Building the future of launch: kinetic, ground-based, unapologetically different
Alameda, CA
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$20M and counting.
@spc has invested $5M in Longshot, helping us accelerate the future of #hypersonic testing and ground-based launch. @adityaag @JPBrebner
🔗: globenewswire.com/news-relea…
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Longshot retweeted
@LongshotSpace is building a cannon that launches payloads to orbit.
SPC members spent an afternoon at their facility.
Welcome to the future of space launch.
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Longshot retweeted
According to studies:
- Starship’s price floor is ~$300/kg
- Space data centers are viable at ~$100/kg
We believe Longshot’s price floor is $60/kg
Put simply, you have to have ground launchers to have viable data centers in space
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Alameda is awesome, we love building here!
@_mikegrace @natosaichek
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Here’s what we’ve been up to lately. 👀
Building hardware. Testing hardware. Making #hypersonic testing a whole lot cheaper.
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Longshot retweeted
Every rocket builds up to Max Q
Max Q is where we start
The most violent launch vehicle in history.
It survives because it’s thick steel, not thin carbon fiber
Weight is our friend, not our enemy
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"$/kg to orbit is going to decide who wins in the solar system."
@_mikegrace
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Our site is filling up with new hardware and expanded test capabilities as we gear up for a very busy fall. Stay tuned...! #hypersonics #spacelaunch @_mikegrace
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Longshot retweeted
CUSWeekendpost99
Thinking Outside a Rocket
🇺🇸 Based in Alameda, California, Longshot Space (@LongshotSpace) and founded by Mike Grace,(@_mikegrace) CEO and Nathan Sichek (@natosaichek) CTO is building world’s largest accelerator that will propel objects into space at a fraction of the cost of a traditional rocket.
Ideal launch system:
Internal Diameter: 3 – 4 meters
Length: 15 miles
Multi-Injection Pneumatic Cannon
“A multi-injection pneumatic cannon is a long tube that launches payloads using many small injections of compressed gas. Picture a potato gun, but instead of a single blast of air, you have a bunch of separate air tanks spaced along the barrel. As the payload speeds past each one, each tank fires, giving it another push. Instead of one big push at the beginning of the cannon, it's a series of pushes, allowing the payload to gain increasing speed with each push.”
In June, the firm announced a $5 million investment from South Park Commons, bringing the company’s total funding to $20 million.
“The new capital will support continued development and testing of Longshot's multi-injection accelerator technology, including construction of the company's test gun at an undisclosed location. The facility is designed to accelerate 100-kilogram payloads to speeds exceeding Mach 5 and represents a key step toward larger-scale launch systems.”
According to Nathan Saichek, below is a broad set of systems that are suitable, along with those that are least suitable.
Suitable Systems:
-Electronics (potted computers, and avionics)
-Solar panels (thin films, properly packaged silicon cells)
-Radiators (monolithic structures)
-Fuel (monolithic tanks)
-other inert supplies (food, tools, feedstocks)
Least Suitable Systems
-Biological systems (People, animals)
-High sensitivity mechanical systems (large/multi-stage deployables)
-Low density systems/objects (telescopes)
-High precision / vibration sensitive optics (telescopes again)
Use Case: 👇
The use case for this system is not limited to sending systems to space, it serves as ground-based test platform for other systems validations and more.
- Reusable ground infrastructure
- Compressed-light gas acceleration
- Faster hardware iteration
- High-cadence flight testing
- Lower-cost test campaigns
- Defense and aerospace validations
📹A short YT clip provides more details about the system
tinyurl.com/3s4w33z9
Every weekend we post something besides our regular post that is not necessarily regarding unmanned technologies, but we try to make it worth your attention.
If you found this post informative or liked it, we would love a follow @CUAS_NEWS
ALT Left: Mike grace builds the first multi-injection accelerator system in his garage in San Jose California. Right: Mike on top of the much larger system nicknamed "minigun"
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"We shall prepare, for the brave sky-travellers, maps of the celestial bodies."
— Kepler to Galileo, 1610
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Longshot retweeted
Draper funded, Longshot founder interview. They will have the fastest, cheapest launch facility for non-human payloads.
@LongshotSpace @DraperVC
piped.video/watch?v=knBC4KsA…
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Longshot retweeted
Longshot has officially achieved Awardable status through DARPA’s ERIS Marketplace.
Our technology passed a competitive technical review and is now positioned for a faster path to potential government adoption through DARPA’s rapid acquisition process.
globenewswire.com/news-relea…
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Longshot retweeted
New @boomsupersonic: deliberately hiring former founders, for some of our hardest challenges. Founders get equity grants up to 10X normal.
Founders: if you're intrigued, get in touch with me, share your story, and let me know your dream challenge.
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Mark your calendars for November 13!
Join Vision Weekend USA, November 13-15 in San Francisco, our main 40th anniversary celebration in the US.
Three days of big ideas at the frontier of science and tech, office hours, 1:1s, tech demos, a $10K pitch competition, lab tours at @E11BIO, @LongshotSpace, @calwave_energy, Dolphin Labs, and @ScienceCorp_. Cypherpunk party at our AI Node.
Speakers include:
• Vishal Maini (Mythos) @v_maini
• Illia Polosukhin (NEAR) @ilblackdragon
• Sumner L Norman (Merge) @SumnerLN
• Hannu Rajaniemi (Red Queen Bio) @hannu
• Wojciech Zaremba (OpenAI) @woj_zaremba
• Seemay Chou (Astera Institute) @seemaychou
• Max Hodak (Science Corporation) @maxhodak_
• Sébastien A. Krier (Google DeepMind) @sebkrier
• Nan Ransohoff (Frontier Climate) @nanransohoff
• @robinhanson (George Mason University)
• @mattbotvinick (Anthropic Life Sciences)
• @AdamMarblestone (Convergent Research)
Powered by @protocollabs. Link in first reply.
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We're hiring! If you (or someone you know) would be a great fit for our team and can handle a little chaos, we'd love to hear from you. ats.rippling.com/longshot/jo…
#engineeringjobs #spacetech #nowhiring #hypersonics #aerospacejobs
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Today we’re announcing SPC Fund IV: $575M to help founders find their life’s work.
A decade of guiding founders through -1 to 0 brings @SPC to $2B in AUM and, more importantly, a 1200 member community of the world’s most talented technologists. We strongly believe that:
→ The person comes before the idea. At -1, generational founders are often busy reading, prototyping, discarding, and earning the right to their own conviction.
→ Ambition is social. The people you surround yourself with in the early days play a big part in inflecting your ambition.
→ Patience compounds. It is better to work on something you have deep conviction in rather than simply sprint at the first idea.
The quiet months we protect at the beginning have produced three funds in the top 10% of their vintages, and companies like @baseten, @GammaApp, @render, @GoodfireAI, @LumaLabsAI, and @profound. We are proud to have worked with all these founders in their -1 phase and beyond.
While we defined -1 to 0, we're no longer bound by it. Fund IV allows us to partner with companies well beyond launch.
We're doing this now because we've never seen a wider gap between what's possible and what's being attempted. Intelligence is abundant. The cost of trying ideas keeps falling, and problems that seemed insurmountable a few years ago are quickly becoming solvable.
To our members, to the founders who trusted us before anyone else did, and to the LPs who had conviction in our own -1 journey: thank you. This milestone belongs to you as much as to us.
To the builders looking to find your life’s work: let’s get started.
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