The booming satellite industry has benefited Morpheus Space, a system that electrically propels modular and small satellites.
Morpheus has raised a $28 million Series A round. This will allow the company to increase production of its propulsion systems to meet the rapidly growing demand of the small sat market. As of 2019, the number of small satellite cells has increased by 450 percent.
In the year In 2020, Morpheus launched Nano Field Effect Electric Propulsion (NanoFEEP), which it claims is the world’s “smallest and most efficient electric in-space propulsion system.”
Because the system is modular, the nanofiEP thrusters can be combined to create more powerful propulsion systems to meet the needs of a specific satellite. For example, a cluster of seven nanoFEEP thrusters is called a multiFEEP, and multiple multiFEEP thrusters can be added to drive a large maneuver. This allows customers to avoid spending additional time and resources developing custom promotion systems for individual satellites.
Since the launch of NanoFiEP, Morpheus has taken customers such as Spire Global, Antaris Space and Rocket Factory Augsburg on the go.
“Our number of contracts has increased by 250% in the last year and is on pace to grow even more,” said Istvan Lorinc, president of Morpheus, in a keynote speech at last year’s TC Sessions-Space. “The new factory will help meet the needs of our growing user base. We exemplify the need for the newspace industry to implement business and production solutions that can scale as quickly as possible to meet industry expectations.”
Morpheus has shown his genius in two short years. “One big improvement we recently implemented in our hardware came in the form of a new propellant that increased the performance of our propulsion systems. It’s non-toxic and non-degradable with zero shipping or handling restrictions,” said Lorinch, whose previous fuel used gallium.
The company has also developed a comprehensive package for the Sphere ecosystem that sets Morpheus apart from its competitors. “We provide them with platform-agnostic AI for satellite navigation, an application to help plan the customer journey from design to satellite operations, mission design software for constellations and our world-class propulsion equipment,” Lorinch said.
The funding round was led by Alpine Space Ventures, along with Vsquared Ventures, Lavrock Ventures, Airbus Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Pallas Ventures and Techstars Ventures. With thousands of satellites due to launch into space over the next few years, Morpheus has plenty of potential customers (and investors) to get excited about with the system.
