Traverse City’s Atlas Space Operations Inc., a company that creates ground communications for the space industry, and Alabama’s Aevum Inc., a provider of launch and space logistics services, publicly announced their partnership and collaboration on The Agile Small Launch Operational Normalizer-45 space lift mission.
The $4.9 million mission provides orbital launch services to the Department of Defense Space Test Program and other governmental agencies. Facilitating experimental satellites in low-Earth orbit will allow the companies to help the department improve its real-time threat warnings.
“This partnership will push the envelope of capabilities that are available to the space community,” says Sean McDaniel, CEO and co-founder of Atlas. “Beyond the ASLON-45 mission, Atlas and Aevum are looking forward to conducting many successful launches and continuing to empower global access to space.”
Atlas’ Freedom Ground Network has 31 operational and planned antennas placed around the world, complementing Aevum’s scalable launch service, which allows their unmanned, autonomous lift vehicles to launch from virtually any runway in the world and not be limited to range. The combination gives partners and their customers global accessibility to space operations.
Because Aevum already uses Atlas for telemetry, tracking, and command, launch support to post-launch support will be a simple transition for customers. The partnership also will allow Aevum to lower the cost of launches for small satellite missions.
“By choosing to horizontally integrate with Atlas, we’re shifting the risk away from technology and capital to execution, which involves a lot of trust,” says Jay Skylus, founder and CEO of Aevum. “Vertical integration may reduce execution risk but often heightens cost and technology development risks. Our choice to integrate with Atlas for ground communications provides our customers with more benefits and robust services.”
