TAMPA, Fla. — Rogue Space Systems, a three-year-old startup with plans for a fleet of small in-orbit servicing spacecraft, announced more U.S. government funding Sept. 27 to develop core technologies.
The U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX technology accelerator awarded the Gilford, Recent Hampshire-based enterprise two contracts in July to advance work on a more universally compatible cubesat dispenser and a magnetic system for stabilizing tumbling space objects.
The 15-month, Phase 2 contracts are price $3 million in total, Rogue chief operating officer Jon Beam told , bringing its total government funding to greater than $7 million.
They follow two Phase 1 contracts price a combined $5,000 to review the feasibility of the technologies.
Working in partnership with the University of Illinois, Rogue goals to provide a prototype dispenser at the tip of one among the contracts that would host and deploy cubesats with either tabbed or railed frames.
The concept for a multi-purpose dispenser got here after Rogue had to regulate the design of its initial servicers — that are cubesats it calls Orbots that remain largely under wraps — to suit with the different sorts of deployment systems that launch providers use.
Beam said Rogue’s dispenser would enable the corporate and licensees to deploy any cubesat into orbit, giving the Department of Defense and business firms more flexibility of their in-space missions.
Under the opposite AFWERX contract, Rogue goals to integrate University of Utah’s patented Omnimagnet mechanism with Orbot to de-tumble, capture, or otherwise manipulate orbital objects needing servicing.
Rogue announced plans last yr to develop Orbot in partnership with SAIC, a $7.4 billion U.S. government services technology contractor, including two cubesats that were slated for an illustration mission in 2023.
Jeromy Grimmett, Rogue’s CEO, said this mission has been pushed into 2024, and can use a 16U cubesat called Laura-1 to check rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), potentially with a second 3U spacecraft called Barry-2.
“We now have some open discussions that will not require us to send a second spacecraft, but that’s to be determined,” Grimmett said via email.
Rogue plans to fly its first payload, Barry-1, on a SpaceX Transporter-9 rideshare mission no sooner than October to check computing software, including the flexibility to aggregate and process data from multiple sensors in real-time.
The Barry-1 payload has been integrated with a platform provided by EnduroSat, a Bulgarian cubesat specialist.
Beam said Rogue is currently raising funds from enterprise capitalists to support plans to perform its first satellite servicing mission by 2026.