NASA has added 3 companies to the contract to launch small satellites, including one publicly traded company that has been struggling financially lately, Space News reported.
NASA announced on August 22 that it has selected Arrow Science and Technology, Impulse Space and Momentus Space for the Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract. This choice allows them to compete for orders to launch specific missions, usually small satellites, that are willing to accept higher levels of risk in exchange for lower launch costs.
Arrow Science and Technology provides satellite deployment services to other launch vehicles and orbital vehicles. The company announced on August 6 that it had acquired Xterra, a developer of satellite deployment devices, for an undisclosed sum, which Arrow said would allow it to provide "comprehensive ride-sharing services."
Impulse Space developed the Mira transfer orbiter, launching its first mission last year, with a second planned for later this year. In January, the company announced that it was developing a high-energy launch stage called Helios, and said on August 6 that it would use the vehicle for a ride-sharing program to carry payloads to geostationary orbit.
Momentus has so far launched three of its Vigoride orbital transfer vehicles, with the final Vigoride-6 set to launch in April 2023 on SpaceX's Transporter-7 ridesharing mission. It has launched payloads on other Transporter missions using a standard deployer, although on the last such mission, Transporter-9 in November, 3 of the five satellites failed to deploy.
In January, Momentus announced it was delaying the launch of its next tug, Vigoride-7, which was supposed to launch on Transporter-10. The company said it was delaying the mission while cutting 20 percent of its staff to cut costs. This comes after the company cut 30% of its staff in mid-2023.
Since then, Momentus has provided few details about its financial situation. The company was late filing its annual report on Form 10-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, filing it in June, months late. It also failed to file quarterly 10-Q reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first and second quarters of 2024.
In an Aug. 15 filing announcing it would not file its second-quarter Form 10-Q on schedule, the company said the document, when finally filed, "will reflect certain steps the company has taken to reduce expenses, and financial transactions carried out after June 30, 2024," and that its results for the first half of 2024 "will include significant impacts related to these activities."
On July 18, Momentus announced that it had arranged a loan from investment firm Space Infrastructure Ventures that will allow the company to borrow up to $2.3 million. The company added that six of its directors and officers also agreed to provide the company with a loan totaling $500,000.
Momentus said it will use the funding to support business development efforts, including bids for Space Development Agency and Space Systems Command satellite programs. Momentus has developed a satellite rail based on its work on Vigoride.
The company has not provided an update on when or if it will fly Vigoride-7 or other future orbital transfer vehicles. The company noted in its 10-K filing that Vigoride-7 is complete and Momentus could use it for a future mission, turn it into a satellite bus or sell it to another company.
The selection of three companies to provide ridesharing or orbital transfer reflects the ongoing transition in the VADR program from small launch vehicles to ridesharing missions. Recent task orders awarded under VADR have mostly been for rideshare missions, either directly to SpaceX to launch its missions, or to companies such as SEOPS, which organized the launch of two NASA Technology Demonstration CubeSats during the Transporter mission -11 of SpaceX, which launched on August 16.
NASA has used VADR for several specialized launches, including a pair of Rocket Lab's Electron rockets to launch the TROPICS cubesats in 2023 and another Electron pair for the PREFIRE cubesats earlier this year. NASA has awarded a VADR contract to Blue Origin to launch the ESCAPADE mission to Mars, which is currently scheduled for the first flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket this fall.
NASA's VADR fact sheet, however, continues to emphasize the use of small launch vehicles. This fact sheet, referenced in NASA's press release about the three companies' inclusion in the contract, lists 5 examples of risk-class launch vehicles available for such missions. 3 of the five - Astra Space's Rocket 3, Relativity Space's Terran 1, and Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne - are no longer operational, and Virgin Orbit itself is going bankrupt in 2023 | BGNES
