Diagram of a Solstar communications device hosted on a Momentus spacecraft performing in-space relay. Photo: Solstar Space

Solstar Space and Momentus are partnering to combine the companies’ capabilities and jointly market in-space data relay/communications and in-space logistics. 

The companies are preparing to launch a Solstar communications payload on the upcoming Vigoride-7 mission, planned for SpaceX’s rideshare mission this coming February. It will demonstrate Solstar’s Deke Space Communicator in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) for the first time. This connectivity will allow customers to use commercial satellite constellations to communicate on-demand with systems aboard spacecraft in orbit, instead of traditional downlink methods. 

The Deke Space Communicator will provide persistent connectivity for TT&C services for Momentus and provide relay services to two other Momentus customers onboard the mission. 

Solstar has previously demonstrated its communications payload on three suborbital flights including two Blue Origin New Shepard flights, serving as a Wi-Fi hotspot on the flight and sending the first commercial tweet in space. Solstar’s payload functions like a Wi-Fi hotspot in space to allow communications with any Wi-Fi connected device on Earth, Solstar CEO Brian Barnett told Via Satellite. It works with third-party satellites to offer the intelligent relay service. 

On Monday, the companies announced a three-year reciprocal services agreement worth up to $15 million to combine Solstar’s space-based communication products and services and Momentus logistics and hosted payload services. 

“We’re going to market together. Momentus will utilize the Solstar service as a preferred partner, but we’re also going to make it available to our customers. We think it’s something that will give us a discriminated capability, for companies who want 24/7, on-demand connectivity with their payloads from anywhere,” Momentus CEO John Rood explained to Via Satellite. 

Rood said the companies have already signed customer contracts for future Momentus customers to use Solstar’s connectivity service. 

The types of applications this joint offering could enable include intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) for defense, in-space assembly and manufacturing (ISAM), spacecraft interaction like refueling, and space station connectivity like a successor to NASA’s TDRSS satellites that are being retired. 

“Momentus provides a platform that’s very versatile, and then you have the communications capability on top of that [as] a commercial service,” Barnett said. “Our customers are the ones that have these great ideas, we provide the communications for them. Once they know a communications capability is on the platform, they want to use it in different ways.”