ARK Invest · Nov 12, 2026 · 47m · 40m saved
With Devon Papandrew, VP of Business Development at Stoke Space
Stoke Space has logged more than 11,000 seconds of hot-fire testing on the engine that doubles as its upper stage's heat shield, Devon Papandrew, the company's VP of Business Development, told Brett Winton, Chief Futurist at ARK Invest, on the ARK Invest podcast. Most of the rocket industry, following SpaceX's Falcon 9, throws the upper stage away on every flight; Stoke's bet is that both stages fly back and fly again.
"Imagine how restricted air travel would be if you threw away all or part of the 737 after every flight." — Devon Papandrew
Devon fields calls every day from satellite operators worried about access to orbit, which gives him a read on launch demand that few outsiders get.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 47 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 9 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
Stoke has logged over 11,000 seconds of hot-fire testing on the engine that doubles as its upper stage's heat shield
Stoke skipped partial reuse entirely, betting the industry is headed toward "full and rapid reuse"
Nova Block 2, backed by a $1 billion Series E, matches Falcon 9's payload capacity with full-reuse economics
Stoke's design target is a 24-hour turnaround, which it says could scale to 100,000 flights a year
Devon says access back down from orbit is "10x more constrained" than access up, stranding products made in orbit
Amazon reportedly has hundreds of satellites sitting on the ground waiting for launch
1. Full Reuse, Not Partial
Devon laid out Stoke's founding bet: both the booster and the upper stage have to be fully and rapidly reusable, not just the booster, which is as far as Falcon 9 goes.
Stoke is building a rocket designed to fly daily, both stages included
"Stoke is building 100% reusable rockets designed to fly daily. That includes the booster stage... but also the upper stage, which traditionally, up until now, has been thrown away during every flight." — Devon Papandrew
He framed today's model, in which an expensive stage is built for a single use, as the real bottleneck on the space economy.
"Imagine how restricted air travel would be if you threw away all or part of the 737 after every flight." — Devon Papandrew
