SpaceDev Awarded Contract To Develop Small Sat Technology

MICROSAT BLITZ

File photo of CHIPsat under fabrication.

Poway CA (SPX) Sep 02, 2004
SpaceDev has been awarded a $740,000 contract by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to begin development of small satellite bus technologies with an emphasis on standards and responsiveness to on-demand needs.

This project calls for SpaceDev to provide a significant departure from the classic space mission paradigm by designing a system that could be integrated and launched in hours or days instead of years.

"This is yet another exciting project for SpaceDev because it is in sync with our dynamic corporate culture of revolutionizing the space industry, and directly compliments innovative orbit work we are doing under another government contract," said Jim Benson, SpaceDev's founding chairman and chief executive officer.

"We love opportunities like this, to accelerate changing the way space is done, thereby moving SpaceDev closer to profitably opening space for all of humanity."

SpaceDev's contract with AFRL calls for the development of a standardized small spacecraft bus that is modular and provides a scalable, networked architecture.

SpaceDev will define standard payload and launch vehicle interfaces to enable plug and play of a variety of payloads to be rapidly launched on a variety of launch vehicles, on-demand.

SpaceDev will extend its success in using TCP/IP in space, pioneered with SpaceDev's high performance CHIPSat microsatellite for NASA. CHIPSat was commissioned, or checked out, in ten manual steps.

SpaceDev will incorporate autonomous satellite commissioning with the goal of the satellite being fully functional after only one orbit, or about 90 minutes in space.

MICROSAT BLITZ

SpaceDev Awarded Contract Expansion By DARPA

Poway CA (SPX) Aug 25, 2004
SpaceDev has been awarded a small expansion to its existing contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to examine satellite orbits that can be used to rapidly deploy and initialize microsatellites over precise geographical areas of interest.