| The 38th Annual Small Satellite Conference continues today in Logan, Utah. SpaceNews will be here reporting all week to bring you daily highlights. For full coverage, visit SpaceNews.com. | | | By Jeff Foust, August 6, 2024
Impulse Space announced today that it, in partnership with Exolaunch, will in the coming years offer a new GEO Rideshare Program using its Helios tug and an upgraded version of its Mira vehicle that is still under development.
"Impulse's introduction of the GEO Rideshare Program marks a transformative milestone for the satellite industry, making cost-effective and timely access to GEO a reality," Kier Fortier, vice president of global business development at Exolaunch, said in a statement.
The basics:
When: The first GEO Rideshare mission is scheduled for 2027 as part of an undisclosed dedicated launch.
How: Helios will deploy Mira, which will then ferry payloads to their desired orbits.
The payloads: Helios will support multiple ports, each able to host at least 300 kilograms of payload.
Meanwhile, Impulse Space will find extra use for its upgraded Mira vehicle, including a debut mission in 2025, and in 2026 will host a fuel depot for the in-space refueling company Orbit Fab.
Read the full story with additional details on the program at SpaceNews.com. | |  | NASA budget pressures create opportunities for smallsats
By Jeff Foust, August 6, 2024
NASA's ongoing budget crunch could present an opportunity for smallsat developers, according to Peg Luce, acting deputy associate administrator for programs for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. She explained that the lower costs and faster development times of smallsat missions are why NASA has "leaned into smallsats as part of a balanced portfolio," especially when it comes to scientific investigations. | | By Debra Werner, August 6, 2024
Toronto-based Perceptive Space promises "space weather predictions that are more accurate and have better lead times than what NOAA and other government agencies provide today," founder and CEO Padmashri Suresh told SpaceNews. The company said it will use its pre-seed funding to introduce its space weather platform in the United States and allied countries while hiring more engineers and scientists. | | | By Debra Werner, August 5, 2024
Benchmark Space Systems and Starlight Engines have announced a strategic partnership where Benchmark will offer hybrid propulsion systems that pair Starlight Crucible Hall-effect thrusters with Benchmark non-toxic chemical thrusters to create a hybrid propulsion system for a kick stage Benchmark is designing under a NASA Small Business Innovation Research contract. Chris Carella, Benchmark chief commercial officer, told SpaceNews that chemical propulsion alone doesn't offer enough range, and electric propulsion would "take too long." | | | By Jason Rainbow, August 6, 2024 Leaf Space said the triband Ka, X and S-band antenna at its Blonduos, Iceland facility entered service in June following successful tests with a remote sensing customer, which is using the Ka-band link to download larger amounts of data from orbit. Leaf Space's previous 26 antennas only provide services in the S, X and, in a limited number of locations, ultra high frequency (UHF) bands; the Ka-band antenna is intended to meet market demand for faster downloads of larger amounts of data from orbit. | | | By Jeff Foust, August 6, 2024 Safran announced it intends to open a facility in Colorado that it will use to produce its EPS X00 electric thrusters, intended for smaller spacecraft in low Earth orbit. The company expects the first systems to come off that production line in the first quarter of 2026. The line, which will focus on U.S. government and commercial customers, will be a mirror of an existing line in France for the EPS X00 series. | | | | |
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