True Anomaly yesterday hosted the grand opening of its state-of-the-art spacecraft manufacturing facility, GravityWorks, in Centennial, Colo.
The company also announced authorizations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to perform non-Earth imaging (NEI) and demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), respectively, with its Jackal autonomous orbital vehicles (AOVs) currently in production at GravityWorks.
These are significant milestones in True Anomaly's mission to define the next generation of space security.
True Anomaly joins a growing number of aerospace and defense companies that have chosen Colorado for operations. Colorado is home to one of the largest space economies in the country, and headquartering operations in the state helps the company deliver spacecraft fully built in the USA.
Offering a novel, assembly line approach to satellite manufacturing, GravityWorks will be able to produce a fully-tested, mission-ready satellite every five days.
The 35,000-square-foot facility serves as the home of True Anomaly's Jackal AOVs, the first two of which are slated for launch in February 2024 aboard a SpaceX Transporter-10 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
At the GravityWorks grand opening event, the company announced an NOAA license to operate Jackal 1 and 2 for commercial remote sensing in NEI, which will include radar, shortwave infrared, longwave infrared and visible wide and narrow field of view imagery. This variety of sensor phenomenology will enable Jackal to collect data even in poor lighting conditions such as when the spacecraft is in Earth's shadow. In addition to the NOAA authorization, True Anomaly was granted FCC authorizations to conduct on-ground testing of Jackal transmitters and to demonstrate spacecraft-to-spacecraft rendezvous in close proximity with Jackal 1 and 2 once on orbit.
