SpaceDev and the Wireless Future company will jointly develop and market a next-generation, miniaturised, low-cost transponder for use in government and commercial lunar and Earth orbiting missions.
The transponder will fly for the first time on the CHIPsat spacecraft being built by SpaceDev for the University of California, to be launched in 2002. A later version will fly on SpaceDev's proposed live, streaming video entertainment and science orbiter, and a planned commercial near-Earth asteroid exploration mission.
Meanwhile, SpaceDev, the world's first commercial space exploration and development company, has received California Space and Technology Alliance funding to test fire SpaceDev's hybrid rocket motors for its proposed Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV). The National Reconnaissance Office had earlier awarded SpaceDev funding to develop OTV concepts.
The "unique and low-cost design" will enable a range of OTVs, the largest of which will be 100kg (220lb), to carry small secondary spacecraft payloads on launches into Earth orbit on vehicles such as the Ariane 4 and Orbital Sciences' Pegasus.
Source: Flight International
