A first demonstration of the high-energy laser capability is expected in August 2022, Lt. The Army teamed up with the Office of the Secretary of Defense on the program to develop a 300-kilowatt laser weapon. The OTB platform will allow us to quickly and affordably integrate the TSIS-2 payload suite onto a free-flying spacecraft that will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit and allow NASA continuous solar monitoring capabilities throughout its mission life cycle.The RCCTO is already working under a contract modification with a Lockheed Martin and Dynetics team to develop a 300-kilowatt laser capability for the Army’s Indirect Fires Protection Capability, or IFPC, which will defend fixed and semi-fixed assets against cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft, rockets, artillery and mortars using interceptors, a laser weapon and a high-power microwave capability. “This contract is another exciting opportunity that demonstrates ability to deliver satellites on an aggressive schedule. “We are extremely pleased to expand our relationship with NASA and to continue supporting their research goals with our flexible, modular OTB platforms,” Scott Forney, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems president said in a statement. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems won a $37.9 million contract in 2018 to fly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Argos Advanced Data Collection System on the third Orbital Test Bed. NASA awarded General Atomics a $38.5 million contract in 2018 to send the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, an instrument developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, into orbit on Orbital Test Bed-2. The first Orbital Test Bed, which launched in 2019 on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, housed five distinct payloads for commercial, government and academic customers, including the Deep Space Atomic Clock developed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. General Atomics plans to design, manufacture, assemble, integrate and test the TSIS-2 satellite at its existing facilities in the Denver area and at its new spacecraft development, integration and test factory in Centennial, Colorado, Bucci said in an interview.
“While this was a close selection, I have concluded that the very substantial magnitude of the firm fixed price difference is worth more to NASA than the slight Mission Suitability advantages offered by SWRI’s proposal, as well the two ratings higher level of confidence rating received by SwRI in the Past Performance assessment,” according to the Spacecraft Selection Statement.īucci said in a statement, “Our spacecraft designs provide lower-cost access to space helping customers keep pace with the demand to provide for missions like TSIS-2.” The Southwest Research Institute submitted a very strong proposal but General Atomics won the contract largely because its bid was 40% lower than the Southwest Research Institute’s, according to the TSIS-2 Spacecraft Selection Statement published on the U.S.
The TSIS-2 spacecraft competition pitted General Atomics against the Southwest Research Institute. General Atomics is basing the TSIS-2 design on its Orbital Test Bed, a scalable, modular platform designed to accommodate multiple payloads from a single customer or hosted payloads from multiple customers.