{"id":17543,"date":"2021-06-01T21:14:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T13:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/inside-look-spaceflight-ships-out-sherpa-orbital-tugs-to-give-36-spacecraft-a-ride\/"},"modified":"2021-06-01T21:14:19","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T13:14:19","slug":"inside-look-spaceflight-ships-out-sherpa-orbital-tugs-to-give-36-spacecraft-a-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/inside-look-spaceflight-ships-out-sherpa-orbital-tugs-to-give-36-spacecraft-a-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside look: Spaceflight ships out Sherpa orbital tugs to give 36 spacecraft a ride"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tony
Tony Frego, Spaceflight Inc.\u2019s senior director of mission management, shows off the Sherpa-LTE1 orbital transportation vehicle and its electric propulsion system. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AUBURN, Wash. \u2014 A pair of space tugs are beginning their journey from Spaceflight Inc.\u2019s clean room, south of Seattle, to low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

Along the way, the Sherpa orbital transportation vehicles and their 36 ride-along spacecraft will be loaded up on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and fired off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as early as this month.<\/p>\n

Spaceflight\u2019s Sherpa vehicles are pioneering a relatively recent innovation in the satellite launch industry. Such space tugs can go up on a single launch and send a variety of rideshare satellites to a variety of orbits. The first Sherpa-FX model successfully deployed 13 satellites and carried two additional piggyback payloads during SpaceX\u2019s Transporter-1 mission in January.<\/p>\n

This time around, there are a couple of added twists: Two Sherpas \u2014 FX2 and LTE1 \u2014 will ride on the upcoming mission, which is called Transporter-2. And LTE1 is the first Sherpa to be equipped with an electric propulsion system that\u2019s being provided by California-based Apollo Fusion. Electric propulsion is the real-life parallel to the ion drives that are standard fare in science-fiction sagas like Star Wars and Star Trek.<\/p>\n

Apollo\u2019s electric propulsion system, and a chemical propulsion system that\u2019s due to make its debut later this year, will give the Sherpas more options for satellite deployments. That\u2019s the bottom line for Seattle-based Spaceflight Inc., which focuses on managing launch logistics for small-satellite customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have customers who just need to go to the 525-kilometer orbit that SpaceX is going to take you to, and that\u2019s fine. Other customers maybe want to go to 540, or maybe 600, or maybe they want a different plane. So you have to do some changes in orbit,\u201d Tony Frego, Spaceflight\u2019s senior director of mission management, explained during a tour of the company\u2019s spacecraft integration facility in Auburn.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking to do here is to get our customers to the right spot at the right time to enable them to do their mission,\u201d Frego told GeekWire.<\/p>\n