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Episode 132 -- Rajat Kulshrestha and George Freney from Space Machines Company
Manage episode 508014431 series 3367321
In this episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations, we hear from Space Machines Company's co-founders, Rajat Kulshrestha and George Freney. They tell us about why they plan to build hundreds and hundreds of their 200-kilogram vehicles, the local companies helping them do it, their new Scintilla engine, what Australian space manufacturers' collective superpower must be, and more.
Episode guide
0:42 – Professional backgrounds of the two founders
3:32 – A very simple origin story.
4:20 – The problem was the need to manoeuvre in orbit.
6:01 – Moving rapidly in orbit, at low cost, to assets that are depended on.
7:48 – If first responders on earth cost millions of dollars, then they wouldn’t be useful.
9:04 – The maiden launch of Optimus, what would be considered a successful result, and how it was achieved.
10:58 – “On a very tight budget, we built Australia’s largest single spacecraft and got it into orbit. And the outcome of that is belief.”
12:32 – The inputs. Supply chain in India, Europe and Australia. “We are targeting that by the end of the third mission, we should be able to get up to 70 per cent Australian content.”
14:10 – More than 50 suppliers in Australia currently.
15:42 – What an industrial sewing example shows.
17:55 – Getting to scale and what manufacturing at scale would look like.
22:20 – What their business model is based on and who their customers will likely be. National security, then civil government, then commercial is the likely order.
24:33 – The recently-unveiled Scintilla engine.
27:34 – Testing on Scintilla began late last year. Some of the tests performed so far.
29:00 – Ethane and nitrous oxide propellants. A combination “used by a lot of companies in the US” and which brings “simplicity and ease of handling” among other benefits.
30:05 – The road to the MAITRI mission. Local partners include HEO.
31:10 – The spread of the company so far, including an important recent hire in Washington.
32:45 – What’s needed here to grow industrial strength is focus, and making for space is an answer to this.
Further reading
Space Machines Company finalises Australian-first 3D printed rocket engine
Space Machines Company, NewSpace India sign launch agreement at Indian Space Congress
Space Machines Company opens Australia’s largest spacecraft manufacturing facility
Space Machines Company purchases navigation system from Inovor
HEO’s Holmes space camera to fly on upcoming Australian-Indian mission
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