Nova is Stoke Space's fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, featuring a reusable upper stage with an actively cooled metallic heat shield.
Nova
Nova is Stoke Space's fully reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, featuring a reusable upper stage with an actively cooled metallic heat shield.
Description
Nova is a two-stage, fully reusable orbital launch vehicle developed by Stoke Space, a Kent, Washington-based launch company. Its defining innovation is a reusable second stage that integrates a modular LH2/LOX rocket engine with a liquid, regeneratively (actively) cooled metallic reentry heat shield — described by the company as the world's first actively cooled heat shield, built from conventional, ductile metallic materials that require minimal maintenance and fail passively, in contrast to the brittle ceramic tiles used by other vehicles. The upper stage's engine (Andromeda 2) is a distributed ring of 3D-printed thruster chambers wrapped around the heat shield, offering unlimited restarts for precision, powered vertical landings. The first stage uses multiple full-flow staged-combustion engines burning LNG/LOX and is designed for return-to-launch-site or drone-ship landings, enabling rapid, low-cost reuse of both stages. Nova targets the medium-lift commercial, national security, and government launch market, aiming to enable frequent, low-cost, highly reliable access to space, including return shipments from orbit and in-space rendezvous/capture missions. Stoke Space has been developing and testing Nova hardware, including full-scale hotfire testing of stage 1 and stage 2 engines and heat-shield technology, at its Washington facilities.
Specifications
| Height | ~40.2 m |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 4 m |
| Stages | 2 (both fully reusable) |
| Stage 1 engines | 7x full-flow staged-combustion, LNG/LOX, 345s Isp, 100,000+ lbf thrust each (~3,110 kN total liftoff) |
| Stage 2 engine | 1x Andromeda 2 expander-cycle, LH2/LOX, actively cooled metallic heat shield, 425+s Isp, 25,000+ lbf thrust, unlimited restarts |
| Payload to LEO (100% reusable) | 3,000 kg |
| Payload to LEO (expendable/maximum) | 7,000 kg |
| Payload to GTO | 2,500 kg |
| Payload to TLI | 1,250 kg |
| Reusability | Fully reusable first and second stage; second stage features actively cooled metallic heat shield |
