Force (USAF), small spacecraft manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the Blackjack program. BCT is designing an ESPA-class microsat for Blackjack, incorporating their state-of-the-art commoditized FleXbus spacecraft architecture, the Boulder, CO-based company announced October 2.
The PDR took place on July 29th at
BCT’s Boulder-Colorado manufacturing facility and demonstrated the spacecraft
bus design meets mission requirements. The PDR culminates the first phase of
the program. An extension is currently being negotiated to include a
supplemental design review to occur in a matter of months.
BCT is the first company on contract
with DARPA to complete a PDR for the Blackjack program. The manufacturer will
submit a bid for Blackjack Phase 2 once DARPA finalizes requirements.
“The successful PDR represents a culmination of an intensive 10 months of engineering design effort within Blue Canyon and with external partners who will be vital to meeting Blackjack mission requirements” said Bill Schum, Blackjack program manager at Blue Canyon Technologies.
With funding from DARPA and the USAF,
the Blackjack program aims to develop and demonstrate the critical technical
elements of a global high-speed network platform in low Earth orbit (LEO) that
enables highly networked, resilient, and persistent Department of Defense (DoD)
payloads.
Blue Canyon’s diverse spacecraft platform has the proven capability to enable a broad range of missions and technological advances for the New Space economy, further reducing the barriers of space entry. The X-SAT microsat spacecraft uses BCT’s heritage FleXbus avionics to provide an advanced platform that maximizes payload volume. The spacecraft includes ultra-high-performance pointing accuracy, a robust power system, command and data handling, RF communications, and dedicated payload interfaces.
Soure: Blue Canyon Technologies
By Loren Blinde
October 8, 2019
