Momentus and Solstar Space have recently declared a three-year partnership, signed on October 13, aiming to expand communication, transportation, and infrastructural support for governmental and commercial projects in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
The reciprocal-services agreement is designed to combine “the respective strengths, products and services of each company to deliver comprehensive low-Earth orbit space capabilities to address a broad range of commercial, government and space-agency requirements,” according to the news release. Their collaboration aims to combine the expertise and services of both companies to offer comprehensive capabilities in LEO.
In a collaborative mission planned for February, the two companies will “demonstrate real-time, continuous communication with space systems across diverse mission profiles,” Momentus CEO John Rood said in a statement.
Earlier in the year, Momentus and Solstar unveiled intentions to supply customers of the Vigoride space tug with on-demand connectivity via Solstar’s Deke Space Communicator. Building upon this agreement, they formalized a reciprocal-services agreement, valued at potentially $15 million, to merge Solstar’s communications proficiency with Momentus’ offerings related to launch, logistics, payload deployment, and in-orbit services.
“We are pleased to deepen our partnership with Solstar Space as we continue to scale our in-space servicing capabilities,” Rood said. “This collaboration gives Momentus key advantages to provide resilient spacecraft-to-spacecraft operations including refueling and repair, on-orbit inspection and reliable data-relay capabilities.”
Reliable communication between spacecraft is essential for tasks such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, target acquisition, in-space servicing, assembly, manufacturing, rendezvous, and docking.
“These missions cannot operate reliably and securely without persistent space-based communications,” Solstar CEO and founder Brian Barnett said in a statement.
Solstar specializes in intersatellite data relay, space-to-ground communications and space-based Wi-Fi. “Outdated space comms approaches, originating in the 1960s, oftentimes leave space assets disconnected,” Barnett said. “Solstar is filling those space-communications gaps just as Momentus is filling gaps for spacecraft and payload deployment and in-space servicing. Together we are removing roadblocks to advancing space operations.”