{"id":1610,"date":"2026-04-20T17:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/opterus-secures-nasa-sbir-contract-for-solar-sail-deployment-system\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T17:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:47:11","slug":"opterus-secures-nasa-sbir-contract-for-solar-sail-deployment-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/opterus-secures-nasa-sbir-contract-for-solar-sail-deployment-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Opterus Secures NASA SBIR Contract for Solar Sail Deployment System"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\" itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/cover204263_639122664049678145.webp\" width=\"712\" height=\"377\" alt=\"Opterus Secures NASA SBIR Contract for Solar Sail Deployment System\" class=\"imageload removeImageattr\" data-original=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/cover204263_639122664049678145.webp\" style=\"opacity: 0.0799532;\"><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/cover204263_639122664049678145.webp\"><meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"712\"><meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"377\"><\/p>\n<p>Opterus has received a $10.2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III contract from NASA to provide the structural deployment system for the agency\u2019s next solar sail spacecraft. Opterus is developing a system to deploy and control a 1,600-square-meter sail, roughly the size of a hockey rink, using four 30-meter composite booms and integrated mechanisms. Delivery to NASA is planned for early 2028.<\/p>\n<p>The award advances Opterus\u2019 Trussed Collapsible Tubular Mast (TCTM) technology, a lightweight composite boom architecture proven through earlier SBIR awards. The booms are designed to remain stiff and thermally stable after being tightly coiled for launch, then autonomously spool out in an X-shaped configuration to support the sail.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt\u2019s an SBIR success story,\u201d <strong>said Kiel Davis, President of Opterus<\/strong>. \u201cTwo phases took our technology from research to validated hardware, and now our boom architecture is enabling a new scale of solar sailing. The systems engineering behind this effort is strengthening everything we do, from antennas to sensor arrays to lunar infrastructure.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Opterus is engineering a tightly integrated system that controls sail shape and structural response to maintain stable radiation pressure and consistent propulsion performance throughout the mission.<\/p>\n<div class=\"widget-layout related-content-also-read-box my-3\">\n<h4 class=\"mb-0\">Also Read: What is Payload Integration in CubeSats &amp; Small Satellites?<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>\u201cBuilding large precision space systems like this is exactly the type of challenge&nbsp;<\/em><em>Opterus<\/em><em>&nbsp;was created to solve,\u201d <strong>said Tom Murphey, Founder and CTO of Opterus<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s more than deploying booms. We\u2019re controlling the sail\u2019s shape, its flatness, and propulsion characteristics.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s most recent solar sail, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), deployed an 80 square meter sail on 7-meter booms. The spacecraft Opterus is supporting will fly a sail with an area 20 times that of ACS3. Design, fabrication and testing of the solar sail deployment system are currently underway at Opterus\u2019 Loveland, Colorado, facility. Applied Aerospace &amp; Defence is supplying the spacecraft\u2019s sail membrane, made from a proprietary advanced thin-polymer, with flight heritage from previous solar and drag sail systems. Both companies are preparing for integrated system testing before delivering the system to NASA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opterus has received a $10.2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase III contract from NASA to provide the structural deployment system for the agency\u2019s next solar sail spacecraft. Opterus is developing a system to deploy and control a 1,600-square-meter sail, roughly the size of a hockey rink, using four 30-meter composite booms and integrated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[39,26,25],"class_list":["post-1610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerospace","tag-ground","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}