The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) on Thursday issued a solicitation for a rapid demonstration of a commercial capability to prototype and demonstrate the launch of a spacecraft that would be able to rendezvous and inspect a simulated space system in response to operational needs.
The tactically responsive space (TacRS) VICTUS HAZE demonstration is related to the upcoming VICTUS NOX, which is being overseen by the U.S. Space Force to see if industry can quickly deliver, integrate, and launch a Space Development Agency satellite into orbit.
For VICTUS HAZE, DIU is planning the demonstration within the next year to 18 months whereby a space system is launched within a day of notice and then “match orbital plane, conduct rendezvous and proximity operations, and inspect and characterize a simulated threat on an operationally relevant timeline,” the Defense Department office says. Solutions that can be closer to the 12-month start would be “most compelling,” it says.
Docking with the potential threat spacecraft is desired but optional for now, DIU says.
Solutions that can be scalable for various payloads, can conduct autonomous operations, minimized the release of orbital debris, are responsive and cost-effective either as a service or in production, and are “Commercially viable independent of the government use cases discussed herein,” are being sought DIU says.
Some of the other features sought in the solutions are remaining on orbit for six months to a year, a space vehicle that can be launched horizontally and vertically, and be able to integrate a government-provided space domain awareness payload. Government and contractor mission personnel will learn of the orbit parameters once the 24-hour launch window opens.
The VICTUS NOX mission is slated for anytime between now and the end of this year. Boeing’s [BA] Millenium Space Systems business unit last fall received a contract from Space Systems Command to pull a satellite off its production line and modify it for the TacRS mission and deliver it within eight months.
Once the mission is given the start, Millenium Space must quickly deliver the satellite to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, where Firefly Aerospace will have 24 hours to integrate, launch and place into low-Earth orbit the spacecraft aboard the company’s Alpha launch vehicle.
Responses to the DIU solicitation are due by Sept. 7.