Viridian Space Corporation has won a $1.7M Phase II SBIR award from the Defense Department to keep developing air breathing propulsion tech for sats in VLEO.
The award shows the military is thinking seriously about propulsion in VLEO, which is an orbital band close to Earth that offers significant advantages for national security space missions—if industry can solve the drag problem to keep sats in orbit.
Deep breath: Air-breathing propulsion works exactly as it sounds. The satellites fly between 150km and 500km in altitude, and use oxygen in the upper atmosphere for fuel. Viridian is looking at using the tech in two ways, Slava Spektor, Viridian CEO, told Payload:
- Allowing satellites to stay for longer periods of time in VLEO, where atmospheric drag can pull spacecraft back to Earth…more
Source payloadspace.com
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