Sierra Space Marks Third Testing Milestone With Space Force R-GPS Satellite Program

Sierra Space Moves Closer to R-GPS Satellite Mission Readiness with Successful Demonstration of FlatSat Testing and Ground Communications

LOUISVILLE, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sierra Space, a leading commercial space company and defense tech prime that is Building a Platform in Space to Benefit Life on Earth^® and protect economic freedom in the Orbital Age^®, announced today another successful demonstration of the company’s Resilient GPS (R-GPS) technology for the U.S. Space Force (USSF). In this third milestone, Sierra Space demonstrated an early integration of the R-GPS satellite technology through FlatSat flight software and hardware subsystem testing, in addition to successful communication with ground software.

Sierra Space announced in September a “Quick Start” R-GPS contract awarded by the Space Systems Command (SSC) to produce design concepts for smaller, more cost-effective GPS satellites. This new achievement comes only six months after the start of that program, highlighting Sierra Space's rapid capabilities to bring technology to market in the national security space.

“The field for this program has recently narrowed down to three companies from the original four,” said Erik Daehler, Vice President of Sierra Space Defense. “The challenges of harnessing this technology in a competitive environment motivates us to reach these milestones. Sierra Space is focused on advancing GPS technology for the security of the United States, and demonstrations like this one showcase our dedication to being at the forefront of defense tech innovation.”

GPS technology plays a crucial role in everyday life. However, the growing complexity of threats such as jamming and spoofing by adversaries requires improvements in GPS resilience. To tackle these issues, the USSF’s R-GPS program plans to incorporate a network of smaller satellites into the existing GPS architecture to add additional layers of security.

The recent testing milestone from Sierra Space demonstrated the successful flow of commands and telemetry between Sierra Space's ground software and ground stations as-a-service provider, to establish that the technology will eventually work from orbit with ground-based facilities. Additionally, there was successful testing of flight software and hardware subsystems in FlatSat format – when satellite components are laid out flat for evaluation. These early integration achievements are a significant milestone as Sierra Space moves closer to advancing the USSF’s ability to rapidly deploy R-GPS Space and Control Segments to augment the current GPS system.

About Sierra Space

Sierra Space is a leading commercial space company at the forefront of innovation and the commercialization of space in the Orbital Age^®, building an end-to-end business and technology platform in space to benefit life on Earth. With more than 30 years and 500 missions of space flight heritage, the company is reinventing both space transportation with Dream Chaser^®, the world’s only commercial spaceplane, and the future of space destinations with the company’s inflatable and expandable space station technology. Using commercial business models, the company is also delivering orbital services to commercial, DoD and national security organizations, expanding production capacity to meet the needs of constellation programs. In addition, Sierra Space builds a host of systems and subsystems across solar power, mechanics and motion control, environmental control, life support, propulsion and thermal control, offering myriad space-as-a-service solutions for the new space economy.