Brunswick rocket-maker bluShift changes strategy to find Maine launch site
Courtesy / bluShift Aerospace
Brunswick rocket-maker bluShift Aerospace is talking with Steuben and has been contacted by other towns.
After wooing the town of Jonesport in vain, Brunswick rocket-maker bluShift Aerospace now wants other potential launch sites to step forward and woo the company.
To support its next stage of growth, bluShift on Monday said it has issued a request-for-information to identify communities and development groups offering potential lift-off locations.
The RFI comes two months after the company ended its months-long effort to secure a lease site on an island off Jonesport for commercial launches of its spacecraft. Local residents voted last December to put a six-month moratorium on aerospace operations, due to concerns about the potential effects on fishing and the environment.
Founder and CEO Sascha Deri told Mainebiz that he and his team decided on the RFI process as a way to leverage the creativity of municipalities, development groups and landowners to provide possible options that would benefit communities as well as bluShift.
“We are excited to identify a Downeast community where we can establish a vibrant, new, Earth-conscious space complex, build lasting partnerships, create exciting careers, and inspire a new generation to get into the field of aerospace,” Deri also said in a news release.
Discussions with Steuben
While Jonesport is off the table at this time, Deri said the company has been approached by officials in Steuben.
“Last week, we wrapped up our second town hall meeting there,” he said. “About 70 people attended. Overall, I’d say it went well. We explained what it is we’re looking to do.”
Steuben is not the only town that has reached out, Deri added, but declined to specify the other prospects. He noted that bluShift will likely make a presentation to a town near Steuben within the next few weeks.
In the meantime, the competitive RFI is designed to identify all options.
Discussions with Jonesport residents were useful for understanding coastal concerns, Deri said.
“One of the fundamental things that changed was that we decided that, instead of trying to launch from land, we would instead launch from a liftboat,” he said.
A liftboat is a self-propelled, self-elevating vessel typically used to support offshore exploration and construction.
“This is something we’ve been considering for a year or two,” he said. “It greatly simplifies regulations and allows us to be sufficiently away from people and property, so even the noise level is at a minimum compared with normal marine traffic.”
The liftboat, operating more than 2 miles offshore, would be supported by a mission control site that has a clear line of sight of the vessel. Mission control also would ideally include physical space for a customer welcome center, access to the Gulf of Maine via an industrial pier or jetty, and a protected mooring area for storage of the liftboat.
Land-based operations would require at least a 50,000-square-foot facility to accommodate a fixed aeronautical manufacturing workspace building, which wouldn’t need to be directly adjacent to the mission control site.
Over the next seven to 10 years, bluShift plans to expand that facility up to 300,000 square feet. In particular, the company is seeking areas of the state where there are available workers in welding, composites, machining and manufacturing.
The goal is to keep the manufacturing plant close to launch site.
The company is open to the idea of buying, leasing, or some combination, he said.
Next launch in Virginia
In the meantime, plans remain in place to conduct the first launch of bluShfit’s next rocket, Starless Rogue, outside of Maine.
But while Deri was eyeing Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier this year for the rocket’s first commercial suborbital launch to space, negotiations are now underway to use the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, known as MARS, operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority on Wallops Island, Va.
“They have facility that is wonderfully applicable to the suborbital type of rockets we’re using,” said Deri.
The first Starless Rogue launch, originally scheduled for late 2022, is expected to take place the first quarter of 2023.
Site proposals
To have a site proposal considered, eligible municipalities, private property owners or development firms must demonstrate that their land and coastal location meet the timeframe, cost and other criteria to support a thriving, Earth-conscious space complex, according to the bluShift RFI.
Interested groups and municipalities are asked to contact bluShift Aerospace Director of Communications Seth Lockman by May 26 by sending an email with a subject line “bluShift Aerospace RFI Question.” An informational workshop for interested towns will be held on June 1, and RFI submissions are due no later than 5 p.m. on June 20.
Founded in 2014, bluShift Aerospace is looking to leverage its invention of a nontoxic bio-derived rocket fuel and a modular hybrid rocket engine in the rapidly growing nanosatellite launch market. The company is working toward a small rocket that can lift 100-kilogram payloads to low-Earth orbit, and hopes to create up to 200 aerospace jobs in the next five to seven years.
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