Three brothers who worked on Falcon 9 rockets at SpaceX have founded Argo Space to build infrastructure in space. Robert, Ryan and Kirby Carlisle launched the company in late 2022, choosing to focus on spacecraft rather than launch vehicles.
Argo’s plan is to use water as a propellant. The company sees water as a resource that could potentially be collected on the Moon and is present across the Solar System. “We based the company on water,” Robert Carlisle said in an interview.
The company’s longer-term goal is a transportation network linking low-Earth orbit, geostationary orbit and the Moon. Argo says such a network could support services including satellite resupply, refueling, repairs and redeployments. Water would also serve as coolant and radiation shielding aboard its spacecraft. The company says cooling components from thrusters to avionics could allow a greater share of a vehicle’s mass to be devoted to propellant.
Carlisle said the prospect of water-based transport could eventually create a commercial incentive to harvest water from the Moon. Argo flew its first demonstration mission, called Navigator, on a Falcon 9 rideshare in July. The company established contact with the spacecraft, but one of its two deployable solar arrays did not open. After troubleshooting for roughly half a day, controllers found the spacecraft remained power-negative and was draining its battery, leaving insufficient energy to test the propulsion system.
Sources: Ars Technica.