San Jose, Ca. – In a December 5th news release, Momentus Inc., revealed that three of its five satellites on the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission failed to deploy.
The anomaly occurred on a SpaceX dedicated ride-share mission , launched on November 11 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellites which failed to deploy represented just three of the 90 private payloads on the mission.
Momentus Inc. is U.S. commercial space company that offers satellite buses and in-space infrastructure services including transportation, hosted payloads, and other in-orbit services.
The mission, utilizing SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, involved a third-party deployer system, instead of Momentus’s usual Vigoride tug. Despite the successful deployment of two satellites for Hello Space, the company has been unable to confirm the deployment of the remaining three satellites.
The affected satellites include AMAN-1, JINJUSat-1, and Picacho. Notably, Picacho, a 1U cubesat developed by Arizona-based startup Lunasonde, was intended to demonstrate innovative technology for subsurface mapping. Despite initial claims by Lunasonde’s CEO, Jeremiah Pate, that Picacho was operational in orbit, Momentus’s recent statement suggests otherwise.
The Space-Track database, maintained by the U.S. Space Force, has not listed these satellites, further indicating deployment issues. The upper stage of Falcon 9, which carried these satellites, performed a deorbit maneuver an hour after the mission, implying that any undeployed payloads would have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere.
This incident is particularly impactful for SatRev, a Polish company, and CONTEC Co., a South Korean company, as well as Lunasonde. For SatRev, this represents the second loss of a satellite in 2023 following a failed Virgin Orbit mission earlier in the year.
Momentus’s decision to use a third-party deployer, a deviation from its Vigoride vehicle, was part of a strategy to meet specific customer needs, as explained by CEO John Rood. However, this decision has now culminated in unforeseen challenges, putting the spotlight on the complexities of space missions and the reliability of deployment systems.
In their news release, Momentus said that the company has launched four missions to date, deployed 17 customer satellites, and provided hosted payload services. The Company’s next mission, according to the release, is targeted to fly in Q1 2024. That mission will serve customers that require orbital delivery and hosted payload services. The mission will also feature a Momentus-hosted payload for a rendezvous and proximity operations demonstration.
The company continues to investigate the root cause of the deployment failure and has expressed gratitude towards SpaceX for their assistance and collaboration in this matter. Meanwhile, Momentus remains in regular communication with its affected customers.
As the aerospace community watches closely, the implications of this deployment failure on future missions and the choice of deployer systems by companies like Momentus remain a topic of significant interest and concern.
