CAMBRIDGE, MA (Draper PR) — Draper, a company with a heritage in space exploration from the earliest stages of Apollo to the most recent Artemis awards, announced that NASA has awarded Draper $73 million to deliver a suite of three NASA-sponsored science payloads to the Schrödinger basin on the lunar surface. Schrödinger basin is on the far side of the Moon—a first for NASA.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — A small CubeSat carrying laser communications technology is readying for launch. Engineers are preparing the NASA-supported CLICK A CubeSat for launch no earlier than July 14, 2022, aboard SpaceX’s 25th Commercial Resupply Service (CRS-25) mission to the International Space Station as part of the next ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) mission.

Integrated technology allows for on-orbit networked systems

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (SEAKR Engineering PR) – SEAKR Engineering, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, announced a successful demonstration of optical inter-satellite links between two Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Mandrake 2 satellites. During the first test, more than 280 gigabits of data were transferred at a range of 114 kilometers during a period of more than 40 minutes. 

LAFAYETTE, Colo., May 31, 2022 (Blue Canyon Technologies PR) – Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies LLC (“BCT” or “Blue Canyon”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, today announced the launch of Agile Microsat and High-Assurance Communications System Satellites, or HACSSAT, 1 & 2, aboard the Transporter-5 mission on May 25, 2022.

LAFAYETTE, Colo., Feb 9, 2022 (Blue Canyon Technologies PR) — Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies LLC (“BCT” or “Blue Canyon”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, today announced that several of their components successfully launched aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-3 mission last month.

For this rideshare mission, Blue Canyon provided reaction wheels and the company’s integrated Attitude Control Systems, known as the XACT and FleXcore, to support four CubeSats and five microsats, all of which showcase the company’s expansive product line. With partners such as Capella Space and several other commercial customers, Blue Canyon is working to enable a broad range of missions and technological advancements for the new space economy.

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFRL PR) — The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate small satellite named Ascent was launched Dec. 7 from Cape Canaveral, Florida as part of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Test Program-3 mission, aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

Ascent is a 12-unit Cubesat conceived and developed within the directorate’s Small Satellite Portfolio at Kirtland AFB, and in partnership with the Space Security and Defense Program.

Strong Adoption in Support of Government, Defense and Intelligence Applications Continues Momentum

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 23, 2021 (Kratos Defense & Security Solutions PR) — Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS), a leading National Security Solutions provider, announced today that it closed sales of its OpenSpace™ quantum™ and OpenSpace SpectralNet® products to 23 customers, supporting the satellite industry’s continued movement toward dynamic, virtualized ground systems.

Kratos’ OpenSpace family of solutions help satellite operators move their network systems from traditional hardware to more dynamic, flexible and scalable architectures that are more responsive to service level agreements, mission goals and changing operating conditions.

LAFAYETTE, Colo., November 15, 2021 (Blue Canyon Technologies PR) –Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies LLC (“BCT” or “Blue Canyon”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corporation (NYSE: RTX), was selected by Ball Aerospace to develop a standardized X-SAT Venus ESPA-class microsatellite bus and several custom components to enable an upcoming one-of-a-kind mission with NASA for the Solar Cruiser project.

As the largest planned solar sail to date, the 18,000 square-foot sail is a third the size of a football field. The Solar Cruiser: “Sailing on Sunlight” mission is being led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center out of Huntsville, Alabama. Ball Aerospace will perform several mission-critical functions, including the integration and test of the satellite bus with the solar sail system that will form the completed “Sailcraft.”

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected a new Earth science mission that will study the behavior of tropical storms and thunderstorms, including their impacts on weather and climate models. The mission will be a collection of three SmallSats, flying in tight coordination, called Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS), and is expected to launch in 2027 as part of NASA’s Earth Venture Program.

LAFAYETTE, Colo., October 20, 2021 (Blue Canyon PR) — Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies LLC (“BCT” or “Blue Canyon”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, delivered the first of four 6U CubeSats to NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The CubeSats will support a technology demonstration called Starling. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the demonstration. Under the current contract agreement, in addition to designing and manufacturing the spacecraft buses, BCT will also provide engineering and support to Starling mission operations for the four flight-qualified 6U CubeSats.

“The delivery of CubeSats will allow Ames to continue with payload integration and testing of the integrated flight unit,” said Stephanee Borck, senior program manager at Blue Canyon Technologies. “A lot of hard work from both teams has gone into making it thus far in the project. We look forward to delivering the next three CubeSats and seeing what the technology demonstration can do on-orbit.”