ARCA Space

ARCA Space Corporation is an aerospace and space tourism non-profit organization interested in proving the viability of clean, water-based, electric rockets. The company was founded by Dumitru Popescu in 2014, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States.

The company has built and launched aerospace vehicles for the development of private space flight. Their launch assist system, also known as the LAS, is an alternative solution to a launch system that uses propellants such as kerosene. ARCA has developed efforts towards creating a single stage rocket that is supported by an innovative aerospike engine. They have developed a water-based rocket engine. The water in the tank is electrically heated to temperatures of hundreds of degrees in a multiple hour process, then it is injected into the engine where a phase change occurs from liquid to vapors. A second electric heating phase starts in the engine using high discharge LiPo batteries.

The company's rocket series is named the Haas after an Austrian-Romanian medieval rocket pioneer, Conrad Haas. The series ranges from a small orbital launcher to a heavy launcher. The Haas rocket can be used as a stand alone SSTO rocket or in combination with the LAS to increase the rocket's payload capability. The rocket has one stage which is fueled by hydrogen peroxide and kerosene.

The Haas 2CA rocket is composed of composite materials and dense propellants. The rocket the Executor uses up to 30% less fuel at low altitudes than other private market rocket engines. The Haas 2CA is designed to be the first rocket in history to place itself entirely into orbit. It will weigh over 16 tons at launch, and using the LAS, it will reduce its polluting propellant mass from 16 tons to 4 tons. ARCA plans to develop increasingly powerful launcher and rocket systems by the year 2027.