Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Louisville-based Space Systems will send four U.S. Department of Defense scientific payloads to low-Earth orbit on a next-generation demonstration satellite.
The company said Tuesday that it has been competitively selected by the DOD’s Space Test Program to develop and build STPSat-5, planned for launch in late 2016.
The mission is intended to support development of future national security space systems for the U.S., the company said in a news release.
The Space Test Program, headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, will deliver the science payloads to to Space Systems’ manufacturing facility in Colorado, where they will be integrated into the spacecraft.
The Space Test Program conducts space test missions for the purpose of accelerating DOD space technology transformation and lowering development risk. To date, the program has launched nearly 150 experiments and demonstrations into space. The STPSat-5 contract is administered by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Sierra’s STPSat-5 award follows the successful July 14 launch of six advanced asset tracking satellites for the ORBCOMM Generation 2 constellation. The satellites have completed initial on-orbit and operational testing. The remaining 11 OG2 spacecraft in the constellation are undergoing final testing in preparation for launch, which will provide a significant capability boost to ORBCOMM’s current on-orbit fleet, the company said in a news release.
