VEB Bank puts up $154k for next gen laser modules for rocket engines

Russian company Spectralaser is expecting $154,000 from a VEB Bank subsidiary to develop its laser modules for liquid propellant rocket engines? ignition systems

Russian company Spectralaser is expecting $154,000 from VEB-Innovations, a VEB Bank subsidiary, to develop its laser modules for liquid propellant rocket engines? ignition systems, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported. Spectralaser is a resident of the Skolkovo Foundation?s space cluster. VEB-Innovations is said to have co-invested in a second stage of Spectralaser?s project aimed at testing the laser modules inside sustainer ignition chambers of rocket engines, and then preparing the modules for on-site testing in the rocket engines that Russian industry currently manufactures. The modules are believed to enable multiple starts of rocket engines in flight or in orbit. They are expected to replace today?s pyrocartridges. Plans are to first use the modules on a carrier rocker to be launched in 2015 from the Vostochny Space Center currently being built in Russia?s Far East. In 2012, the Spectralaser project received a $770,000 grant from the Skolkovo Foundation. At the inception stage, the St. Petersburg-based Pre-Seed Investment Fund was a co-investor. VEB-Innovations is a fund set up by Russia?s VEB Bank to support projects that Skolkovo residents develop...