CesiumAstro Inc. has reached a key milestone in the firm’s collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit; CesiumAstro’s first two spacecraft have been successfully integrated as secondary payloads onto the Atlas V rocket that will deliver NASA’s Landsat 9 to orbit next month.
CesiumAstro is partnering with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to demonstrate a reduced-latency, direct downlink to tactical ground terminals as one of several planned commercial and defense experiments. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU, a US Department of Defense (DoD) organization, partners with leading commercial enterprises across t)he country to adopt and scale technologies that help solve critically important challenges.
DIU selected CesiumAstro as one of the latest additions to a cohort of companies that are creating inventive solutions in a variety of critical areas from autonomy and AI to human systems, cyber, space, and connectivity. Multiple experiments are planned on CM1 with partners across both commercial and government sectors. The communications payloads featured on CM1 are available for sale as standard and customizable products for both satellite and airborne missions.
“DIU is cultivating a rich environment for innovation and partnership,” said Shey Sabripour, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CesiumAstro. “This collaboration allows CesiumAstro to showcase the benefits of our scalable software-defined AESA technology in support of future DoD missions.”
About the company
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, CesiumAstro builds high-throughput, software-defined phased array communication payloads for airborne and in-orbit platforms. Cesium’s full-stack, multi-mission hardware and software products enable a range of commercial and defense objectives.