Miles Space / RocketStar

RocketStar, Inc. was founded in 2014 by Christopher Craddock to bring low-cost, reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) launch to the space industry using a patent-pending 3D-printed aerospike engine that produces 25-35% more thrust than conventional bell-cone rocket engines without additional fuel, while enabling thrust vectoring without heavy gimbals. The company's developmental Cowbell rocket is a 12-meter aerospike-powered suborbital test vehicle intended to fly from Launch Complex 48 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In January 2024, RocketStar acquired Miles Space, Inc., a Tampa, Florida-based spacecraft propulsion and communications company founded by Wes Faler, whose team won NASA's CubeQuest Challenge and flew the Team Miles 6U CubeSat on the Artemis I mission. Miles Space's water-fueled pulsed plasma thruster technology became RocketStar's FireStar Foundation Drive, and its digital signal processing IP was rebranded as the Phoenix Eye software suite. Following the acquisition, RocketStar is developing the FireStar Fusion Drive, described as the world's first electric thruster enhanced by aneutronic (boron) nuclear fusion, expected to deliver roughly 50% more thrust than the base FireStar Foundation Drive.

RocketStar's product lines now span in-space electric propulsion (FireStar Foundation and Fusion Drives), reusable launch propulsion (Aerospike engine and Cowbell test vehicle), and the Phoenix Eye DSP software suite (SignalBoost, SignalPrint, SyncWave, OmniPNT, WhisperHunter) for low-probability-of-intercept communications, RF fingerprinting, electronically scanned antenna processing, GPS-denied navigation, and signal detection. The company has flight heritage and manifested payloads including FireStar Foundation units flying on D-Orbit's ION Satellite Carrier via SpaceX Transporter rideshare missions, and a planned FireStar Fusion Drive in-space demonstration aboard Rogue Space Systems' Barry-2 spacecraft.