ARK Invest Recap: Stoke Space's Devon Papandrew on Fully Reusable Rockets

Key takeaways from ARK Invest's FYI podcast with Stoke Space VP Devon Papandrew (~47 min): an actively cooled upper stage, skipping partial reuse, Nova Block 2, the Falcon 9-shaped gap, 24-hour turnaround and ARK's $300/kg space-compute estimate.

By the GNOUP team · November 12, 2026 · 9 min read

The newest full video on ARK Invest's official YouTube channel, "Fully Reusable Rockets With Stoke Space's Devon Papandrew", was published on November 12, 2026 at about 8:00 AM ET and runs about 47 minutes. It is an episode of ARK's FYI podcast: ARK's Brett Winton, Daniel Maguire and Tasha Keeney talk with Devon Papandrew, VP of Business Development at Stoke Space, about building a rocket meant to be fully and rapidly reusable, including the upper stage that most rockets still throw away. Brett notes at the start that Stoke Space is in ARK's venture portfolio.

This is an independent summary written by GNOUP. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by ARK Invest, Stoke Space or anyone who appears in the video. The views, forecasts and claims described below belong to the speakers, not to GNOUP. Nothing here is investment, financial or tax advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything. Forecasts and company timelines can turn out to be wrong. Please consult a licensed financial professional before making financial decisions.

Key takeaways

Stoke's pitch is that launch, not demand, holds back the space economy. Papandrew argues that when you build a new rocket (or rocket stage) for every flight, launches can only grow as fast as factories can. Full reuse, he says, moves the industry from a manufacturing limit to an operations limit, closer to how airliners fly.
The upper stage is the hard part, and Stoke's heat shield is also its engine. Instead of fragile tiles or ablative shields, Stoke actively cools the re-entry surface of its upper stage with liquid hydrogen fuel, borrowing the cooling method rocket engines have used for decades. He says the approach fails gradually rather than catastrophically, so the stage should be able to land, refuel and fly again without long inspections.
Hardware status, in his telling: more than 11,000 seconds of hot-fire testing on the upper-stage engine; the flight-one upper stage has shipped for a static-fire campaign ending in a 60-second hot fire; two of the seven first-stage engines have finished acceptance testing; and first orbital flight is targeted for early 2027, with a second vehicle already being built.
Nova Block 2 targets the "Falcon 9-shaped hole." He describes Block 2, announced last month and backed by a $1 billion Series E, as a scaled-up version of the same design: about 15 tons to low Earth orbit, a 5-meter fairing, fully reusable, planned for 2029. He says customers worry about getting rides to space around 2029 as SpaceX shifts toward Starship.
He makes the case for more independent launch companies. Papandrew says the big providers increasingly serve their own projects or a few anchor customers, leaving a short list focused on everyone else. He adds that he does not bet against SpaceX, but would not assume Starship reaches high flight rates by next year.
Coming back from space could unlock new markets. He calls getting payloads down from orbit about 10x more constrained than getting them up, and points to space-made pharmaceuticals, biotech and exotic materials as markets that need regular return trips.
ARK's own estimate on compute in space. Brett says ARK's current model, which he expects to be wrong in the details but right in direction, suggests computing in orbit could become cheaper than building data centers on the ground at a launch cost of around $300 per kilogram.
These are opinions, plans and forecasts. Timelines and test figures are as stated by Stoke's executive; ARK has a stake in the company. Nothing here is GNOUP's view or a recommendation about any security.

Newsworthy investment insights

These are opinions, forecasts and claims voiced in the video. GNOUP has not independently checked them. ARK's disclosure in the episode says statements about companies are beliefs and points of view, not endorsements or recommendations to buy, sell or hold any security, and that ARK clients may hold positions in securities discussed. Stoke Space is in ARK's venture portfolio, as Brett says at the start.

