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Sustainable Access
To Earth Orbit and Beyond
our mission and vision
ONE SMALL ROCKET, ONE GIANT LEAP
Perigee is dedicated to building the smallest launch vehicles in the world to remove the barrier for reaching Earth orbit and beyond.
Why being the smallest so important to us? Because by making rockets smaller, spaceflight becomes easier, more affordable, and for the first time in human history, truly sustainable.
Small launch vehicles can be readily mass produced in a smaller production facility. They also require less infrastructure for launch operations, lowering the overall cost per mission. Combined with a significantly reduced impact to the nearby environment, the Blue Whale launch vehicles will enable space access for everyone on Earth.
Blue Whale 0.1 test vehicles being launched from the Jeju launch site
Perigee Blue Whale 1 launch vehicle
LAUNCH MASS 2,200 kg
EMPTY MASS 200 kg
THRUST AT LIFTOFF 2.5 tonf
PAYLOAD TO 500 km SSO 40 kg
PAYLOAD TO 500 km LEO 50 kg
SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH EFFICIENCY
We believe future launch vehicles should be designed for sustainability. Every launch should be affordable, environmentally friendly and safe. Perigee launch vehicles are equipped with efficient rocket engines, lightweight carbon composite tanks and custom-built avionics. This enables the Blue Whales to be the smallest and lightest launch vehicles ever built, consuming minimal amount of propellant per kilogram of payload.
We first started developing the most reliable and yet the most efficient rocket engines in the world since 2018. Both the main and the upper stage engines of the Blue Whale 1 are fueled with liquid natural gas for the highest performance per kilogram of total carbon emission. As a result, Skyblue upper stage engine is the most efficient rocket engine ever built for micro launchers, with a combustion efficiency exceeding 97%, and a vacuum specific impulse of more than 360 seconds.

They are also the lightest of their kinds. The Skyblue is just 10 kg including all sensors, actuators, valves and a nozzle extension. Despite the low margin for mass and efficiency, Perigee's engines are powering many test vehicle programs with zero failure to date.
Skyblue upper stage engine being test fired using sea level expansion nozzle
IN-HOUSE EVOLUTION
More than 70% of the vehicle hardware by value is produced in-house. This not only reduces the overall cost of the many flight-critical hardware such as a flight computer pack, but it also enables us to test and adopt more optimized designs any time they are needed.
Integrated flight controller for Blue Whale upper stage
EXTREMELY LIGHTWEIGHT
The greatest challenge for building a launch vehicle that is small but still capable is not everything scales down to the small size of the vehicle. Even the smallest launch vehicle has nearly the same number of sensors and actuators as that of the larger ones. And reducing the mass of these mechanical components proportional to the vehicle size is physically impossible. That is why having a lightweight structure that can compensate these mass inefficiencies is a key to success for smallsat launch vehicles.
Blue Whale 1 Upper Stage
PROPELLANT MASS 470 kg
PROPELLANT TANK MASS 25 kg
ENGINE THRUST 310 kgf
STAGE LENGTH INCLUDING FAIRING 4.6 m
Development and production of the lightweight carbon composite tank for BW-1 upper stage
Perigee has developed a lightweight carbon fiber composite tank that can withstand the harsh environment of the liquid oxygen and can be reused for dozens of flights. The upper stage propellant tank that can store 470 kg of LOX and LNG at a pressure of 15 bar weighs just 25 kg including all brackets and cables.
This extremely light tank, combined with high performance engines, enables Perigee to develop the Blue Whale 1, world’s smallest launch vehicle capable of inserting 50 kg micro satellite into low earth orbit.