• 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 / Momentus’ Vigoride-6 spacecraft arrives at SpaceX launch site

Momentus’ Vigoride-6 spacecraft arrives at SpaceX launch site

March 10, 2023 by editorial

The Momentus team with Vigoride-6 before shipping the Orbital Service Vehicle to Vandenberg Space Force Base for launch. (Photo credit: Momentus)

Momentus Inc.’s Vigoride Orbital Service Vehicle (OSV) arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base for its third demonstration mission targeted to launch on the SpaceX Transporter-7 mission next month. Momentus (NASDAQ: MNTS) , a U.S. commercial space company, offers transportation and other in-space infrastructure services.

Vigoride 1-5 (generic) [Momentus]

The Momentus team completed final flight preparations, and the Vigoride-6 OSV is integrated with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The priorities of this mission include delivering payloads for NASA, as well as the REVELA payload for ARCA Dynamics, the VIREO CubeSat for C3S LLC., the DISCO-1 CubeSat for Aarhus University, and the IRIS-C payload for an Asian customer booked through ISILAUNCH.

“Vigoride-6 will mark our third OSV mission. Spaceflight heritage is an important competitive discriminator as customers seek reliability and flexibility,” said Momentus Chief Executive Officer John Rood. “We’re honored to serve NASA on this flight as we deliver two payloads for their NASA LLITED mission to a custom orbit and provide orbital transportation services for several commercial customers.”

In addition to customer payload deployments, the Vigoride-6 mission will focus on continued testing of the OSV in space, including the Microwave Electrothermal Thruster (MET) that is designed to use water as a propellant and produce thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle.

The image shows the view from Vigoride-5 as the spacecraft flies over the Troll ground station in Antarctica. (Photo Credit: Momentus)

Vigoride-6 will also carry a Momentus payload called the Tape Spring Solar Array (TASSA) technology. TASSA features large sheets of flexible solar cells bonded to tape springs. To stow, they are tightly coiled around a mandrel. After launch, motors unroll the mandrel, deploying the solar array. TASSA can coil around a 4″ diameter mandrel, compared to the 12″ ones used for other rollout solar arrays.

“Momentus has applied to patent the principles behind TASSA,” said Rood. “Once TASSA development is complete, we anticipate that the technology could reduce the overall recurring production cost of a Vigoride while reducing lead time by several months. These are important improvements as we continue to transition from Vigoride development to production at lower unit costs. We are also seeing commercial and government customers interested in TASSA.”

Momentus launched its inaugural mission in May 2022. That mission deployed eight customer payloads from the Vigoride-3 vehicle and a third-party deployer. Vigoride-5, the Company’s second demonstration mission, launched in January 2023. Read the latest mission update from Vigoride-5 here.

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.