Why full reuse matters (Papandrew's argument)

He compares today's launch industry to air travel if part of every 737 were thrown away after each flight: availability stays low and prices stay high, and there is almost no way to bring things back.
Recalling ARK's own old spreadsheet, Brett says ARK once figured partial reuse only clearly paid off if SpaceX landed boosters reliably; SpaceX turned out to be very good at it. Papandrew expects similar doubts about full reuse today to age the same way: you give up some payload, he argues, but you fly far more often and more reliably.
On reliability, he says Falcon 9's few failures have come on the first flight of a stage, which to him shows the value of flight-proven hardware. With full reuse, he argues, almost no flight is the first flight of anything.

How Stoke's design works (as described)

The space shuttle's ceramic tiles worked but were brittle and needed long inspections between flights. Stoke instead runs cold liquid hydrogen through channels in the re-entry surface, the same idea used to keep rocket engines from melting. He says the inside of a rocket engine sees roughly 20x the heat flux of re-entry.
The first stage uses full-flow staged combustion engines, which he calls the high point of rocket engineering and well suited to long life and quick reuse.
He says vertical integration (building most parts in-house) currently wins in rocketry because it controls cost and schedule risk, and because the two stages are tightly matched. More mixing and matching might come once designs settle, but he would not predict when.
Stoke uses a traditional clamshell fairing so customers do not have to redesign satellites, and he says it could adapt if the industry later standardizes on SpaceX-style "dispenser" designs.

Demand, competition and the Falcon 9 gap (his reading)

Beyond Starlink and national security, he points to communications constellations (noting public reports that Amazon has hundreds of satellites waiting for launch), Earth observation, alternative positioning and navigation, and signals intelligence, with companies hoping to grow from a handful of satellites to many hundreds or more.
He describes how other launch companies have their own priorities: SpaceX with its own constellations, Blue Origin with its own programs, ULA with heavy Space Force and Amazon demand, and Rocket Lab with its own constellation plans after an acquisition. His conclusion: more independent providers are needed to keep access available and prices affordable.
Asked whether Stoke might someday run its own satellite business, he takes no position for the long term but says staying payload-agnostic is the right move for now.
He says Stoke has signed contracts with a number of customers reaching well into the future, without naming them or giving amounts.

Risks and the road ahead

He says demand does not keep him up at night. What does is the riskier, higher-stakes testing ahead (static fires, wet dress rehearsals, first flights) and whether Stoke can serve all the demand it sees.
Stoke plans several pathfinder launches in 2027 and 2028, then Nova Block 2 in 2029, aiming to fly regularly later in the decade. All of these are company goals, not guarantees.

Turnaround time and compute in space (forecasts)

Stoke's design target is a 24-hour turnaround for the upper stage, from launch to landing to the next flight. He says Stoke will not do that right away, but the target shapes design choices from structures down to turbomachinery.
He is cautious on orbital data centers, saying a lot of work remains on the unit economics, while noting they would need fully reusable rockets flying hundreds or thousands of times a year.
Brett adds ARK's view that cheap solar power in orbit plus AI could make computing in space worthwhile around $300/kg launch costs, and argues that well-funded AI competitors may not want to rely on SpaceX for launch. That is ARK's forecast, not a fact.
Both sides agree that upper stages returning over populated areas need very high reliability to satisfy regulators, which Papandrew sees as another reason a robust heat shield matters.

Watch the video

Fully Reusable Rockets With Stoke Space's Devon Papandrew on YouTube (ARK Invest's official channel, published November 12, 2026)

Episode guide

Official chapters from the video description, summarized in our words (linked to the matching timestamp):

About this summary

GNOUP wrote this summary in its own words from the video's automatic YouTube transcript (via the watch page with &hl=en) and its official YouTube description. Chapter times come from the description. Automatic transcripts can contain errors (for example in names), so we used the description's spellings. We did not check any figures, timelines, forecasts or claims made in the video, including Stoke's test results, funding, customer contracts and launch dates. The episode's own disclosure says it is for informational purposes only and should not be relied on for investment decisions; statements about companies or securities are beliefs and points of view held by ARK or its guests, not endorsements or recommendations to buy, sell or hold any security; ARK clients may hold positions in securities discussed; and forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. GNOUP has no connection to ARK Invest or Stoke Space and does not endorse them. This article is general information only. It is not investment, financial or tax advice, it does not recommend buying or selling any security or asset, and it is not a substitute for advice from a licensed financial professional.