For the first time since Stoke was founded in 2020, Lapsa publicly put out a target launch date for Nova, saying the company is aiming for “early” 2027 to launch. "I feel good about that launch date," he said. During an Ars site visit to the company’s factory in Kent, Washington, it was clear that the company is in advanced stages of assembly of flight hardware and has additional vehicles in flow.

The Nova rocket is real and represents a bold effort to build a small, fully reusable vehicle. Block 2 is new. The Nova Pathfinder vehicle has a diameter of about 12.5 feet, slightly larger than SpaceX's Falcon 9, although it is considerably shorter. The Block 2 version of Nova is intended to have a 15-foot diameter, Lapsa said.

"Probably the biggest change on the whole vehicle is that we will have a cylindrical second stage," he said. Stoke is targeting 2029 for the debut launch of Block 2. "The space economy will grow exactly as fast as we can launch rockets. It will not grow faster. It cannot grow faster. And there is a lot of pent-up demand for rockets flying. The mismatch between supply of launch and demand is enormous."