Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has secured a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop an autonomous orbital outpost, potentially launching as early as 2022.
Amid growing space competition with China and Russia, the U.S. is poised for a major advancement. On July 14, 2020, SNC announced a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), a DoD division focused on accelerating the adoption of cutting-edge commercial technologies for military use.
The agreement repurposes SNC's Shooting Star cargo vehicle, originally designed to resupply the International Space Station (ISS), as the foundation for an unmanned orbital outpost.
This scalable and autonomous space station will support logistics experiments and demonstrations, including space assembly, manufacturing, training, testing, evaluation, and microgravity research. Notably, space assembly enables direct satellite deployment from orbit.
As reported by The Drive, the outpost could test communication systems, data sharing, and navigation technologies. It may also host sensors for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Speculation includes potential integration of defensive or offensive capabilities.
SNC proposes flexible deployment in medium Earth orbit (MEO), highly elliptical orbits, or geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). The Pentagon has not commented, but SNC's established role as a trusted supplier to the U.S. military, NASA, and the space sector lends credibility to the announcement.
In June 2020, the Pentagon revealed another bold initiative: pitting a human-piloted fighter jet against an AI-controlled autonomous aircraft in a technological showdown.
