Full throttle: the cosmic ambitions of Cambridge space firm Protolaunch

Across the world, the small satellite market is booming. According to the UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult, around 1,500 smallsats were launched in 2021, with more than 2,000 expected to lift off in 2022. Many of these are part of enormous comms constellations for OneWeb and SpaceX, launched by the dozen atop large, heavy-lift rockets. But there is also a growing number of boutique smallsat operators looking to tap into the orbital goldrush, and for these companies, launch options can be elusive.

This is where Protolaunch comes in. The Cambridge spinout, formed in 2019, is building an entirely new rocket engine, designed from the ground up specifically with smallsats and microlaunchers in mind. According to CEO and co-founder Matt Escott, Protolaunch is taking an entirely new technical approach, simplifying the rocket science by embracing a thermodynamic cycle that negates the need for turbomachinery.

“We’re trying to fit into that middle category where we’re scaling down a turbopump engine, but when you try and scale down a turbo pump it gets really complicated really quickly,” Escott told The Engineer. “So if you can get rid of the pump without sacrificing the performance – that’s what we’re trying to do.”