BOSTON -
The Pentagon announced May 29 that its Operationally Responsive Space (ORS)
program office has selected a SpaceDev-built spacecraft over two other
candidate payloads for the upcoming launch of Space Exploration Technologies'
Falcon 1 rocket.
The
Trailblazer satellite will help pave the way for future spacecraft platforms
for ORS missions using modular designs and off-the-shelf components, according
to a Pentagon news release.
The
satellite was developed as part of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's
Distributed Sensing Experiment, which was intended to examine the use of
inexpensive small satellites for spotting and tracking
ballistic missiles. That experiment was canceled last year.
Trailblazer
will launch
in late June aboard a Falcon 1 launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the
Marshall Islands. The Falcon-1 has failed to place a payload in its only two
launches to date.
In an
effort to demonstrate the flexibility and responsiveness that are central to
the ORS concept, the ORS program office considered three payloads for the
upcoming launch, the idea being to make a selection much closer to the liftoff
date than typically is the case. The two other payloads considered were: The
U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Plug and Play satellite platform, which
was the first choice, but trailed the others in terms of readiness; and CUSat,
which was developed under a partnership between the Air Force and Cornell
University and consists of two tiny satellites that would separate in space,
with one taking images of the other and sending them to the ground to
demonstrate an orbital inspection capability.
Peter
Wegner, director of the ORS program office, said in the news release that the
office remains interested in "seeing all three of these spacecraft successfully
complete their missions, and will work with the broader community to make that
desire a reality."
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