• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured
  • More News ⌄
    • SatNews
    • SatMagazine
    • MilSatMagazine
  • Events ⌄
    • MilSat Symposium
    • SmallSat Symposium
    • Satellite Innovation
  • Contacts
  • SUBSCRIPTION

SmallSat News

You are here: Home / News / The 1st Demo Flight For Momentus’ Vigoride OTV Launched Via The SpaceX Transporter-5 Rideshare Mission

The 1st Demo Flight For Momentus’ Vigoride OTV Launched Via The SpaceX Transporter-5 Rideshare Mission

May 25, 2022 by editorial

Artistic rendition of Momentus’ Vigoride OTV.

Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS) (“Momentus” or the “Company”) has launched their first demonstration flight of the Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) to LEO aboard the SpaceX Transporter-5 mission. Momentus also announced that it has placed its first customer satellite in orbit and plans to conduct more deployments of customer payloads in the coming days.

The versatile Vigoride spacecraft, designed to support a range of transportation and in-space infrastructure services, is slated to perform a series of operations in space to test and demonstrate the performance of the vehicle and its subsystems. Under the company’s license from the Federal Communications Commission, the mission is scheduled to last up to 180 days. The mission will also feature the deployment of several customer satellites and the testing of hardware for another customer.

A key part of the Vigoride vehicle is the Microwave Electrothermal Thruster (MET) that uses water as a propellant. The MET produces thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle. However, unlike a conventional chemical rocket engine, which creates heat through a chemical reaction, the MET heats propellant using solar microwave energy. Using the MET offers cost-effective, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly propulsion to meet the demands for in-space transportation and infrastructure services.

On this first flight, Momentus welcomes FOSSA Systems and Orbit NTNU among its customers. FOSSA is deploying multiple smallsats as part of a constellation to provide global and real-time Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity for industrial applications. Orbit NTNU will be using its payload, SelfieSat, to take a selfie from a satellite in space (the payload has an external screen, displaying pictures sent up by the public while a camera mounted on an arm photographs the screen with the Earth in the background.)

In addition to Vigoride, Momentus used a second port on the Falcon 9 to fly a third-party deployer from a trusted partner. Momentus used this deployer to place its first customer satellite from Bronco Space at the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona on-orbit. Four other satellite payloads that are customers of the deployer system partner were also placed into orbit.

“Today’s launch was the culmination of months of work to conduct an extensive ground test campaign, ready the spacecraft, and obtain the necessary government licenses and approvals for our first flight of the Vigoride vehicle,” said Momentus Chief Executive Officer, John Rood. “We’re excited to see our vision of providing transportation and space infrastructure services and being an early provider of these key services to the growing new space economy starting to be realized. MET technology has been researched in academia since the 1980s, but we’re pioneers in bringing it to market. Testing the MET on this first Vigoride flight is one of the important tasks that we plan to conduct as we continue to refine and improve its performance. Our journey to space was only made possible by our team’s dedication, focus, and considerable talent. I’m proud of how Momentus employees responded to the many challenges we faced. It would have been easy to believe that our initial challenges were insurmountable, but the fact that Momentus didn’t quit speaks to an emerging culture that will be the true foundation of our success over time.”

Momentus is a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer in-space infrastructure services, including in-space transportation, hosted payloads and in-orbit services. Momentus believes it can make new ways of operating in space possible with its planned in-space transfer and service vehicles that will be powered by an innovative water plasma-based propulsion system that is under development.

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019

© 2019–2023 SatNews

x
Sign Up Now!

Enjoy a free weekly newsletter with recent headlines from the global SmallSat industry.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing! You will now receive weekly SmallSat News updates.
We love our advertisers.
And you will too!

Please disable Ad Blocker to continue... We promise to keep it unobtrusive.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.