OSMOS X to lead European Defence Fund study on responding to threats in orbit

The European Defence Fund has picked French orbital transfer vehicle startup OSMOS X to lead a coalition studying how countries can respond to threats in orbit. The 30-month study is backed by about €4.5M ($5M).

The coalition has seven organisations across Europe, including ArcSpace and CNRS in France, KINETIK Space in Germany, Poznań University of Technology in Poland and Politecnico di Milano in Italy. It will not initially send anything to space, with a preliminary design review set to be its final deliverable.

The goal is a spacecraft able to approach, capture and manipulate adversarial spacecraft using in-space welding, without creating debris. CEO Arnaud Masson said the coalition is targeting the ability to attach items such as jammers or propulsion systems to non-cooperative spacecraft, breaking their ability to spy on allied satellites or forcing them into non-threatening orbits.

European defence ministries recently watched a Russian satellite get within 50 m of an ICEYE satellite gathering intelligence over Ukraine. It is not clear what the Russian satellite was doing.

Sourcepayloadspace.com