Nichols Martin
Spaceflight has unveiled a space vehicle the company intends to launch aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as part of a rideshare mission to deploy multiple customer spacecraft and hosted payloads.
The Sherpa-FX orbital transfer vehicle will carry 16 spacecraft for public and private sector customers that include NASA, HawkEye 360, Loft Orbital, iQPS, Astrocast and the University of South Florida, Spaceflight said Wednesday.
The mission, dubbed SXRS-3, will also transport one payload for space burial service provider Celestis and several technologies intended for spacecraft identification and tracking.
“In-space transportation is essential to meeting our customer’s specific needs to get their spacecraft delivered to orbit exactly when and where they want it," said Grant Bonin, senior vice president of business development at Spaceflight.
Sherpa-FX is built to generate telemetry data and is part of the company's Sherpa-NG portfolio.
