By David Bullock
“We might be a business. We are a company. But most importantly, we are a community. And because we are a community, what we care about is what are the best ideas,” explained Jeromy Grimmett, Rogue Space Systems, CEO and founder.
Rogue Space Systems started in 2020 with the intent to create space robots to address in-space servicing needs for the space industry. Before Rogue was a company, it started off as a research paper, with the goal of finding ways to clean up debris in space and creating more sustainable methods of existing in space.
It is “bit of a hybrid company, with a distributed workforce throughout the country.” Grimmett said and he feels like the company works amazingly. “We are able to adapt to people’s lifestyles and have a home space here in New Hampshire,” he added.
In this past year, the company scaled from six to thirty people. It had a seed round and is currently raising a seed plus round. Rogue received government funding to the tune of $2.8 million, by winning twelve SBIR STTR grants, which were from government agencies such as the National Science Foundation, NASA and the US Space Force.
“No other company has had this level of success in one year through government funding with the SBIR STTR program,” said Grimmett. So far, it has successfully delivered on those programs. “We’ve delivered on time, or ahead of schedule,” he continued.
The company is designing spacecraft to be a very ubiquitous platform and despite its production up to this point, Rogue has not had a launch of any of its spacecraft yet. Three launches of its products are scheduled for this year. One spacecraft will launch in June and two spacecraft will launch in October. They are set to test inspection, observation, and check things out for damage in the space environment.
“We’ve gotten manifested on three different launches, so far, for our spacecraft programs, with one sponsored by the US government and going to geostationary orbit. The others are going to low Earth orbit,” said Grimmett.
Fred, one of their spacecraft, is more of a serving vehicle with robot arms and should move other objects around in space. Laura, another spacecraft, focuses on observation and monitoring. Both plan to be used for in-space purposes and a third spacecraft is in the works.
“Right now we are focused on fulfilling the needs of the civil and defense market for the US government. We are working to develop the commercial market. We think that’s going to be really getting a lot of traction over the next several years,” said Grimmett. “As we complete our demonstrations and we are able to fulfill the services that the Space Force, NASA and such, are looking for, we’ll then be able to transition into the commercial market and deliver that refueling capability, replenishment, repair, tugging services, things of that nature, for the commercial market [sic]. Mostly, we’re focusing on satellite operators and major stakeholders that are in space today.”
To get hired into Rogue, the company puts more value into the value structure of the applicant and how it matches Rogues values instead of skills. “Skills are phenomenal, but they are not as important as the values,” said Grimmett.
While the C-suite initially came about from close friends, who like Grimmett, were in the IT industry, in 2022 it brought in veteran space experience with its Chief Revenue Officer, Brent Abbott.
Grimmett summed up the company’s purpose by saying the following, “It’s building community through purpose-driven innovation.”
“One of the things that I try to put out there is: doing something greater than ourselves. I think that’s one of the core reasons why the people that come to Rogue gravitate towards us is that we are working on something greater than ourselves.”
“Sustainability, security in space—these are essential things to expand into that frontier and I want to enable that human capability so that we can get there and do bigger better things and drive economic life here on Earth. That’s how I feel about it personally. That’s my small contribution with what we’re achieving here at Rogue and I’m really fortunate to be part of a team that makes that happen,” said Grimmett.
With the space environment getting crowded with satellites and a relatively recent increase in ASAT tests, Grimmett wants everyone to know how important it is to be responsible with the space environment.
He said, “Be nice. There is a limited amount of orbital space around the Earth and we need to be good stewards of it. Otherwise, we’re going to ruin it for everybody. Let’s not repeat the same mistakes we’ve done here on Earth. Let’s not ruin the space environment.”
“We’re crowding space. It’s going to get to a point where it’s unsustainable unless we get more proactive and responsible on how we do things,” he summed.