A visualization of Redwire’s Sabre platform. Photo: Redwire

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Redwire a $44 million phase 2 contract to advance an “air-breathing” spacecraft in the Otter Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) mission. 

DARPA awarded Redwire the contract last year and the phase 2 contract will fund completing the manufacturing and delivering the spacecraft to launch for the mission. The spacecraft is built on Redwire’s SabreSat platform, which is described as an orbital drone. 

VLEO is closer to Earth than satellites in LEO, but over airborne anti-access areas. According to DARPA’s description of the Otter mission, it is tasked with collecting data for data for air-breathing electric propulsion technologies — designed to turn low-density air into propulsion needed to stay in VLEO. 

“VLEO represents an exciting new frontier for defense, intelligence, and communications missions. Through our work with DARPA, we are accelerating the development of cutting-edge capabilities that will define the future of this domain,” said Tom Campbell, president of Space Missions at Redwire. “With Otter and our SabreSat platform, we are delivering higher-performance missions at lower altitudes: improving sensor perception and proximity to targets of interest, increasing revisit, reducing latency, and redefining mission resilience.”

Redwire is also the prime contractor for the European Space Agency Skimsat VLEO mission.