The award provides funding to complete manufacturing and deliver the mission’s spacecraft, which uses Redwire’s SabreSat platform.
Specifically, Otter will build on Redwire’s SabreSat Orbital Drone. This is a type of satellite designed for endurance and cost-effectiveness in VLEO.
Redwire
The Jacksonville, Florida-based space infrastructure specialist, says VLEO represents a new frontier:
“Through our work with DARPA, we are accelerating the development of cutting-edge capabilities that will define the future of this domain,” said Tom Campbell, President of Space Missions.
“With Otter and our SabreSat platform, we are delivering higher-performance missions at lower altitudes: improving sensor perception and proximity to targets of interest, increasing revisit, reducing latency, and redefining mission resilience.”
The phase 2 contract will demo what the company calls the “world’s first air-breathing spacecraft”. That is to say, Otter aims to enable extended satellite operations at VLEO altitudes by harvesting ambient low-density air. And then ionizing and accelerating the resultant ion flow.
The idea is to achieve a virtually unlimited supply of propellant.
VLEO
Redwire is positioning itself as leader in VLEO capabilities
It highlights, for example, its existing role as prime contractor for the European Space Agency’s Skimsat mission.
And also its work for DeepSat’s planned VLEO constellation, dubbed Orion’s Belt. It will involve AI-powered Earth observation constellation .
Image: Redwire
See also: French Space Agency funds UNIVITY for VLEO-based 5G
