EXOS Public Overview: How We’re Rethinking the Path to Orbit
This week, EXOS Aerospace hosted a public overview call to share who we are, what we’re building, and how we think about the future of reusable launch and space infrastructure.
The conversation centered on a simple but often overlooked reality in spaceflight:
The biggest challenge isn’t getting to orbit. It’s the cost, speed, and visibility of learning on the way there.
For those who weren’t able to attend live, the full recording is available below, along with a summary of the key themes we discussed.
Watch the Recording
📺 EXOS Public Overview Call (Full Recording):
https://youtu.be/rwRKsV9DOsI
The Problem: Learning Is Too Expensive, Too Slow, and Too Public
Reaching orbit almost always takes multiple launch attempts. Even strong teams often require several flights before achieving reliable orbital success.
A single early orbital attempt can cost $30–100+ million when vehicle development, launch services, range costs, and program overhead are included. When those early flights fail, as many do, the impact extends beyond hardware loss to investor confidence, customer trust, and program momentum.
As a result, teams are often forced to minimize visible risk instead of learning quickly. Development timelines stretch, costs rise, and capital is exhausted before success.
The real challenge is not access to space.
It’s the economics of learning on the path to orbit.
The EXOS Approach: Move Learning Earlier and Lower
EXOS addresses this challenge by shifting early flight learning off high-dollar orbital vehicles and onto a licensed, reusable suborbital platform.
Instead of risking tens of millions of dollars per learning flight, teams can access an EXOS reusable vehicle through a $5 million wet lease, with marginal per-flight costs on the order of $100,000 per launch.
This allows customers to mature:
Avionics, guidance, navigation, and control
Flight software and autonomy
Integrated vehicle and ground operations
Countdown, launch, recovery, and reflight processes
Because EXOS vehicles are reusable and already licensed to fly, teams can iterate frequently, recover hardware, and learn privately - without public or investor exposure.
EXOS doesn’t replace orbital launch. It makes orbital success achievable sooner, with lower risk and lower capital requirements.
Integrated Pressurized Structures: Changing the Economics of Reuse
One of the most impactful topics discussed was Integrated Pressurized Structures (IPS).
Traditional aerospace systems are constrained not just by mass, but by parts count - tanks, brackets, fasteners, and inspections that accumulate cost and slow reuse.
IPS combines the pressure vessel, primary structure, and internal features into a single integrated composite structure. This is enabled by proprietary, room-temperature-cure resin systems with TRL-9 maturity and lunar heritage.
While an integrated structure may weigh more than a standalone tank, it eliminates hundreds of parts, reduces labor and inspection requirements, and enables faster turnaround between flights.
The result is better lifecycle economics, higher flight rates, and more practical reusability.
Why Liquid-Fueled, U.S.-Manufactured Suborbital Platforms Matter
Historically, suborbital testing has relied on expendable solid rockets with fixed flight profiles and limited adaptability.
EXOS provides U.S.-manufactured, liquid-fueled, reusable suborbital platforms with throttleable engines and software-defined flight profiles. Altitude, trajectory, and payload environments can be adjusted between missions without hardware changes.
This enables capabilities such as Day-Of-Launch I-Load Updates (DOLILU) - allowing final guidance and control parameters to be updated shortly before liftoff.
For Defense and NASA users, this means faster iteration, domestic supply chains, and lower program risk. For commercial users, it means shorter development cycles and lower cost per test.
Suborbital Platforms and Missile Defense
Modern missile-defense architectures depend on detecting and characterizing vehicles in the first seconds of flight - particularly as hypersonic and unconventional threats emerge.
Many of these threats do not resemble legacy boost profiles, and modeling alone cannot fully capture their signatures.
Reusable, liquid-fueled suborbital platforms provide real flight data with adjustable profiles, enabling faster validation of sensors, algorithms, and detection systems based on measured reality—not assumptions.
A Scalable Path Forward
EXOS is designed around a common, reusable rocket core, with mission-specific capability added through modular sections such as thermal protection or specialized structures.
Flight systems, avionics, and operations remain consistent. Only mission-specific elements change. This preserves learning, reliability, and operational experience while isolating risk.
Combined with reusability, Integrated Pressurized Structures, and software-defined flight profiles, this approach supports high flight rates, controlled costs, and a scalable path from testing to spaceflight.
Closing Thoughts
By shifting early development from $30–100 million orbital learning flights to a $5 million reusable vehicle lease with ~$100,000 per-flight iteration, EXOS enables faster learning, lower risk, and dramatically improved capital efficiency on the path to orbit.
We appreciate everyone who joined the conversation and the thoughtful questions that were shared. If you’d like to explore these ideas further, the full recording is available above, and we’re always open to continuing the discussion.
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities.