Venus Aerospace's Detonation Engine Could Double Rocket Payloads

Venus Aerospace's rotating detonation rocket engine is 15% more energy-efficient than the Saturn V — while new SpaceX rockets beat the moon-era booster by just 2%, according to cofounder Sarah Duggleby. That gap, she argues, is why defense and space customers are now knocking.

The company has raised just shy of $140 million, including a $91 million Series B in June, and employs 113 people, per PitchBook. This past summer it struck a development deal with Lockheed Martin to integrate RDRE technology into precision long-range missiles.

What flew in New Mexico?

On an early morning in May 2025 at Spaceport America, a desert basin outside Las Cruces, New Mexico, a silver rocket shot into the air. It wasn't a routine launch. Venus Aerospace, the Texas-based startup behind the flight, had just completed the first successful U.S. flight of a rotating detonation rocket engine — a century after Robert Goddard launched his first liquid-fueled rocket.

"It's a step change in combustion physics," says Sarah Duggleby, who cofounded the company with her husband, rocket engineer Andrew Duggleby.

The technology works like this: a precisely timed ring of subsonic explosions detonates in rapid succession around a circular chamber, generating more thrust with less fuel. Venus predicts the design can achieve hypersonic flight. Duggleby estimates Venus RDRE rockets can double the payload rockets carry into space.

The concept has been theorized since the 1980s and was finally cracked by researchers at Purdue University and the University of Central Florida. Traditional engines — from the Saturn V to SpaceX's Falcon — rely on deflagration, a continuous burn of fuel and oxidizer. An RDRE runs on a choreographed series of explosions. Duggleby says she can even hear the difference: a successful test flight hits a distinct whistling sound.

"It turns out when you build the most efficient liquid rocket engine in the world, defense and space companies start coming to you like, 'Hey, could you sell us engines?'" she says. "We've pivoted, but at the core, it's always been about, if you want to go fast, you need a new engine."

Why Houston, and why fast?

The origin story dates to 2018, when Andrew Duggleby, then a Navy Reserve officer, was stationed in Japan with his family. Facing a 13-hour flight home they'd miss a grandmother's birthday for, he joked that a new rocket engine technology could theoretically make the trip in an hour. They laughed. Then they founded Venus two years later.

At the time, both Dugglebys worked at Virgin Orbit. In June 2020, after Sarah read about university researchers proving the new engine type, the couple quit and committed to building a high-speed plane powered by RDRE technology.

They picked the Houston Spaceport for its aerospace talent and facilities. From their headquarters, Venus can test-fire mounted rocket engines right outside their hangar door at Ellington Field — a contrast with Southern California, where Duggleby said developers based in the South Bay or Long Beach had to drive hours to test in the Mojave Desert, adding time and cost.

That proximity paid off. Venus developed its new rocket concept in roughly four years on $80 million, iterating quickly between staff and test site. Beyond the researchers' blueprint, the company ran extensive testing, materials science experiments and high-speed camera analysis to reach a commercially viable design — the rotating supersonic explosions demanded new chamber materials and deft engineering.

"Here's an analogy about the challenge of building a rocket," says Duggleby. "A rocket's like lighting a fire in a wax fireplace, and you have to keep the wax from melting."

What comes next?

Venus now wants to develop and test rocket models spanning defense, space and aerospace, and build a manufacturing process to produce them at scale — a platform serving multiple industries rather than a single customer system.

The timing helps. Spending on defense, commercial space and aerospace technology is accelerating, and Venus has seen interest in its technology soar.

"We have a current opportunity with what's going on geopolitically to get our engine into systems," Duggleby said. "But my hope and dream is that we will . . . not let go of that north star: that this is the engine that will ultimately unlock high-speed global travel."

For now, the near-term revenue sits in missiles and launch systems. The one-hour flight from Tokyo remains the long game.