Stoke Space’s Nova launch vehicle is a planned fully reusable 2-stage rocket. The 1st stage uses 7 Zenith Full-flow staged-combustion (FFSC) engines using Liquified natural gas/liquid oxygen (LNG/LOX) as fuel, with restartable capability and landing legs for landing. The 2nd stage is unconventionally designed around a 24-thrust chamber liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen (LH2/LOX) expander cycle rocket engine that surrounds a regeneratively cooled heat shield, thus enabling the upper stage to return to Earth from orbit without thermal tiles. The nozzle accommodates deep throttle operation even in the presence of atmospheric pressure and serves as an actively cooled metallic heat shield during atmospheric reentry. There is also a center passive bleed that aims to create an aerospike engine-like effect for improved efficiency.
Specifications
- Thrust
- 3,110 kN
- Height
- 40.2 m
- Diameter
- 4.2 m
- Launch mass
- 227 t
- Stages
- 2
- Launch cost
- —
- LEO capacity
- 3,000 kg
- GTO capacity
- 2,500 kg
- GEO capacity
- —
- SSO capacity
- —
Vehicle specifications from Launch Library; blanks are unpublished figures.
Flight record
Counted from padside's own launch record — the same basis as the Stats page.
Launches
Next: Nova | Demo Flight — December 31, 2026
No completed launches on record yet.