SpaceRyde

Overview

SpaceRyde tried to make small-satellite launches behave like private taxis. Its Ryder rocket would rise beneath a stratospheric balloon, ignite above most of the atmosphere, and deliver a customer's payload to a chosen orbit. The husband-and-wife team of Sohrab Haghighat and Saharnaz Safari founded the company in 2018, joined Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch, raised about $10 million, and grew to roughly 30 people.^[1][6]

The immediate failure was terrestrial. SpaceRyde relied on one rural Ontario site for full-scale engine tests. After residents complained, Trent Hills asked the company to stop testing on October 7, 2022. Deloitte's trustee report says that loss made continued operations impossible. SpaceRyde filed for bankruptcy four months later, before completing an orbital launch.^[3]

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Founding Story

SpaceRyde began as Loonify Space Inc., incorporated federally on May 9, 2018.^[3] Public accounts identify Safari and Haghighat as a married couple but do not say when or how they met. Their skills divided along the company's two hardest fronts: building an unusual vehicle and getting permission to operate it.

Haghighat held a PhD in aerospace engineering and had run planning and controls teams as an early Cruise employee.^[1] His autonomous-vehicle work transferred to a balloon carrier whose exact location changed with the wind. Safari had earned a master's degree in bioanalytical chemistry from the University of Waterloo, spent about a decade in healthcare and product launches, and later completed an MBA at UC Berkeley.^[4]

Their customer insight was that low launch prices did not solve scheduling and orbit constraints for small payloads. “Just getting a ride to orbit for these small satellite, even if they have the money, or they want to pay as much as they’re getting charged right now, on big rockets, is a big problem,” Safari said in a 2019 interview.^[5] Rideshare customers waited for a primary mission whose date, inclination, and destination happened to fit.

SpaceRyde proposed a small dedicated rocket lifted through the dense atmosphere by balloon. Haghighat told Machine Design, “From the get-go, the rocket starts operating in a vacuum condition.”^[6] That allowed vacuum-optimized engines and a lighter structure. Software would point the carrier before release.

The company entered Creative Destruction Lab's space cohort, joined YC's Winter 2019 batch, and changed its name from Loonify to SpaceRyde.^[9][1] Its vision expanded from dedicated CubeSat launches to a “Rocket Network” whose upper stages would stay in orbit for refueling, transfers, and debris removal. The early customer problem was concrete. The later roadmap required several unproven systems to work in sequence.

Timeline

• May 9, 2018: Loonify Space Inc. was incorporated in Canada.^[3]
• Winter 2019: The company joined Y Combinator as SpaceRyde.^[1]
• June 9, 2019: A small-scale North Bay flight validated carrier orientation but exposed a modified engine fault.^[9]
• February 2021: The National Research Council awarded C$50,000 for vehicle, carrier, and ground-station development.^[12]
• November 3, 2021: A hybrid engine completed a public ten-second firing.^[8]
• June 2022: SpaceRyde opened a 25,000-square-foot Concord factory with about 30 employees.^[6]
• October 7, 2022: Trent Hills asked SpaceRyde to cease engine testing.^[3]
• November 2022: SpaceRyde signed ISILaunch for four commercial missions planned from 2024.^[11]
• February 10, 2023: SpaceRyde assigned itself into bankruptcy and Deloitte became trustee.^[2]