A quote by the 19th-century father of rocketry, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, says, “Earth is the cradle of humanity. But one cannot live in the cradle forever.” That quote summarizes the passion and promise of a booming NewSpace company, Helicity Space.

Founded in 2018 and based in Berkeley, CA, the firm’s mission is to power humanity’s journey to space. Building in-space fusion propulsion and power technology is crucial to sending and expanding humanity’s presence into deep space, their work could help enable our future access to the entire solar system and might ultimately even enable space missions to the nearest stars.

Their fusion propulsion technology is fast, reduces exposure, holds agile trajectories and is both high power and high energy for optimum travel. It’s a huge advancement compared to traditional propulsion, which is relatively slow, more dangerous and is high power, but low energy. Plus, nuclear fusion is fuel-efficient and reusable. 

According to Helicity Space, it takes the energy of the stars to reach the stars. They develop fusion at plasma standards. Amazingly, fuel in plasma form that undergoes fusion releases 10 million times more energy than chemical reactions. The company believes that humans can go further into space than once thought imaginable with this capability. They ask us to imagine a space ecosystem where we could take a telescope outside the solar system, use the sun as a gravitational lens or even look at the content of an exoplanet that’s 100 light-years away.

Imagine reaching Mars 4x faster, too. With Helicity Space’s fusion propulsion and power technology, humans could potentially reach the Red Planet in 2 months aboard large spacecraft, with abort capabilities and no need for planetary alignment. According to Capital William Readdy, an astronaut and former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Flight, “At this point, we need to focus on advances in propulsion technology, rather than spend tens of billions of dollars on a mission that will take the better part of a year to get there and the same to come back.”

Helicity Space proposes a solution to meet that demand and their technology has thee potential to be a game-changer for the industry and humans’ access to and discovery of deep space.

Learn more about Helicity Space and their innovative technologies!