Ibadan, 1 May 2023. – Terran Orbital Corporation has announced the receipt of a further milestone payment alongside the completion of the screening of the industrial partners as well as trade studies that will support the acquisition process and system engineering for the Company’s 300 spacecraft, $2.4 billion contract with Rivada Space Networks.
Terran Orbital, through its subsidiary Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. (“Tyvak”), will design, build, and deploy 288 low-Earth orbit satellites and 12 “spare” satellites to produce a total of 300 spacecraft weighing approximately 500 kg a piece. The Company will also integrate the communication payload and perform the final satellite assembly, integration, and test. In addition, it will develop portions of the ground segment.
With the official onboarding of the partners now complete, Rivada has taken another important step toward the installation of its constellation. The deployment will begin with the launch of a Terran Orbital-developed demonstrator mission by the end of 2024, consisting of four satellites across two orbital planes and including regenerative payloads and laser communication terminals on the satellites. The Demonstrator Mission will support the verification of gateway-less transmissions from one user to another, routed within a small network of four satellites in space.
Speaking on this, Terran Orbital Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer Marc Bell, said, “Terran Orbital looks forward to proceeding with the program as scheduled as we continue refining the Rivada spacecraft design.”
Likewise, Declan Ganley, Chief Executive Officer of Rivada Space Networks, commented: “The additional ’Demonstrator Mission’ in 2025 will ensure that customers can test the operational environment of our unique laser-connected data network ahead of the rollout of the main constellation and provide RSN with an operational test bed for early ground segment automation to build up best practices for operating our larger fleet.”