a Kickstarter funding effort and limited corporate sponsorships. This has enabled us to make progress on the Hermes Prototype and several of its key subsystems.

Our next major milestone to accomplish is the test firing of our large scale rocket motor, which we raised over $20,000 worth of funding for on Kickstarter. The Hermes Spacecraft will be using a hybrid rocket system for it's main propulsion. It’s easier to handle, build, acquire, and most importantly, safer to fly on and better for the environment. Inside the Hermes, we'll be using several rocket motors to propel us to space. We've done many smaller motor tests to help narrow what type of fuel we'll be using and its now time to scale up our small-scale hybrid rocket motors to a larger scale, 10” diameter motor capable of putting out about 5,000 lbs of thrust. This rocket will allow us to better test and characterize the propulsion system in preparation for manned, suborbital spaceflight.

Concurrently with this upcoming milestone, we are also working with Autodesk, a new sponsor of ours, and their Product Design Suite. Their design suite contains all the tools needed to finish the conceptual design process of the Hermes Spacecraft. We will then begin inputting subsystem components into the design, working on interior sketches, routing electrical/wiring, and move towards CFD, thermal and stress analysis. We will also be using Autodesk to analyze our 10" Rocket Motor, nozzle flow and test stand.

Once these tasks are done, we will require further funding to make progress on the timeline below. Speed is a question of money, and we want to start going fast! We need approximately $8,000,000 to be fully funded, but we believe we can achieve our next major milestone, tethered flight tests, for about $500,000. You can help us reach these goals by supporting us, or consulting our investor relations page.