Participated · Seed · Dec 2023

Helicity Space is developing technology to propel spacecraft using short bursts of plasma fusion. The company combines plasma guns to create intense plasma heating to achieve fusion-type conditions and has demonstrated the approach with two guns, now moving to four-gun tests. Current work focuses on testing to retire technical risk and to characterize potential thrust levels for deep-space missions. Helicity positions fusion propulsion as offering very low propellant mass, high power, and the potential to enable very long-distance travel beyond Mars. Its financing history includes a seed round announced in December that featured Airbus Ventures and Voyager Space Holdings, and a new undisclosed investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures. Lockheed Martin’s backing is viewed as strategic, offering potential customer opportunities, defense-sector guidance, and credibility from LMV’s due diligence. Helicity Space develops fusion propulsion systems that rely on magneto-inertial fusion: compressing stable plasma jets with a magnetic nozzle to heat plasma to hundreds of millions of degrees and produce thrust. The company was founded in 2018 by plasma physicist Setthivoine You alongside Stephane Lintner and Marta Calvo and spent several years in stealth before raising VC capital. Its core product is a fusion drive designed specifically to push spacecraft rather than generate terrestrial grid power. The startup says the technology is uniquely adapted to space’s vacuum environment and could eventually lend itself to terrestrial reactors, though that is not the primary focus. Helicity plans to use the seed funding to build a small-scale proof-of-concept fusion drive. Over the longer term the company aims to have a full prototype flying in space in around 10 years. Leadership acknowledges the technology is early-stage and will require further de-risking as the space economy develops.