BMNT’s Enterprise Accelerator Secures Space Force Debris Removal Contract
Advisory firm BMNT won a US Space Force contract last month (June 27) to support SpaceWERX’s Orbital Prime Initiative, a program that seeks to fund commercially-viable new technologies relating to identifying, approaching, and servicing objects in space, BMNT announced. In the new agreement — the fourth space-centric contract that BMNT has landed this year — BMNT will use its enterprise accelerator, H4XLabs, to help other companies already involved in the Orbital Prime Initiative secure investment and bring their technologies to market, including those related to orbital manufacturing and space debris removal.
H4XLabs, which will lead BMNT’s space operations, is focused on leveraging commercial innovation from the private sector for the US government, particularly from emerging businesses and startups.
Tied to NASA’s Active Debris Removal initiative, the Orbital Prime Initiative was created to accelerate the commercial market for in-space/on-orbit support, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM/ISAM) of space technologies, such as spacecraft. ISAM technologies are intended to help the space sector move beyond single-use spacecraft and extend the life of existing space resources, such as satellites that have limited lifespans.
Ellen Chang, the vice president of BMNT and head of H4Xlabs, told SpaceRef that technological progress in the public sector is often slow. However, as in the case of these programs, the private sector can sometimes expedite technological innovation and fill capability gaps in governmental agencies.
To date, the Orbital Prime initiative has provided funding for more than 100 small businesses and startups developing technologies for spacecraft to engage with on-orbit support vehicles for services such as refueling, maintenance, and debris removal. Last November, the Space Force program awarded 124 $250,000 Phase I contracts to commercial businesses under the Department of the Air Force’s Small Business Technology Transfer, or STTR, program. SpaceWERX also opened a Direct-to-Phase 2 SBIR offering to enable small businesses to enter the Orbital Prime program in a parallel path to the STTR Phase 2, with funding of up to $1.5 million available. The initiative also provides mentoring on regulatory and contracting processes, training the companies to work with government agencies.
ExLabs, a startup with the long-term goal of capturing near-Earth asteroids and putting them into a stable orbit, was recently awarded a Direct-to-Phase 2 Orbital Prime Initiative SBIR contract of $1.7 million. The startup company has three core technologies: a robotic system for capture and control, a satellite bus platform, and orbital stabilization technology. ExLabs CEO and co-founder Matthew Schmidgall said that while ExLabs is in the early days of entering into the initiative, the collaboration has, so far, helped ExLabs familiarize itself with the complexities of the US government’s aerospace and defense industry.
The use cases for ExLabs’s object capture and control technology are active debris mitigation — an urgent matter, as “Debris is becoming an increasingly concerning issue,” Schmidgall told SpaceRef. The number of satellites in orbit is expected to increase tenfold in the next few years, and without end-of-life disposal methodologies, defunct satellites become a risk to existing technologies. “Everybody’s operating in space, from defense operators to civil and commercial [operators],” Schmidgall added. “There are debris concerns across all of those sectors.”
Clearing space in orbit
The technologies supported by these programs will be developed for active debris removal as an initial use case, but are intended to expand the Space Force’s ISAM capabilities more generally.
“From a commercial perspective, there’s concern about debris in space, but there’s also the promise of manufacturing in space,” Chang told SpaceRef. “From a national security perspective, some of the same initiatives could help us understand what our new peers are doing in space and how they might threaten us.”
H4XLabs intends to help the founders of these companies understand the government and commercial markets and secure funding from investors. The accelerator will also help SpaceWERX assess the Orbital Prime portfolio as a whole. “We’re making sure the whole portfolio works,” said Chang.
However, these technologies are not yet mature, and SpaceWERX hopes to catalyze their commercialization through multiple funding rounds. “This market that I’m talking about is yet to be a commercial market,” said Chang.
BMNT is also helping NASA build a new SBIR program, called SBIR Ignite, designed to reduce the risk that companies will “fall into the valley of death,” Chang said (referring to the lag between conducting research and a commercial product) by advising businesses on the relevance and maturity of their products, and helping them secure investment. It will focus on small businesses, especially companies that haven’t previously worked with NASA, as well as those with women and minority founders and investors. The program will run throughout 2023, leading up to the official solicitation in Summer 2023. ExLabs is participating in SBIR Ignite.
Schmidgall said that with Orbital Prime, the Space Force is “looking outside the existing box, and trying to fund programs and technology and innovation that really will develop change. There’s a lot of stagnation that we’ve seen for quite some time.”
“If this type of program wasn’t happening, I think the next 20 years would look a lot like the last 20 years, which I don’t think anybody wants,” he added.
Correction (7/11/2023): The original headline of this article incorrectly referred to BMNT as an enterprise accelerator. SpaceRef regrets the error.
