In September 1988, after the completion of the first ISU Summer Session at MIT, a group of us got together to form something called the Space Development Corporation (SDC).... The group included me, Todd Hawley, Gregg Maryniak and Walter Anderson. SDC was formed as an incubator to create space related for-profit ventures. We considered a number, but ended up focusing on one specific idea which was put forward by a Houston based engineer by the name of Robert Noteboom. Bob's idea was to create a really low-cost expendable launch vehicle that could put 100 lbs into orbit by using very cheap, mass-produced solid rocket motors and low-cost sounding rocket operations and avionics.

SDC initially raised $200,000, $100K from Walt and $100K from me and my Dad. We ended up sinking all of the money into this rocket idea and folding SDC into this rocket company. The Rocket Company was first called Micro Satellite Launch Systems, then MicroSat, then International Microspace. Our vision was a future of very cheap low-cost satellites which would come about by microminiaturization that would require very cheap launches... lots and lots of launches.

We soon hired ISU'88 Alum Gus Gardellini and Bob Noteboom full time and they started our Houston Office.... after many months of trying to manage the office remotely I begrudgingly agreed to become President and move to Houston - I was trying to get Walt (who was Chairman of the Board) to take the lead and run the company.

One important provision of Walt's investment is that he wanted no government contracts or funding in MicroSat... in particular, no military involvement. Walt hates the Defense Department. So we put into our by-laws that provision... little did we know what that provision would cause in heart-ache and pain down the road!

The Houston operation grew over the next few months, as did our rocket design! We initially were planning to build the OV-10... a 10-lbs to orbit launch vehicle, intended to be the first "private launch vehicle" ever built... we called it project "Private Sputnik"... little did we know that shortly Pegasus would launch and Orbital Science would have the distinction of having build the first private launch system. With that objective crushed, we aimed higher for the OV-100... 100-lbs for $1M per launch. We attracted some great investors and Board members.... Folks like David Wine (one of the Founders of GeoStar, and a Trustee of the Space Studies Institute and eventually Chairman of IMI), Captain Gene Cernan (Apollo 17 - last man on the moon) and Andrew J. Stofan (the past Assoc. Administrator of the Space Station at NASA).

Our vehicle followed a crazy evolution over the next 5 years... We started out trying to build our own solid rocket motors. It was to be a six-stage vehicle... 6 strap-ons (stage 1 and 2) around a 4-stage core system. We wanted to use multiple engines of the same type in the vehicle in order to benefit from economies of scale... so we had one rocket motor we called PLATINUM which was used 8 times and one motor called GOLD which was used twice. Our efforts to build these motors from scratch with low-cost developers failed dismally... one of our hidden objective was that the PLATINUM motor looked a lot like the Bristol Black Brant Rocket engine then used by NASA for sub-orbital sounding rocket launches (about 40 per year). Our hope was if we could build and fly these motors cheaply (Bristol charged about $200K per motor) we'd be able to steal away Bristol's business from NASA... little did we know how difficult building a motor was to be! We had failures... and we had sky-high cost estimates. In the final result, rather than compete with Bristol we decided to partner with them and use their rocket motors in our efforts... They loved the fact that every launch would use 8 of their motors...

Well that was until the representative from Thiokol came knocking on our door. He pointed out that their new Castor IVb (with thrust vector control) could easily replace the first three stages (7 of the Black Brant motors) and get us better performance and guidance... fact was, He was right! We loved it... but our partner Bristol hated the idea!

Well, at least they had the 2nd and 3rd stage... a Black Brant and a Raven motor (the 4th stage was a Star-20)... well that was until the performance showed that a Castor-1 and a Star 37 could triple our mass carried to orbit.

We entered a period of time where we had no Bristol motors...

In January of 1990 we were contacted by the Governor's office of Alaska asking us if we'd consider launching from Poker Flat... then a sounding rocket facility, interested in growing its business. We said, sure, if Alaska's got money to support us with!

Around this time, we moved the office from Houston to Washington DC and had the tremendous addition of Bruce Kraselsky as our VP and General Counsel and Bradley J. Schwartz as our Chief Operating Officer.

In the months that followed, we also determined that the only near-term real customer out there interested in a vehicle like ours was the U.S. government, specifically the DoD... Star Wars. I ended up having to buy Walter Anderson's stock back from him... he willingly agreed and sold back 100% of his shares at 50-cents on the dollar... it was all we could afford. It was either that or fold the company.

We ended up making some 9 trips up to Alaska to raise funds, help create the Alaska Spaceport Authority (which employed Pat Ladner as the Exec. Director --- he eventually moved the orbital launch port from Poker Flat to the Kenai peninsula where it is today). We also opened an Alaska office run by an amazing entrepreneur John Wannamaker.

Around this time we had established a partnership with a company called Defense Systems Inc. (DSI) run by Dr. George Sebastian and VP Jason O'Neill. Our vision was a Turnkey small-sat to orbit called the Pony Express.

After a lot of hard work, we were able to get the attention of the Technology Office of SDI run by Col. Simon "Pete" Worden (now General Worden). They agreed that it would be a good idea to create a back-up capability to Pegasus for putting small launchers into orbit. They created a bid opportunity for a 700-lbs class launcher to LEO... only problem was our vehicle was able to carry about 400-lbs... so our design changed again!

To bolster our chance of success, winning the contract and raising money, I stepped down as CEO/President to the position of SVP of Biz Dev and we welcomed Otto Heornig to become the CEO... Otto was a very experienced business man and rocket operator - he was involved with Scout program in the 1960's and 70's which were very close to the size of our vehicle.

We made the vehicle design modes... we now had a vehicle which looked nothing like our original thoughts... we essentially chased this single customer.

The Contract came thru... after marathon all-night proposal sessions and a lot of hard work... we won! A contract for 1 firm launch and 9 options worth as much as $110 Million... I'll never forget when Otto got a package which included a Bottle of Champaign and a Bottle of Excedrin!!! How appropriate!

While we won the contract we were never able to finance the company and eventually sold International MicroSpace Inc. to CTA in Rockville, Maryland back in 1993. CTA continued the program in an excellent fashion, but unfortunately when the Clinton Administration came into power, the SDIO office got cut back and our contract got cancelled for convenience. The OV-100... then named the ORBEX never got launched. CTA eventually sold all of its space-related assets (including the ORBEX design) to Orbital Science Corporation.

Peter H. Diamandis
Past CEO and co-Founder

To see International Microspace pictures click here