COLORADO SPRINGS, Co - Sierra Space has unveiled a radical new concept for on-demand cargo delivery from orbit. The company aims to land critical supplies anywhere in the world within 90 minutes of the request.
Sierra Space says the concept could allow soldiers on the battlefield or in remote areas to acquire much-needed supplies on faster timescales, as they would be far removed from the traditional infrastructure used to transport goods by ground. The Ghost orbital delivery platform could also help first responders in disaster-affected areas and strengthen humanitarian efforts.
While several commercial launch providers, such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab, in addition to the US military, debate using rockets to send cargo quickly around the Earth, Sierra Space's Ghost concept could allow payloads to land in areas without special launch or landing facilities. It would be particularly useful for smaller payloads, opening up radically new possibilities for civilian supply chains, on top of military requirements.
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According to a statement from Sierra Space announcing the Ghost concept, the system would involve loading predetermined supplies such as survival kits, an inflatable boat, rations and weapons into various "units." Units would then be launched into orbit there.
The Ghost platform could then wait up to five years in orbit before calling pre-loaded supplies back to Earth. Once materials need to be delivered, a de-orbit engine would slow the satellite enough that Earth's gravity begins to pull it toward the planet's surface. The system's thermal shield, meanwhile, would protect the payload from the oncoming intense heat of reentry.
Once safely in Earth's atmosphere, the thermal shell would be discarded and the system's umbrella-like soft-shell parafoil would open. A steerable rudder on the parafoil could help guide Ghost's payload to within 100 meters of its intended landing site, Sierra Space says.
Sierra Space's new incubator "Axelerator technology" helped the team develop a prototype of the Ghost system in just 90 days, the company's statement said.
Space.com spoke with Sierra Space's Erik Daehler, vice president of Orbital Missions & Services, at the Space Symposium to learn more about the new Ghost system. Daehler said that while the Ghost system can be scaled to different sizes, between 550 pounds and 1,750 pounds (250 kilograms and 750 kilograms) is the "sweet spot" in terms of cost versus the amount of cargo to be returned.
Each unit currently costs somewhere in the "tens of millions" of dollars to build, but Daehler said Sierra Space is working to bring that cost down to "single digit millions."
When asked if the Ghost concept could be scaled up until it is large enough to return something as massive as an International Space Station (ISS) module, Daehler said a similar concept could potentially be used, but with a slightly different design. principles.
"If you think about cool things like an ISS segment, you can scale things that are designed in a similar way," Daehler said. "But you could look at a different structural way to build it nicely. So instead of making a rigid structure like we did, which is super easy to build, you could do something inflatable."
"We think it would be really cool to bring back some of our heritage in this way," he continued. "We originally started doing this because our cargo modules were designed to be burned for our NASA missions to bring back waste. We'd like to ultimately reuse them. So we're looking at that scalability; how do we bring something back that has a big impact? bigger ?"
A test article of the Sierra Space Ghost delivery system was seen here at the 39th annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. The bottom of the test article was abraded from a test drop at Space Florida's historic Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) in Florida, where NASA's space shuttles once landed.
During a test campaign in February 2024, seven different test articles were dropped from a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter - some with the system's parachute, others with only the system's softshell decelerator, and still others involving "terminal" drops of the cargo. the payload alone - from altitudes between 2,000 feet (610 meters) and 4,000 feet (1,220 meters).
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Similar resupply concepts have been discussed for years, except those involving point-to-point rocket launches with reusable systems, such as SpaceX's massive starship. Just this year, the U.S. Air Force allocated $4 million in research funding to its Rocket Cargo Vanguard program, or "Point-to-Point Delivery (P2PD)" program as it is now known. It's a program that "focuses on using vehicles that travel from or through space to transport DoD equipment anywhere in the world within tactically responsive timelines," according to Breaking Defense.
However, such a system would likely not be able to land wherever it wanted, as large rockets currently require special landing infrastructure. A much smaller, more tactical concept like the Sierra Space Ghost system could enable precision deliveries to austere, remote or contested areas without the need for landing pads.
Sierra Space has not yet announced a date by which it hopes to have the system operational, but the company is continuing a testing program to further develop the Ghost concept and determine what infrastructure, communications systems and other architecture will be needed to convert the system turn. it into a reality.
