WASHINGTON — The subsequent launch by Firefly Aerospace, scheduled for December, might be an electronically steerable antenna payload designed by Lockheed Martin for a technology demonstration.
Lockheed Martin in June announced it awarded Firefly a contract to launch a small satellite. The corporate on Nov. 27 disclosed it’s launching a spacecraft of just below 300 kilos carrying a newly designed electronically steerable antenna. The payload was integrated on a Terran Orbital Nebula bus.
Electronically steered antennas don’t have moving parts and may generate multiple beams concurrently. They’re in growing demand for broadband communications applications similar to in-flight satellite connectivity. Using digital beam-forming technology, electronic antennas allow satellites to steer communication beams to focus bandwidth on high-traffic areas.
Lockheed Martin plans to show it could actually calibrate and switch on the antenna faster than it has been possible before, said Paul Pelley, senior director of world security at Lockheed Martin Space.
“This payload was specifically designed for mission speed in space applications,” Pelley said. “The goal is to launch this payload into orbit and prove that we will calibrate it and make it operational faster than previous sensors. The satellite also is very producible, meaning we will make them quicker with commercially available technology.”
More demonstrations planned
The December mission is certainly one of several space technology demonstrations that Lockheed Martin is funding with internal resources to “showcase latest, mature technology and to reaffirm we’re partners in the federal government’s missions,” Pelley said.
“What we hear from our customers is that they need mission speed,” he added. “We imagine our space-focused electronically steerable antennas are flexible, powerful sensors, which satisfy the necessity for increased operational tempo.”
Other space experiments Lockheed Martin plans to launch include Pony Express 2, to show mesh networking across satellites, and the Tactical Satellite, which can show on-orbit processing, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
The corporate in November 2022 launched and tested two cubesats in geostationary orbit to show in-orbit servicing technologies.