Founded by the ex-owner of Technosila, Mikhail Kokorich, the space startup Destinus has raised $29 million (26.8 million Swiss francs). Among the investors are such organizations as the Swiss investment company Conny & Co, American companies Quiet Capital, Liquid2 Ventures, Cathexis Ventures and One Way Ventures, as well as Geneva-based Ace & Company. The founder of Conny & Co, Cornelius Besh, after investing, joined the board of directors of Destinus.
The company plans to spend the money received on the development and testing of an unmanned aircraft with a combined turbo-ramjet (ATR) hydrogen engine. In an interview with The Bell, Kokorich described the development as follows:
“A hybrid between an airplane and a rocket. An apparatus that takes off like an airplane, turns on a jet engine at a height, in fact, flies out of the atmosphere, flies at this altitude of 50-60 km, literally for half an hour, and then lands like a regular plane, carrying cargo. It won't burn up like a meteorite because we'll be cooling the wing edges with liquid hydrogen."
In October 2021, the company already employed about 30 people. The staff should already have expanded to 40-50 people, as Kokorich promised last year. The first aircraft, the "hyperplane" or "hyperplane", will be small and will be able to deliver 1-10 tons of cargo. A prototype is planned to be created this year. Potential startup clients include logistics companies and airlines such as DHL, FedEX, TNT and UPS, Lufthansa and Emirates. In the long term, the company plans to transport people as well.
“We do not have a task for the next 3-4 years to create a new aircraft. We won't do it. This will require another 5-7 years of work. Over the next 3-4 years, we need to show that we have all the key technologies and we have tested them, developed them to create this aircraft. If in 3-4 years we reach a level where we can show that a significant part of the technological risks have been removed, the company could be worth billions,” Kokorich said in an interview with The Bell.
In November last year, the first prototype of the start-up Jungfrau (about the size of an average car) made its first flight at an airport near Munich. During the five-minute test, he completed several cycles at subsonic speed. The acceleration speed on the runway is up to 80 km/h. Engineers were working on a key question to be answered during testing - how the hypersonic aerodynamic shape would perform at low speeds during the critical phases of takeoff and landing. The Jungfrau made several loops in the air at various altitudes and speeds. It then flew 20 meters over the runway at a speed of 150 km/h before turning for the final approach for landing.
As stated on the Destinus website, testing of a bus-sized prototype should begin in early 2022. The Jungfrau was designed and tested in just four months. It is currently undergoing hardware and software upgrades to continue using it for flight testing in the future.
Kokorich previously founded the American startup Momentus, which planned to produce space tugs. But due to problems with the US authorities regarding obtaining a green card, as well as with the arrival of new employees associated with the Pentagon, Kokorich decided to leave the company. In 2021, he moved to Switzerland and founded Destinus there. Some of the investors who previously funded Momentus have invested in the new startup, including Cornelius Boesch.
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