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Artist’s rendering of Boeing and Millennium Space Systems’ new mid-class spacecraft, Resolute.
Credit: Boeing
COLORADO SPRINGS—Boeing and its subsidiary Millennium Space Systems have created a new satellite platform from existing company components, aiming to fill a gap in their current spacecraft offerings, the company announced April 16.
As the U.S. Space Force and other satellite customers look for platforms with greater capability than a traditional small satellite, along with more flexibility than a typical large system, Boeing and Millennium wanted to provide an option that is new to customers, but that did not require any non-recurring engineering that can introduce delays and risk, Kay Sears, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space, Intelligence & Weapons Systems, told reporters April 15 at the Space Foundation’s annual Space Symposium here.
“Brand-new products can be fraught with first-time issues,” she said.
Before Resolute, the Boeing and Millennium satellite lines supported a wide breadth of satellite power offerings, with Millennium providing spacecraft with power ranges of 50 watts to 1.5 kW while Boeing-built satellites start at 4 kW and go up to 30 kW, Millennium CEO Tony Gingiss told reporters. The new satellite will fill the 2 kW to 4 kW range, he added.
The new satellite could support missions in low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO) and geostationary (GEO) orbit, Sears said, describing its potential as a “micro-GEO” satellite enabling Ka-band, Ku-band or UHF communications for either allied military partners or commercial customers.
It will also be highly maneuverable, building off of high Delta-v capabilities from legacy company satellites. While the satellite is designed for chemical and electric propulsion, Sears said Boeing is studying novel thruster designs that could increase the maneuverability and Delta-v capabilities.
Boeing is currently evaluating bids for Resolute’s debut customer and is ready to incorporate it into its backlog, Gingiss said. All told, the company has more than 100 satellites currently going through production, he said.
Millennium is building satellites for the Space Force’s Missile Warning and Tracking in MEO program, as well as advanced fire control satellites in LEO for the Space Development Agency. It is also building an undisclosed number of satellites for classified programs.
It also won a spot on the Space Force’s RG-XX program for space-based reconnaissance in GEO, also called Andromeda. The service awarded an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract worth $1.84 billion to 14 vendors. Gingiss declined to provide details on the company’s bidding bus design, but said it leverages “all of our common building blocks.”
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