Business Wire 5/25/2022
First customer satellite orbited; more customer payloads to be deployed and Vigoride spacecraft tested
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS) ("Momentus" or the "Company"), a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer transportation and other in-space infrastructure services, today announced that it has launched its first demonstration flight of the Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle to low-earth orbit aboard the SpaceX Transporter-5 mission. Momentus also announced that it has placed its first customer satellite in orbit and plans to conduct more deployments of customer payloads in the coming days.
The versatile Vigoride spacecraft, designed to support a range of transportation and in-space infrastructure services, is slated to perform a series of operations in space to test and demonstrate the performance of the vehicle and its subsystems. Under the company's license from the Federal Communications Commission, the mission is scheduled to last up to 180 days. The mission will also feature the deployment of several customer satellites and the testing of hardware for another customer.
A key part of the Vigoride vehicle is the Microwave Electrothermal Thruster (MET) which uses water as a propellant. The MET produces thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle. However, unlike a conventional chemical rocket engine, which creates heat through a chemical reaction, the MET heats propellant using solar microwave energy. Using the MET offers cost-effective, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly propulsion to meet the demands for in-space transportation and infrastructure services.
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