![\"Momentus](\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/1785479024568_639210758261214858.webp\")
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Momentus<\/strong>, a U.S. commercial space company specializing in satellite technology, space transportation, and in-orbit services, announced its Vigoride 7 Orbital Service Vehicle (OSV) has successfully completed another key milestone during its mission, which is scheduled to last for several months. The Vigoride 7 mission began on March 30, 2026 when the OSV was launched to low-Earth orbit on the SpaceX<\/strong> Transporter 16 mission. The Vigoride 7 OSV is carrying 10 payloads for a range of customers including NASA<\/strong> and U.S. Defense Department\/Department of War organizations and commercial customers.<\/p>\n The Vigoride 7 OSV has completed a series of orbit-lowering maneuvers, reducing its altitude nearly 20 km through more than 50 controlled and precisely timed operations of both of its on-board Microwave Electrothermal Thrusters (METs) that utilize water as its propellant. The innovative Momentus MET has now cumulatively been used over 400 times to maneuver the Vigoride spacecraft on the Company\u2019s missions since 2023 demonstrating the maturity of this proprietary system.<\/p>\n In addition to completing orbit-lowering maneuvers, Momentus and its mission partners continue to operate hosted payloads on the Vigoride 7 mission. Two hosted payloads developed by Momentus are showing good results. Vigoride\u2019s momentum wheels, flown on the vehicle for the first time, are working smoothly and responding to commands as expected.<\/p>\n Flight testing of a titanium, additively manufactured fuel tank designed by Momentus is going well and holding pressure as expected. The flight test of this fuel tank is a key step in demonstrating the potential of additive manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D printing, to accelerate innovation in spacecraft design, reduce production timelines, and enable complex geometries that improve performance of mission-critical spacecraft components. The Momentus designed fuel tank is of the type that is in high demand as small satellites are produced in much greater numbers. In addition, Momentus and our mission partners continue to operate and execute mission plans for other hosted payloads on Vigoride 7 that provide communications, on-board computing, and conduct in-space assembly of structures. The Company plans to provide further updates on these payloads and the ongoing Vigoride 7 mission in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re proud of the performance that our satellite technologies, including our Vigoride 7 spacecraft, continue to show in orbit,\u201d said John Rood<\/strong>, CEO of Momentus<\/strong>. \u201cWe leverage the many decades of space experience of our engineering and technology team and the experience gained on our past missions since 2022 to provide cost-effective results for our customers who, like Momentus, operate at the cutting-edge of space technology.\u201d The Company\u2019s upcoming fully-booked Vigoride 8 mission is scheduled to fly in 2027 carrying two NASA payloads. Momentus has also begun work on its Vigoride 9 spacecraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Momentus, a U.S. commercial space company specializing in satellite technology, space transportation, and in-orbit services, announced its Vigoride 7 Orbital Service Vehicle (OSV) has successfully completed another key milestone during its mission, which is scheduled to last for several months. The Vigoride 7 mission began on March 30, 2026 when the OSV was launched to […]<\/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":[41,9930,20,36],"class_list":["post-46639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-defense","tag-electrothermal-thrusters","tag-satellite","tag-thrusters"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46639"}],"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=46639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Also Read: What are Electrothermal Thrusters?<\/h4>\n