Ad Astra Rocket Company, led by Costa Rican physicist, mechanical engineer and former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang, develops the VASIMR high-power electric propulsion engine. The company signed an agreement with Aethera Technologies Limited and the Canadian Space Agency to advance VASIMR development. The Canadian Space Agency provided $1.5 million in funding to support the program. Aethera is supplying RF-PPUs to enable a planned 100-hour continuous high-power firing test of the VASIMR VX-200SSTM engine scheduled for the fourth trimester of 2018 under NASA's NextStep association with Ad Astra. Completion of that test is expected to raise the systems to Technology Readiness Level 5, the step just prior to a space flight test. The article does not disclose other financial metrics or past financing rounds.

Total raised

$2M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jul 2018