WASHINGTON - The Space Force and Air Force Research Laboratory are partnering to develop a highly mobile experimental satellite to demonstrate operations in lunar orbit, including surveilling the lunar surface, Theresa Hitchens reports for Breaking Defense. Continue reading original article.
The Intelligent Aerospace take:
December 2, 2020 -According to Hitchens reporting and correspondence with James Haywood, who is the deputy director for the AFRL Center for Rapid Innovation, that the Defense Deep Space Sentinel will demonstrate how small satellites can be propelled with electricity.
“The primary mission objectives of D2S2 are to demonstrate extreme orbit mobility in a small satellite, and to use that capability to transit from GEO to a lunar orbit,” Haywood explained to Breaking Defense. “The D2S2 will fly high-power, light weight solar arrays with small, highly efficient electric propulsion to travel from GEO to several different lunar orbit regimes, including Earth-Moon Lagrangian points, halo orbits, and the associated modeling for environmental and orbital dynamics in these regimes.”
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Jamie Whitney, Associate Editor
Intelligent Aerospace
