Terran Orbital announced a new lineup of seven standard satellite bus platforms. Over a decade ago, Terran Orbital pioneered the creation of CubeSat standards, now establishing new benchmarks for satellite technology for the coming decade. These standards are built upon Terran Orbital's manufacturing capabilities, featuring components and modules that can be readily swapped out to accommodate different bus sizes and configurations.

The seven bus platforms span the nano, micro, mini, and small classes. The new lineup of satellite configurations is derived from Terran Orbital’s long history of nanosatellite innovation and its micro satellite bus designed and built for the U.S. Space Development Agency’s recently launched Tranche 0 Transport Layer mission and the coming Tranche 1 mission. The full product line of seven ITAR-compliant bus classes ranges from the largest, Enterprise, to the smallest, Triumph.

Enterprise

The Enterprise is specifically targeted to those customers who want a flat packing design to allow up to 24 vehicles per launch. It comes standard with Optical Inter Satellite Link and has a large, flat deck optimized for communications and RF payloads. 

Ambassador

The Ambassador features the largest deck allowable by the ESPA-Grande standard for rideshare payloads. It is expected to be the top offering for the DoD/Intel community, allowing a large payload and optional Type 1 encryption.

Nebula

The Nebula is the commercialized version of the bus placed in orbit in SDA's Transport Layer Tranche 0 launch in partnership with Lockheed Martin. It has an open deck plan to easily accommodate oddly shaped payloads with optional Type 1 encryption and can be configured for a 15-inch ESPA or 24-inch ESPA-Grande-capable launch vehicle.

Excelsior

The Excelsior is the smallest microsatellite in the product line, having the advantage of delivering higher power to payload than any of the nano models while still having the budget-friendly ability to launch two per ESPA port.

Voyager

The Voyager is built with component redundancy to reduce risk and extend its lifetime in harsh environments beyond LEO. It has both GEO and Cislunar heritage and the radios are designed for compatibility with NASA’s Deep Space network.

Renegade

The Renegade is a nanosatellite that can be configured as 12U or 16U for exceptionally long payloads and can accommodate up to a 19cm diameter optical imager. It has the best payload volume-to-bus ratio of the platforms, making it an economical solution for larger research missions.

Triumph

The Triumph is the smallest platform in the Terran Orbital standard bus lineup. It has unparalleled spacecraft agility, and with the most flight heritage of all platforms, it exemplifies the smaller, cheaper, faster mentality.

These reference platforms feature flexible architecture using common building blocks, allowing for wet launch masses of 14 to 1000 kg. They are based on designs with extensive flight heritage for various civil, defense, and commercial customers. 

“With this announcement, we are again setting the bar high with an industry-leading product line,” said Marc Bell, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Terran Orbital. “While we still offer fully custom platforms to meet unique specifications, we are creating new industry standards, and these standard platforms bring forth our vision to meet mission requirements at scale, drive down the cost of the satellite, and increase their functionality using standard components that roll up into configurations that quickly and effectively satisfy the needs of the DoD and research customer alike.”

Click here to learn more about Terran Orbital's New Product line of Satellite Buses.