Sidus Space, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIDU), a Space and Defense-as-a-Service satellite company focused on mission-critical hardware manufacturing; multi-disciplinary engineering services; satellite design, production, launch planning, mission operations; and in-orbit support, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Lulav Space, an Israeli robotics company specializing in space applications, to cooperate in the U.S. market by providing a complete guidance navigation and control (GN&C) solution for both lunar satellite and lunar lander missions.
“Lulav’s engineers played an integral role in the Beresheet 1 mission, the first private Lunar lander mission, launched in 2019. We look forward to capitalizing on this agreement to bring their next-generation GN&C solutions to the U.S. market,” said Carol Craig, Sidus Space Founder and CEO.
Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will offer a GN&C suite to support all lunar missions, from launcher separation in LEO through trans-lunar injection (TLI), lunar capture, lunar orbiting, and landing phase with touchdown on the lunar surface. The GN&C suite can be customized for the unique requirements of each mission.
A Multi-Mission Satellite for a Multi-Mission Constellation™
The GN&C suite consists of several components that can be supplied together or separately, including LEO and Cislunar GN&C algorithms; autonomous vision-based lunar orbit determination sensor; lunar landing GN&C; and vision-based landing sensor in stereo configuration.
“Our highly validated, robust lunar GN&C suite, which our team gained from the first private lunar flight in 2019, the Beresheet 1, represents a game changer for all lunar missions,” said Noam Leiter, CEO at Lulav Space. The GN&C suite is now further developed as we also participate in our second lunar mission, the Beresheet 2. We are thrilled to collaborate with Sidus Space to offer the suite to the US market. Through Sidus Space’s mechanical and hardware development capabilities and extensive experience in developing space systems, we can offer any customer developing a lunar mission the fastest and most cost-effective GN&C solution on the market.”
Sidus Space has supported multiple lunar missions to include providing critical hardware for the NASA Artemis core stage, Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), and Mobile Launcher 1. In addition, Sidus provided tooling, fabrication and testing support for the NASA Orion Spacecraft. Sidus is excited to be part of the Collins Aerospace team charged with delivering critical space suit parts for NASA’s astronaut Exploration Extravehicular Activity (xEVAS) contract. Additionally, Sidus plans to provide lunar communications capability using the LizzieSat satellite bus and lunar mission operations as a service in the future.