Momentus has built two Vigoride vehicles, which have completed flight qualification where the satellite is tested under the conditions it will experience during launch and while in space.
The first Vigoride vehicle was built was ready to fly with customer payloads onboard earlier in 2021. It was integrated onto a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in January 2021– just days away from its first flight. Due to government concerns about our foreign ownership at the time, they had to remove the vehicle and stand down on our mission. Momentus has made significant progress in resolving foreign ownership concerns.
Momentus recently completed 350 test cycles and the results are consistent with the Company’s expectations for engine performance and the resilience of the engine design for the time tested. The latest 750W thruster now in ground-testing is approximately 25 times more powerful than the original thruster design.
They now plan to fly the first Vigoride mission in 2022, pending receipt of appropriate government licenses and securing a slot on a launch provider’s manifest.
Vigoride™
Vigoride has been designed to be capable of launching on most large, mid-sized, and small rockets thanks to its compatibility with many modern launch interfaces such as ESPA Grande. Once in orbit carrying your satellite or cargo, we believe Vigoride will be able to change orbital planes, adjust inclination, and deliver to a variety of altitudes in Low Earth Orbit. Or if you prefer, Vigoride will be able to stay with your payload providing up to 1kW of power, communication, attitude control, and orbit maintenance for the duration of your mission. Our next-gen reusable Vigoride will be designed to be refueled in-orbit, enabling multiple cargo missions between orbits and a suite of in-orbit services, such as docking, refueling, satellite repositioning, life extension, deorbiting, repairing, and inspection.
PAYLOAD MASS: 200-750 KG
ΔV: UP TO 2 KM/S
HOST POWER AVAILABLE: UP TO 1 KW
INTERFACES: ESPA, ESPA GRANDE, ISS
Ardoride™
Ardoride, which is currently under development, is intended to be a vehicle capable of delivering small and medium-sized satellites to custom orbits, such as Medium Earth Orbit, Geosynchronous Orbit, Highly-Elliptical Orbit or even Moon Orbit. Once launched to an initial orbit by almost any mid-sized or large launch vehicle, Ardoride will be designed to host a payload, provide a power up to 10kW, or perform a wide range of in-orbit services anywhere in cis-lunar space. The expandable version of Ardoride will serve as a deep space exploration platform.
PAYLOAD MASS: 500-4000 KG
ΔV: UP TO 5 KM/S
HOST POWER AVAILABLE: UP TO 10 KW
Fervoride™
Fervoride is under development and is being designed to move dozens of tons of cargo across multiple space destinations. Designed to augment the capabilities of rockets like Starship from SpaceX or New Glenn from Blue Origin, we aim to have Fervoride be a reusable vehicle.
PAYLOAD MASS: 4000-20000 KG
ΔV: UP TO 7 KM/S
HOST POWER AVAILABLE: UP TO 100 KW
Momentus started trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, following a stormy merger process that led to the departure of its founders. Momentus lost customers earlier this year, with its backlog of contracts dropping to $66 million from $90 million.
The company completed its merger with Stable Road Capital, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
National security concerns about its Russian co-founders, former CEO Mikhail Kokorich and Lev Khasis, led to both selling their stakes – in exchange for “roughly $40 million,” Rood said – and leaving the company.
Momentus’ valuation was then cut in half, from $1.1 billion to $567 million.
They have a target of more than $2 billion in revenue by 2027. They had no revenue last year or in 2021. They expect $5 million in 2022. They expect to be profitable on an EBITDA basis by 2024. Momentus will need to fly 26 missions that in 2024 to reach their goals.
SOURCES – momentus, CNBC
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Spent a couple of hours researching this today. All the gurus who were so excited about this company reported it was going to be the Uber of Outerspace. This article pretty much summarizes their business prospects. One other thing I learned is that some of the people current involved and previously with the company were creating space mining tools and machines. Now I more appreciate the hype.
Does anyone else think this thing looks like a big Radio Shack speaker system?
It's kind of unfortunate that there was an issue with the nationality of the founders; Even though Russia has a history of competing with the USA in space, in principle it should not matter where Kokorich and Khasis were born or raised.
Looks like they lost one Vigoride customer to a RocketLab launch recently, but that isn't a surprise considering their original Vigoride slots on SpaceX rideshares got bumped due to the extended SPAC delay.