Venus Aerospace, a rocket propulsion startup, unveiled its new test stand at the Houston Spaceport on Thursday.
The Houston-based company specializes in improvements to rocket engines and propulsion. The new facility develops rotating detonation rocket engines (RDRE), which are designed to be more powerful and efficient than conventional rocket engines by producing greater thrust in a smaller engine.
The new testing stand sits on about five acres of land at the Houston Spaceport, which is part of Ellington Airport. The facility allows Venus Aerospace, founded in 2020, to test and measure its rocket engines — and do so more rapidly than the typical standard, officials said. As part of its inaugural activities, Venus Aerospace conducted its first official test before a group of city council members, space advocates, and Houston Spaceport officials.
"This test site gives us capabilities that we haven’t had before," Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO of Venus, toldHouston Public Media. "The test site that we built when we first moved to Houston ... we hit the limits of what we could actually do here. So the new test site that we just did the ribbon cutting for today gives us capacity on longer duration tests, higher thrust tests, and helps us really continue to push the technology forward to meet the needs of the ecosystem."
In May 2025, Venus completed a successful RDRE test flight,which it has touted as the first ever in the United States, reaching an altitude of 4,000 feet and a speed of Mach 0.5, half the speed of sound. As of July, the company had raised $91 millionin funding from venture capital groups, with the goal of commercializing its RDRE engines.
The new testing stand was funded by a grant — issued shortly after the successful flight—from the Texas Space Commission, a state-level entity that invests in aeronautics and space companies to develop the state's space industry. In April 2025, the commission issued a $3.9 million grant to develop the test facility.
"This occasion is actually another moment, another door opening for the Texas aerospace industry," Norman Garza, executive director of the Texas Space Commission, said on Thursday. "We too at the Texas Space Commission learned along the way of how to help put this capital into motion, working at the local level — not just the state level — and of course the nexus to national security is very important."
As part of its pitch to the Texas Space Commission, Venus Aerospace also reportedly suggested developing the testing facility into a national hub for rocket engine testing, though that idea has not yet been put into practice.
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