The Nova Pathfinder vehicle has a diameter of about 12.5 feet, slightly larger than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 vehicle, although it is considerably shorter. The Block 2 version of Nova is intended to have a 15-foot diameter, Lapsa said.
“Probably the biggest change on the whole vehicle is that we will have a cylindrical second stage,” he said. “That’s an area where, inside our walls for years, we’ve been wrestling with how do we delete the taper on Pathfinder’s upper stage, and I think we’ve got a pretty slick approach to doing that.”
Pretty bold of them to start designing a larger reusable upper stage before recovering even a single Nova Pathfinder upper stage. Looking forward to seeing what they can pull off.
I seriously cannot wait to watch some of their first landing attempts. Their biggest drawback was the low payload mass and volume, so if this actually works as a cylinder instead of just a bigger tapered capsule, this architecture has some serious potential.
