Space Force Begins Market Research for Space Vehicle Capabilities

The U.S. Space Force has started to solicit information on technical approaches and concepts that could be used to facilitate the integration of government payloads onto a space vehicle without the need for major modifications.

The service has provided information on two space vehicle variants meant to address the requirements of two separate missions.

The first SV variant has a payload mass of 100 kilograms, payload power of greater than 300 watts and a main propulsion system that may be either electric or chemical.

The second variant has a payload power of at least 500 watts, payload mass of between 300 and 500 kilograms and a propulsion technology that must be chemical for station keeping and adjusting the orbit from separation.

For each variant submission, the Space Force wants respondents to provide the estimated power margin and on-orbit average power, describe the standard communications for the variant and bands used and discuss how the variant will update its orbital position, time and velocity, among others.

Interested stakeholders should describe their company’s production capacity and schedule for delivering a space vehicle, state the Technical Readiness Level of their recommended software and hardware and identify the required modularity to maintain flexibility to modify the system to adapt to different operational environments, different power sources and communication limitations.

Responses to the RFI are due Sept. 18.

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