Advanced Space Selected for Two NASA SBIR Phase II Awards

Advanced Space Selected for Two NASA SBIR Phase II Awards

WESTMINSTER, CO, 13 June 2024 — Advanced Space LLC., a leading space tech solutions company, is pleased to announce that NASA has selected two of our Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects to proceed to Phase II for further development.  “We are grateful for these selections as we appreciate the trust NASA continues to place in our work pushing the state of the art for critical technologies that will enable the sustainable exploration, development, and settlement of space,” said Advanced Space CEO Bradley Cheetham. “These two technologies will make missions more robust and resilient through onboard autonomy and will increase the scale with which important spaceflight safety related operations can be conducted.”   (more…)

The Artemis Generation: To the Moon — this time to stay!

The Artemis Generation: To the Moon — this time to stay!

We are in a new era of lunar exploration, development and settlement.

Originally posted to Space.com on 16 April 2023.

On June 28, 2022, CAPSTONE launched into space on a dedicated rocket as the first mission of the Artemis program, ushering in a new generation of lunar exploration, development and settlement. With NASA’s leadership and global involvement, we are entering a period that will define the future of space exploration: the Artemis Generation.

As the architects of CAPSTONE, our team has learned first-hand the challenges of lunar missions. From communications and propulsion anomalies to suspected radiation upsets, traveling to the moon and operating there is not an easy task. During these challenges, however, the best of the industry united and we overcame — such alignment is the key to successful long-term lunar development. (more…)

Main Engine Cutoff podcast hosts episode with Advanced Space about CAPSTONE™

Main Engine Cutoff podcast hosts episode with Advanced Space about CAPSTONE™

Brad Cheetham, our co-founder, CEO, and President of Advanced Space joins Anthony Colangelo of Main Engine Cutoff to talk about our upcoming CAPSTONE mission. They talk about how the mission came to be, what it’s been like working with NASA and the other partners on the mission, and then dive into the nerdy details of the trajectory it’s flying to the moon, the orbits it will operate in, how its autonomous positioning system works, and how it might be used in the future.

“Cislunar Space” – Air Force Magazine

“Cislunar Space” – Air Force Magazine

The gap between Earth orbit and the moon is open, uncharted, and undefended.

Not much human activity has touched the moon or its surroundings in the half-century since American Apollo astronauts traversed the lunar landscape, but new concerns about China’s interests and motives have leaders in Washington viewing with worry the vast void of cislunar space.

China’s rapid evolution as a global space player and its announced intention to join with Russia in building a joint science base on the moon, raise concerns about what that kind of activity could yield in terms of future capacity to act and potentially wage war in space.

NASA plans to return American astronauts to the moon for longer periods to a base of its own, as the U.S. gears up its competitive drive in space. And governments and private entities the world over are eyeing the moon as a potential source of mineral wealth or as a place to position communication or space transportation hubs.

Cislunar space—that vast void between terrestrial orbits and the moon—represents both an opportunity and a threat because it is not only empty, for the most part, but essentially indefensible. At least for now.

NASA Administrator highlights contributions of Colorado industry and academia

NASA Administrator highlights contributions of Colorado industry and academia

Advanced Space shares small business success with NASA partnership

In addition to testing a unique orbit for NASA’s lunar Gateway, Colorado small business Advanced Space is preparing to demonstrate a new approach for cislunar navigation.

As part of the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission, scheduled to launch later this year on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket, Advanced Space plans to show how the CAPSTONE cubesat can work with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to perform peer-to-peer navigation.