Eclipse Orbital is a company that is interested in developing vehicles and technologies for reusable spaceflight systems. Their main mission is to make space available to everyone. They look to develop a small rocket with accessibility to customers. The company was founded by Joe Zemke in 2017.
The company's reusable orbital launch vehicle is named Corona. It features multiple configurations that allows it to provide capabilities to deliver payloads to space. The first stage of the Corona is reusable and can be paired with a new second stage for re-flight. The configurations utilize Eclipse Orbital's Prominence boosters, which are also reusable, and then deploy a parafoil wing to control flight and allow for recovery.
Eclipse Orbital plans to utilize additive manufacturing to build the structure of their Corona vehicle by using the MX3D Metal system. This allows for an aeroframe made of stainless steel and an isotruss structural core, and also allows for a rapid production.
Their vehicle is 2.1m in diameter, 36m in height, and has a liftoff mass of 65 tons.
Timeline
People
Blaze Sanders
Forrest Dix
Joe Zemke
Matteo Borri
Further reading
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
Companies
Eclipse Orbital
Joe Zemke
Reusable Space Flight