Ventions
Ventions, LLC is a launch vehicle development company based out of San Francisco, California, that has been working to develop pump-fed, liquid bipropellant propulsion engines for DARPA and NASA.[1][2] Most recently, Ventions was a technology provider for DARPA's Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, and is currently working on the Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit (SALVO) program,[3][4] a pathfinder air-launched vehicle for placement of cubesat sized payloads into Low Earth Orbit.
History
Ventions was founded in 2005 as a technology development and services company. Initial work focused on demonstrating use of a novel fabrication technique to realize fine featured injectors and cooling channels in rocket engines no more than a few centimeters in size. This was followed by use of the same technique for manufacture of small impellers with blade heights as small as 0.020 inches, and demonstration of small-scale turbomachinery-based pumps for on-board pressurization of propellants.[5]
Ventions is currently integrating its propulsion systems, avionics and other pressurization / plumbing components into a full-up launch vehicle under a DARPA funded program.
Locations
Ventions primary office and lab is located in South of Market, San Francisco.
It also has a small presence in Washington DC, and a dedicated test-site for hot-fire testing of rocket engines and launch vehicle stages at Castle Airport in Atwater, California.
References
- ↑ "Darpa Revisits Air Launch With Focus On Cost". Aviation Week. 25 June 2012.
- ↑ "Contracts awarded by NASA to Ventions, LLC". sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov. NASA (SBIR/STTR). Retrieved 19 June 2014.
- ↑ Jeff Foust (2 June 2014). "DARPA Developing Operational Pathfinder for ALASA Air Launch System". Space News. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
- ↑ Jeff Foust (30 June 2014), Air launch, big and small, The Space Review
- ↑ "Small, Light-Weight Pump Technology for On-Board Pressurization of Propellants in a Mars Ascent Vehicle".