Versatile, Low-cost, High Delta-V Small Spacecraft Transfer Stage

To meet the NASA need, GigEngineer Inc. (“Gig”) proposes to develop a new Versatile, Low-cost, High Delta-V Small Spacecraft Transfer Stage ("Hohmann"). it can be used by NASA to close the small spacecraft orbit transfer capability gap by enabling small spacecraft payloads in the near term to the cislunar environment, with longer term potential for farther destinations such as near-Earth objects, Mars, or Venus. The Phase I funding will be used to advance the complete Hohmann vehicle to Preliminary Design Review maturity, fabricate and test key materials, and prototype vehicle components. With delta-v capability exceeding 4 km/sec, Hohmann is well suited for a variety on non-NASA missions, such as DoD NSS, and commercial (e.g., communication) satellite boost to MEO or GEO.
Benefits: Hohmann has immediate application for a variety of NASA applications including accessing all CIS-lunar locations and more distant destinations such as near-Earth objects, Mars and beyond. Hohmann can power TLI trajectories and, given that propellants are storable, can perform one or more additional burns for final insertion into orbits such as Earth-Moon Lagrange points. Hohmann can enable resupply missions (similar to todays’ COTS missions) to Gateway. Hohmann’s technology has the potential to be commercialized in a wide set of markets and for a wide set of purposes. The cutting-edge approach we propose will overcome conventional limitations of current state-of-the-art bipropellant systems. The current commercial trend for communication and imaging satellites is higher power, mass and increasing deployment to MEO instead of LEO. These higher orbits can become inaccessible to small launchers as satellite mass exceeds a few hundred kilograms. A transfer stage such as Hohmann can allow small launchers to continue to be relevant to changing requirements for commercial missions. The current geopolitical environment will also likely drive additional demand for stages similar to Hohmann for a wide variety of cis-lunar military mission. Beyond conventional payload missions, the extended mission support capability desired by NASA will also be valuable to the military as they will be deploying a wide variety of new instruments and multi-vehicle coordination architectures. On the civil space side, NASA’s exploration initiatives will provide additional demand for versatile transfer stages.