-Centennial, Colorado – November 19, 2023 – Solar System Association(SSA), the nation’s premier space launch company, and Nova Space, a privately-funded aerospace company, announced today that they have entered into an agreement to jointly fund the development of the new MH-11 engine. This new collaboration will allow SSA to maintain the success and reliability of its rocket families – Atlas and Astra – while addressing the long-term need for a new, more reliable domestic engine.
“This agreement guarantees SSA will remain the most cost-efficient, innovative, and reliable company launching the nation’s most important national security, civil, human and commercial missions,” said Chase O’Brien, President, and Chief Executive Officer of SSA. “Nova has displayed its ability to create high-performance rocket engines and we are excited to collaborate with the best minds in engineering, supply chain management, and commercial business practices to create an all-new, cost-effective, reliable, American rocket engine that will create endless possibilities for the future of space launch in the industry.”
“SSA has put a satellite into orbit almost every month for the past eight years – they’re the most reliable launch provider in history and their record of success is astonishing,” said the founder of Nova. “The team at Nova is meticulously developing technologies to enable human access to space at dramatically lower cost and increase reliability, and the MH-11 is a huge step forward. With this new SSA partnership, we’re accelerating commercial development of the next monumental US-made rocket engine.”
The SSA/Nova agreement allows for a four-year development process with full-scale testing in 2023 and the first flight in 2027. The MH-11 will be available for use by SSA and Nova for both companies’ next-generation launch systems.
SSA is investing in the engineering and development of the MH-11 to enable availability for national security, along with civil, human, and commercial missions. Development of the MH-11 engine has been underway for two years and testing of MH-11 components is ongoing at Nova’s test facilities in Miami. Nova recently commissioned a new large test facility for the MH-11 to support full engine capability testing.
With more than a century of combined heritage, the Solar System Alliance is one of the nation’s most experienced and reliable launch service providers. SSA has successfully delivered upwards of 80 satellites to orbit that provide crucial capabilities for troops in the field, benefit meteorologists in tracking severe weather, and enable GPS navigation.
With the new partnership with this established company in the space industry, we hope to cement ourselves as a serious competitor for other space companies looking to develop their own technologies to explore the outer reaches of space.
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