Vantor has selected EnduroSat and CACI to provide the satellite bus and payloads for its upcoming Pulse fleet, the company’s move into the smallsat imaging market. Bulgaria-based EnduroSat will build buses for the 24 satellites and CACI will provide the optical imaging payloads.
Pulse satellites are expected to deploy between 2027 and 2029. Integration and testing will take place in the United States.
Vantor announced the selection on Thursday during World Space Business Week. The Pulse satellites, which Vantor introduced plans for in April, will be 40-centimeter-class resolution satellites that can revisit the same location on Earth every 15 minutes. The intent is for these satellites to provide change detection and cue targeted collection from Vantor’s high-resolution satellites.
Vantor also said that Pulse satellites can accommodate different types of sensors, including electro-optical and radio-frequency payloads. Payloads can be adapted for sovereign missions for U.S. and allied nations.
Vantor is also planning for its next-generation of high-resolution satellites. The company expects to launch two Vantage satellites as early as 2029 which will feature a larger bus and 20-centimeter-class resolution.
“We’re designing the [Pulse] fleet to support different sensor types over time and feed that data into Tensorglobe, where it can be brought together with AI and other data sources. Combined with our higher-resolution satellites, that gives customers both the persistence to see change and the detail to understand what matters,” Matt Jenkins, Vantor chief space systems officer said in a release.
This comes a day after EnduroSat announced a $205 million funding round, which will support opening a new high-volume manufacturing facility in the U.S. EnduroSat also recently secured a contract to build 40 satellites for TrustPoint for its alternative PNT constellation.
