Solstar Space<\/b> and Momentus<\/b> are partnering to combine the companies\u2019 capabilities and jointly market in-space data relay\/communications and in-space logistics. <\/p>\n
The companies are preparing to launch a Solstar communications payload on the upcoming Vigoride-7 mission, planned for SpaceX\u2019s rideshare mission this coming February. It will demonstrate Solstar\u2019s Deke Space Communicator in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) for the first time. This connectivity will allow customers to use commercial satellite constellations to communicate on-demand with systems aboard spacecraft in orbit, instead of traditional downlink methods. <\/p>\n
The Deke Space Communicator will provide persistent connectivity for TT&C services for Momentus and provide relay services to two other Momentus customers onboard the mission. <\/p>\n
Solstar has previously demonstrated its communications payload on three suborbital flights including two Blue Origin New Shepard flights, serving as a Wi-Fi hotspot on the flight and sending the first commercial tweet in space. Solstar\u2019s payload functions like a Wi-Fi hotspot in space to allow communications with any Wi-Fi connected device on Earth, Solstar CEO Brian Barnett told Via Satellite<\/em>. It works with third-party satellites to offer the intelligent relay service. <\/p>\n On Monday, the companies announced a three-year reciprocal services agreement worth up to $15 million to combine Solstar\u2019s space-based communication products and services and Momentus logistics and hosted payload services. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to market together. Momentus will utilize the Solstar service as a preferred partner, but we\u2019re also going to make it available to our customers. We think it\u2019s something that will give us a discriminated capability, for companies who want 24\/7, on-demand connectivity with their payloads from anywhere,\u201d Momentus CEO John Rood explained to Via Satellite<\/i>. <\/p>\n Rood said the companies have already signed customer contracts for future Momentus customers to use Solstar\u2019s connectivity service. <\/p>\n The types of applications this joint offering could enable include intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) for defense, in-space assembly and manufacturing (ISAM), spacecraft interaction like refueling, and space station connectivity like a successor to NASA\u2019s TDRSS satellites that are being retired. <\/p>\n \u201cMomentus provides a platform that\u2019s very versatile, and then you have the communications capability on top of that [as] a commercial service,\u201d Barnett said. \u201cOur customers are the ones that have these great ideas, we provide the communications for them. Once they know a communications capability is on the platform, they want to use it in different ways.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Solstar Space and Momentus are partnering to combine the companies\u2019 capabilities and jointly market in-space data relay\/communications and in-space logistics. The companies are preparing to launch a Solstar communications payload on the upcoming Vigoride-7 mission, planned for SpaceX\u2019s rideshare mission this coming February. It will demonstrate Solstar\u2019s Deke Space Communicator in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48231,"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":[],"class_list":["post-48230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48230"}],"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=48230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}