Momentus wins two NASA contracts to fly tech demo payloads

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Momentus announced Oct. 9 two new contracts with NASA to carry payloads to test in-space manufacturing and an advanced propulsion system on its Vigoride spacecraft.

The company said it won the contracts, with a combined value of $7.6 million, to fly the payloads on a future Vigoride mission.

One contract, worth $5.1 million, is from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program to fly the Commercial Orbital System for Microgravity In-Space Crystallization (COSMIC) demonstration. COSMIC will test the ability to make semiconductor crystals in microgravity and return them to Earth.

John Rood, Momentus’ chief executive, told SpaceNews the mission will carry out the crystal growth experiment in a higher orbit, then maneuver the spacecraft to a lower orbit. A reentry capsule will deploy from the spacecraft to return the material to Earth.

COSMIC was a winner of the Space Technology Payload Challenge by NASA’s TechLeap Prize, which offers companies funding to develop innovative technologies and the opportunity to fly them in space. Startup Astral Materials developed the payload with SpaceWorks Engineering, which is providing the reentry system.

A separate $2.5 million contract covers the flight of a second TechLeap Prize winner. Juno Propulsion will test a rotating detonation rocket engine, a propulsion system designed to provide higher efficiency than traditional engines. The system flying on Vigoride will test a version of the engine optimized for in-space propulsion using nitrous oxide and ethane propellants.

Both payloads will fly on the same Vigoride spacecraft, along with those from other customers. Rood said the mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than October 2026.

That will follow the company’s next Vigoride mission, manifested on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare launch in February. The principal customer for that mission will be DARPA’s Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design, or NOM4D, program. NOM4D, pronounced “nomad,” will test technologies for in-space assembly.

Those two missions will be the first for Momentus since 2023. The company said in January 2024 it was delaying future flights because of low cash reserves. It has since received new funding from investors to remain operational.

Momentus noted it has received several contracts from NASA, DARPA and SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force, to fly technology demonstration payloads on future Vigoride missions. “We are very pleased to be playing major roles on programs at the forefront of space technology,” Rood said in a company statement.

Momentus is among several companies that developed orbital transfer vehicles, or OTVs, like Vigoride to ferry spacecraft between orbits. They are designed to provide last-mile delivery to specific orbits for spacecraft launched on rideshare missions such as Transporter. However, demand for such services has been slower to materialize than expected.

“Candidly, that part of the market has not developed as much as people thought, say, five years ago,” Rood said during a panel at World Space Business Week in September. “The reason is many small manufacturers are multi-manifesting satellites to deploy a single plane with a single launcher.”

He said that is why Momentus has focused more on hosted payloads, such as the technology demonstrations for NASA and DARPA, although he expects demand for OTVs to grow.

“As we move to larger launch vehicles and ever-smaller satellites that are in need of specific locations, I think you’re going to see a growth in demand for specific placement or deployment along certain inclinations,” he said. “That’s where the value of a mobility platform, as opposed to simply being released from the launch vehicle, has a value-add.”