• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • NEWS:
  • SatNews
  • SatMagazine
  • MilSatMagazine
  • SmallSat News
  • |     EVENTS:
  • SmallSat Symposium
  • Satellite Innovation

SatNews

  • HOME
  • Magazines
  • Events
  • Perspectives
  • Industry Calendar
    • IN PERSON
    • VIRTUAL
  • Subscribe

Momentus Signs Smallsat Launch Agreements With Pixxel + GP Advanced Projects

September 22, 2020

Momentus Inc. (“Momentus” or the “Company”) and Pixxel have executed a service agreement for delivering Pixxel’s second smallsat to SSO orbit in December 2021 onboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 launch, as well as options to fly again in 2022.

Pixxel is building a constellation of Earth imaging smallsats that can provide real-time remote sensing data across the world. The Momentus Shuttle Service will provide a rideshare for multiple Pixxel spacecraft to predefined orbits.

Founded in 2019 by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal, Pixxel satellites will help make the world a more sustainable place through highly accurate data-based insights in agriculture, climate change, forestry and other domains, according to the firm. Pixxel recently raised $5 million in funding, which the company is using to rapidly build and launch the second satellite with Momentus’ help.

Momentus has gained significant traction since its founding in 2017, attracting dozens of customers ranging from private commercial space companies to the likes of Lockheed Martin and NASA, and penning important industry partnerships, most notably with SpaceX.

Momentus employs new and proprietary technologies, including water plasma propulsion, to enable revolutionary, low-cost, orbital Shuttle and Charter services. The Charter Service will allow dedicated capacity to be allocated to a single customer’s payload. In the Shuttle Service model, the payload will be a rideshare along with other payloads hosted or deployed from the Vigoride transfer vehicle.

Executive Comments

Awais Ahmed

Awais Ahmed, Pixxel’s CEO, said, “We are excited to partner with Momentus to get our satellites up in orbit as soon as we can and get the data in the hands of our customers. Momentus’ launch and in-space transfer services provide us with the flexibility to get to the orbit we want, even on a rideshare mission. We look forward to working with them to help make space more accessible.”

Mikhail Kokorich

“Pixxel is doing something innovative that hasn’t been done in India or the West,” said Mikhail Kokorich, CEO of Momentus. “With a shared belief in humanity’s expansion in space via in-situ resources, we wish this mission the ultimate success.”

Additionally, Momentus and GP Advanced Projects have engaged in a launch service agreement for GP Advanced Projects FEES2 smallsat to fly on Vigoride’s second demo mission in April of 2021.

Artistic rendition of the FEES smallsat, courtesy of GP Advanced Projects.

The Flexible Experimental Embedded Satellite (FEES) is a demonstrator of a low-cost, picosatellite platform for autonomous on-orbit validation and testing. A first model will fly onboard G.A.U.S.S. Unisat-7 satellite launched on a Soyuz and Momentus will fly the enhanced FEES2 variant on a Vigoride shuttle via a Falcon 9 rocket in the first half of 2021.

These two FEES satellites will pave the way for future constellations of picosatellites devoted to the retrieval of IoT data from ground, starting with a first Cluster mission in 2022 – also partnered with Momentus.

San Francisco Bay area-based, but with a strong commitment to European markets, this represents the second deal with an innovative Italian upstart, following the agreement with ARCA Dynamics and NPC Spacemind in August, for a mission on which GP Advanced Projects is also onboard with the same miniaturized electronics, providing OBC and Telecommunications.

Executive Comments

“GP Advanced Projects is doing a tremendous effort to validate its core technology in space, after having successfully achieved on-ground qualification. The partnership with Momentus and the flexibility of the Vigoride shuttle allow us not only to increase the reliability of our platform by performing a second validation mission, but offer us also the possibility to test additional features ahead of schedule with respect to our development roadmap,” said Guido Parissenti, CEO of GP Advanced Projects.

“This deal confirms the ability of Momentus Vigoride shuttle service to offer affordable access to space for even the smallest satellite form factors. Together with the advancements in miniaturization of electronics brought forward by GP Advanced Projects, our transportation system unlocks a whole new range of constellation services to take off the ground – literally,” said Mikhail Kokorich, CEO of Momentus.

B

Filed Under: Launch, SmallSat

Primary Sidebar

Most Read Stories

  • AST Space Mobile To Become A Publicly Traded Company
  • UPDATE: Spaceflight's Orbital Transfer Vehicles Have Launches In Sight
  • United Launch Alliance Rocks NROL-44 Mission Launches to Support National Security
  • CNES Selects ANYWAVES For Reflectarray Antenna For Smallsats Demo
  • Trial Date Set For The SES + Intelsat Legal Dispute

About Satnews

  • Contacts
  • History

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020

Secondary Sidebar

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy
We Love Our Advertisers.
And you will too!

Please disable your adblock browser plugin to continue...

We promise to keep it unobtrusive.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.
x
Sign up Now (For Free)
Access daily or weekly satellite news updates covering all aspects of the commercial and military satellite industry.
Invalid email address
Notify Me Regarding ( At least one ):
We value your privacy and will not sell or share your email or other information with any other company. You may also unsubscribe at anytime.

Click Here to see our full privacy policy.
Thanks for subscribing!