Area station module developer Gravitics scored a $1.7 million contract from the U.S. Area Power to develop orbital platforms to allow responsive area missions.
The contract is a component of a bigger push from the Power to obtain area capabilities — like launch, satellite tv for pc payload integration, and even satellite tv for pc operations — from non-public trade on timelines which have been beforehand extraordinary. The initiative is known as tactically responsive area, or TacRS, and it’s already resulted in record-breaking missions: Firefly Area’s Alpha rocket left the pad simply 27 hours after it acquired its launch discover from the Area Power below its TacRS contract final 12 months.
Whereas Gravitics was unable to supply extra particulars as to the precise idea of operations, startup co-founder and CMO Mike DeRosa did make clear in an e mail that the corporate just isn’t placing a module on a rocket for a tactically responsive launch. As a substitute, the mission is expounded to creating “platforms to allow a brand new form of tactically responsive area mission,” he stated.
The $1.7 million contract was awarded by SpaceWERX in partnership with Area Techniques Command’s Area Safari Program Workplace. In a press release, Area Safari’s director of operations Lt Col Jason Altenhofen, stated Gravitics’ module “provides an unconventional and probably game-changing answer for TacRS.”
“As we glance into the longer term, the progressive use of business applied sciences will likely be an necessary facet to fixing a few of our hardest challenges,” he stated.
Gravitics will likely be working with a number of different corporations below the contract, together with Rocket Lab, True Anomaly, Area Exploration Engineering and Eta Area. Whereas there are scant concrete particulars about how the companies will work collectively, the corporate stated the companions will “help in refining mission structure, creating use-case particular outfitting, and creating flight {hardware}.
Rocket Lab and True Anomaly had been awarded separate responsive area contracts for a mission known as Victus Haze earlier this month. Beneath that contract, every firm will construct spacecraft that can then be quickly commissioned and readied for rendezvous operations in orbit.
