The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency<\/b> (DARPA) awarded Redwire Corporation<\/b> a contract for a demonstration mission in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO). The mission, part of DARPA\u2019s Otter program, will demonstrate Redwire\u2019s SabreSat VLEO platform. <\/p>\n
Redwire said VLEO spacecraft are of increased interest for national security missions because they fly above airborne anti-access areas, but significantly closer to the ground than existing satellites. Redwire called the SabreSat platform an \u201corbital drone.\u201d It is intended to seed the market for VLEO opportunities.<\/p>\n
The Otter program will demonstrate an \u201cair-breathing satellite\u201d using novel electric propulsion systems in VLEO. As the prime contractor and mission systems enabler for DARPA\u2019s Otter program, Redwire will be responsible for building the SabreSat bus, integrating, coordinating, and leading the team for the project. <\/p>\n
Redwire did not disclose the contract value, but the contract includes pricing for design through on-orbit operations, Spence Wise, senior vice president of Missions & Platforms for Redwire, said in an email.<\/p>\n
DARPA recently also awarded propulsion supplier Phase Four to deliver an electric propulsion system for the Otter program. The thrusters and prime are procured separately, and Wise clarified that Redwire has not disclosed a propulsion system provider for Otter, but there are \u201cmultiple good options available.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud to be leveraging our SabreSat satellite design to support critical VLEO technology advancements for DARPA\u2019s game-changing Otter program,\u201d Wise said in a news release. \u201cAs VLEO emerges as a critical domain for national security missions, Redwire is continuing to make investments to support technology innovation and strategic operations in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redwire is working on a VLEO project in Europe as well. <\/p>\n
Calvin Biesecker from Defense Daily contributed to this article. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Redwire Corporation a contract for a demonstration mission in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO). The mission, part of DARPA\u2019s Otter program, will demonstrate Redwire\u2019s SabreSat VLEO platform. Redwire said VLEO spacecraft are of increased interest for national security missions because they fly above airborne anti-access areas, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48016,"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-51090","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\/51090"}],"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=51090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}