Terran Orbital announced the receipt of a further milestone payment alongside the completion of the screening of the industrial partners as well as trade studies that will support the acquisition process and system engineering for the company’s 300 spacecraft and $2.4 billion contract with Rivada Space Networks.

Terran Orbital, through its wholly owned subsidiary Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems will design, build, and deploy 288 low-Earth orbit satellites and 12 “spare” satellites to produce a total of 300 spacecraft weighing approximately 500 kg each. Terran Orbital will also integrate the communication payload and perform the final satellite assembly, integration, and test. Terran Orbital will develop portions of the ground segment as well.

With the official onboarding of the partners now complete, Rivada has taken another important step toward the installation of its constellation. The deployment will begin with the launch of a Terran Orbital-developed demonstrator mission by the end of 2024, consisting of four satellites across two orbital planes and including regenerative payloads and laser communication terminals on the satellites. The “Demonstrator Mission” (not part of the later 300 satellite LEO constellation) will support the verification of gateway-less transmissions from one user to another, routed within a small network of four satellites in space. Mission operations for the on-orbit satellites will be conducted from Terran Orbital’s state-of-the-art satellite operations control center.

“Working with Rivada has been a pleasure,” said Terran Orbital Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer Marc Bell. “Terran Orbital looks forward to proceeding with the program as scheduled as we continue refining the Rivada spacecraft design.”

Declan Ganley, Chief Executive Officer of Rivada Space Networks, commented: “We are delighted to be moving ahead rapidly with Terran Orbital and our industrial partners to take our constellations from concept to reality.” Ganley added: “The additional ’Demonstrator Mission’ in 2025 will ensure that customers can test the operational environment of our unique laser-connected data network ahead of the rollout of the main constellation and provide RSN with an operational test bed for early ground segment automation to build up best practices for operating our larger fleet.”

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