A Torrance company is helping with a historic moon mission. This is how

May 29, 2023

A composite liner-less propulsion tank being wrapped in Hexcel carbon fiber material at Scorpius Space Launch Company, in Torrance on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

Markus Rufer President, CEO at Scorpius Space Launch Company, explains the composite liner-less propulsion tank system that his company manufactures in Torrance on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

A look inside a composite liner-less propulsion tank at Scorpius Space Launch Company in Torrance on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

A look at a composite liner-less propulsion tank at Scorpius Space Launch Company in Torrance on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

Markus Rufer President, CEO at Scorpius Space Launch Company, holds a small composite liner-less propulsion tanks that might one day change the way people carry oxygen. Currently the company is building the tanks for space launches, in Torrance on Friday, May 12, 2023. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press-Telegram/SCNG)

Markus Rufer had an unusual foray into the space industry.

He was working for a high-tech company making electromagnetic devices when a friend asked him to visit Microcosm, Inc., a Torrance aerospace company that works on reducing the cost of space missions. Rufer was fascinated by what he saw. So he joined that company, building a team of engineers to serve as Microcosm's manufacturing arm.

That division later became a company on its own — Scorpius Space Launch Company.

Scorpius, which launched in 1999 and is also based in Torrance, makes aerospace systems and components. Rufer is the company's president and CEO.

"I was able to bring a lot of other experiences from other industries into this," Rufer said in a recent statement, "and that allowed me to do more of what we call thinking outside the box."

Rufer, a Switzerland native who has extensive experiences across various industries, led Scorpius to develop an all-composite cryogenic pressure vessel technology, which is now marketed under the trademark Pressurmaxx. The innovation will significantly reduce the cost and weight for launch vehicles.

In the process, Rufer built a small team of employees that aims to change the future of space missions — and could soon do so.

This new technology is on track to help deliver small payloads to the moon later this summer. If successful, Scorpius Space Launch Company would contribute to the world's first lunar landing with a spacecraft built by a private (and different) company.

Scorpius is among a cluster of space agencies that had enjoyed a long presence in the South Bay and Long Beach areas; the region, in many ways, is the epicenter of space research and development. The players in the area include well-known names, such as SpaceX and Northrup Grumman, as well as newcomers Relativity Space, Vast Space, Varda, Howmet and Slingshot Aerospace.

The area hasn't been without its bumps, however. Long Beach's Virgin Orbit, which some city leaders hailed as the start of an industry boom in Long Beach, filed for bankruptcy in April after a high-profile launch failure. But despite that and other intermittent signs of potential faltering, business and local officials say, the regional aerospace industry is still thriving.

And Scorpius is part of that.

The lightweight Pressurmaxx composite, liner-less tanks manufactured by the company use environmentally safe liquid oxygen and liquid methane fuels, Rufer said. The composite tanks are safer than the metal fuel tanks that are traditionally used on space missions, which are heavier and contain toxic fuel.

The composite tanks can significantly lower the cost and weight for launch vehicles and space missions, which, in turn, results in better space systems performance, according to NASA. It could also reduce space contamination, Rufer said.

"If we lose a satellite up there and it goes into a million pieces, and you’re in an altitude where things are not coming back in the near future," Rufer said, "that's a cloud of debris that's just floating around."

This summer, Scorpius's tanks will sit on a lunar lander called Nova-C, designed by Intuitive Machines to deliver small commercial payloads to the moon.

In April, Japanese start-up company Ispace, Inc., attempted the world's first private moon landing, but lost contact with its lunar lander, Hakuto-R Mission 1, moments before its scheduled touch down. The lander likely crashed on because of an altitude miscalculation, the company announced on May 26.

That set the stage for Intuitive Machines — with the help of Scorpius — to make history

If its mission succeeds, Intuitive Machines, which is based in Houston, would become the first commercial entity to land on the moon. The company is commissioned by NASA for four lunar missions, two in the third quarter of this year and two next year.

The success of the lunar mission would also mean Scorpius, a company of around 20 people, would accomplish its own feat.

"It will also be the first time," Rufer said, "that we use liquid methane and liquid oxygen for a clean propellant for the landing."

Michael Morey, a senior structural engineer who has been with Scorpius since 2017, was still in a state of disbelief about that possible achievement.

"I never expected that when I started working here," he said. "When we talked to the customer initially, it was just, oh just build another tank, but as we progressed, then we understood, oh, this is actually a lunar lander. Oh, it's happening next year. Oh, it's actually gonna launch soon. That is when it hits you that you are doing something that is going to be on the moon within a year."

Morey works on the design of the company's products, and serves as a liaison between the design team and the technicians on the floor. A small company allows the team to be more nimble and "react to customers’ requests quickly," he said.

Sang Yim, senior composite technician at Scorpius, also started working there in 2017 and about a year later, he brought his son Brandon Yim to the company as an apprentice. The younger Yim, 23, also works as a composite technician. Both are involved in building the pressure tanks.

"We work pretty hard to get to where we’re at now," the elder Yim said. "We’re very proud of ourselves and the team that we have. It's a small team, but the work environment is great."

And although the company is small, the close-knit team has managed to achieve similar or better results than bigger enterprises, he said.

Rufer agreed.

"This is the first real opportunity to let the world know what we actually do here and why we were selected to be on this lunar mission," Rufer said. "Because we have the solution that they were looking for."

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