Scientific Systems Awarded $1.5 Million SpaceWERX Orbital Prime Contract

Scientific Systems Awarded $1.5 Million SpaceWERX Orbital Prime Contract

Scientific Systems, one of the leaders in intelligent autonomous systems, announced it has been selected by SpaceWERX for a $1.5 Million STTR Phase II contract, under the SpaceWERX Orbital Prime Program.  Scientific Solutions’ vision-based solution, for US-RIPTIDE (Unknown Satellite Realtime Inspection, Pose, Tracking and IDEntification,) focuses on enabling In-space Service Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities being explored by the Department of the Air Force (DAF) and United States Space Force (USSF) through the Orbital Prime program.

Orbital Prime was created to accelerate the commercial In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) market toward a use case of Active Debris Remediation. The Air Force Research Laboratory and SpaceWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. 

Scientific System’s contract is in one of 20 STTR Phase II contracts awarded by SpaceWERX, each valued at $1.5M per contract, for a total of $30M awarded to the Orbital Prime Cohort, which also includes recent D2P2 SBIR awardees. Through these awards, the cohort will continue to explore ISAM capabilities and technologies relating to identifying, approaching, and servicing an object in space.  The Orbital Prime program will culminate with an on-orbit mission to demonstrate active space debris remediation, a public purpose use case intended to stimulate the market for space logistics.

“This award puts us on a path to create ‘RPO-in-a-box.’ That is, a stand-alone, modular hardware plus software product that rapidly integrates onto a servicing vehicle to ensure that vehicle approaches a client satellite safely, or the inverse, where that product provides a client vehicle the ability to ensure a satellite approaches it safely,” said Dr. Owen Brown, Vice President of Solutions Development at Scientific Systems. “We have ample confidence in this productization approach since we applied it in the air domain with our sense-and-avoid modular product, OASES, which rapidly integrates onto unmanned aircraft to provide safety of flight capabilities. Furthermore, we are very excited to continue this work along with our academic partner, Stanford University, and their Space Rendezvous Laboratory.”

“We’re very excited to work with Scientific Systems and the Space Force on this project. By integrating our machine-learning-based relative navigation approaches with unique algorithms being created by Scientific Systems, I believe we’re creating new capabilities for the rapidly developing on-orbit servicing and manufacturing ecosystem,” stated Prof. Simone D’Amico, Founder and Director of the Space Rendezvous Laboratory at Stanford University.

“This proposed solution will provide an out-of-the-box solution to enable next-generation autonomous satellite operations for close-proximity interactions like satellite inspection, a precursor to ISAM operations and debris removal. I’m really looking forward to working with  Scientific Systems and Stanford on developing and transitioning this technology,” said Dr. Sean Phillips, Deputy Technical Advisor of the Space Control Branch and the Resilient Multi-Satellite Autonomy Technical Lead at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Click here to learn more about Scientific Systems' Vision-Based Navigation Solutions.

Publisher: SatNow
Tags:-  SatelliteLaunch

GNSS Constellations - A list of all GNSS satellites by constellations

beidou

Satellite NameOrbit Date
BeiDou-3 G4Geostationary Orbit (GEO)17 May, 2023
BeiDou-3 G2Geostationary Orbit (GEO)09 Mar, 2020
Compass-IGSO7Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)09 Feb, 2020
BeiDou-3 M19Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)16 Dec, 2019
BeiDou-3 M20Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)16 Dec, 2019
BeiDou-3 M21Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)23 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 M22Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)23 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 I3Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)04 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 M23Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)22 Sep, 2019
BeiDou-3 M24Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)22 Sep, 2019

galileo

Satellite NameOrbit Date
GSAT0223MEO - Near-Circular05 Dec, 2021
GSAT0224MEO - Near-Circular05 Dec, 2021
GSAT0219MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0220MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0221MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0222MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0215MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0216MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0217MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0218MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017

glonass

Satellite NameOrbit Date
Kosmos 2569--07 Aug, 2023
Kosmos 2564--28 Nov, 2022
Kosmos 2559--10 Oct, 2022
Kosmos 2557--07 Jul, 2022
Kosmos 2547--25 Oct, 2020
Kosmos 2545--16 Mar, 2020
Kosmos 2544--11 Dec, 2019
Kosmos 2534--27 May, 2019
Kosmos 2529--03 Nov, 2018
Kosmos 2527--16 Jun, 2018

gps

Satellite NameOrbit Date
Navstar 82Medium Earth Orbit19 Jan, 2023
Navstar 81Medium Earth Orbit17 Jun, 2021
Navstar 78Medium Earth Orbit22 Aug, 2019
Navstar 77Medium Earth Orbit23 Dec, 2018
Navstar 76Medium Earth Orbit05 Feb, 2016
Navstar 75Medium Earth Orbit31 Oct, 2015
Navstar 74Medium Earth Orbit15 Jul, 2015
Navstar 73Medium Earth Orbit25 Mar, 2015
Navstar 72Medium Earth Orbit29 Oct, 2014
Navstar 71Medium Earth Orbit02 Aug, 2014

irnss

Satellite NameOrbit Date
NVS-01Geostationary Orbit (GEO)29 May, 2023
IRNSS-1IInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)12 Apr, 2018
IRNSS-1HSub Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (Sub-GTO)31 Aug, 2017
IRNSS-1GGeostationary Orbit (GEO)28 Apr, 2016
IRNSS-1FGeostationary Orbit (GEO)10 Mar, 2016
IRNSS-1EGeosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)20 Jan, 2016
IRNSS-1DInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)28 Mar, 2015
IRNSS-1CGeostationary Orbit (GEO)16 Oct, 2014
IRNSS-1BInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)04 Apr, 2014
IRNSS-1AInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)01 Jul, 2013