General Atomics OTB Satellite Ready for Launch

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) has completed full system and “ready for launch” pre-flight testing of its Orbital Test Bed (OTB) satellite. OTB will launch as part of the U.S. Air Force’s Space Technology Program (STP-2) flight on the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The OTB hosts multiple payloads on a single platform for on-orbit technology demonstration.

Among the hosted payloads on OTB is NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Deep Space Atomic Clock, designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which supports deep space navigation and exploration.

GA-EMS’ Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) OTB is a versatile, modular platform designed for the simultaneous launch of multiple demonstration payloads. Hosting multiple payloads on a single satellite eliminates the need for customers to bear the costly burden of a dedicated platform and launch.

“As the small satellite industry grows, the OTB hosted payload platform can increase the number of flight opportunities, reduce the cost to access space, and provide a more adaptable approach to managing the integration, launch, and on-orbit operations to support commercial, civil, educational, and military payloads,” said Nick Bucci, vice president of missile defense and space at GA-EMS.

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Vantor and German defense manufacturer Rheinmetall plan to form a joint venture to focus on sovereign space capabilities in Germany and Europe.

The two companies announced an MoU on June 18 to form a joint venture and integrate Vantor’s spatial intelligence platform into Rheinmetall command-and-control (C2) systems. This will combine Vantor’s satellite constellation, 2D and 3D spatial foundation and operational software with Rheinmetall’s C2 architecture, defense expertise, and European industrial base.

This will allow European customers to directly task Vantor’s satellite constellation.

“Together with Rheinmetall, we will bring Vantor’s full Tensorglobe platform into a European-controlled solution that can task, fuse, produce, analyze and deploy spatial intelligence in sovereign environments,” Vantor CEO Dan Smoot explained. “This is how European nations can maintain operational control while delivering intelligence directly to the warfighter when it matters most.”

One of the goals of the joint venture is to support Germany’s sovereign defence requirements and European intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) programs.

“The future of reconnaissance will not be determined by sensors alone, but by the ability to quickly and reliably process information from a wide variety of sources and make it usable,” says Armin Papperger, CEO of Rheinmetall AG. “Together with Vantor, we are laying the groundwork for a sovereign European capability in the field of geospatial intelligence.”

Rheinmetall has been ramping up collaboration with the space sector in Germany, which plans to invest 35 billion euro in space defense capabilities by 2030. Last year it formed a joint venture with Iceye to establish satellite production in Germany, and that joint venture was later awarded a 1.7 billion euro German Armed Forces contract.

The Rheinmetall/Iceye joint venture also recently announced a move to integrate data from other Germany commercial satellite startups — constellr, LiveEO, OroraTech, and Reflex Aerospace.