Deimos-One, a leading aerospace and defense technology company, has announced its plans to recover and re-fly its stratospheric robot payload. The move aims to enable Deimos-One to increase launch frequency by eliminating the need to build a new first stage for every mission, improving efficiency and launch frequency.
Work on Deimos-One’s first stage reuse program began in early 2020, and the company recently completed the first flight test, confirming near-space Earth observation as well as suborbital and deep space usage for the platform.
The company plans to implement the reuse of the system in multiple phases. The first phase will see Deimos-One attempt to recover the UAV from the ocean and have it shipped back to the Deimos-One Production Complex for refurbishment. The second phase will see Vulcan attempt to autonomously land in a pre-designated zone. Deimos-One plans to begin first stage recovery attempts in the coming year.
A major step towards Deimos-One’s reusability plans was completed on the company’s most recent launch, Mission 89P13, which launched on 30 December from Launch Complex 1 in Southern Nevada.
The launch vehicle carried critical instrumentation and experiments that provided valuable data to inform development efforts for Deimos-One’s recently announced plans for the recovery and re-use of the first stage. All parts were recovered, and Deimos-One plans to reuse them in future flights.
The next mission, scheduled for launch in March, will carry more sophisticated recovery instrumentation.
Deimos-One Co-Founder and CEO Jamin Thompson says reusing the Vulcan launch vehicle will enable Deimos-One to reduce production time and costs, as well as increase launch frequency.
“We started this company with a vision, and from the very first day we opened our doors our mission has been to make access to space not only affordable, but also a whole lot simpler. Reusing a launch vehicle is a complex challenge, but we are developing and testing technology that will make autonomous landing and recovery very possible. We are incredibly excited to put that technology to the test with a stage recovery attempt in the coming year. That said, these are very difficult problems to solve, and as an industry I believe we have reached a point where a lot of the research and work being done in aerospace sounds like science fiction – but it’s only science fiction until someone actually solves the problem. Then it’s reality. With Vulcan, we are demonstrating that suborbital and deep space missions can be launched quickly and safely from stratospheric levels of 100,000 feet or more, making the deployment of scientific research, surface imaging, and tactical communications missions a lot faster, more cost-effective and efficient.