Rendering of the In-Space Faraday Dragon rideshare vehicle. Photo: In-Space Missions 

In-Space Missions has signed a new partnership deal in Asia, as it looks to bounce back after the recent Virgin Orbit launch failure in the United Kingdom, which it had designed and built the two Prometheus-2 satellites for. The company announced Jan. 25 that it is teaming up with Singapore Space Technologies Ltd (SSTL) to initiate Faraday Dragon, an Asia-Pacific regional satellite rideshare mission targeted for launch in 2025.

Faraday Dragon will fly multiple payloads for regional space players including government, commercial, financial, research, and educational organizations. In-Space Missions, which is owned by BAE Systems, is collaborating with SSTL on a service-oriented model which aims to support and develop satellite assembly and payload integration capabilities in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region. Faraday Dragon will be presented at a workshop facilitated by SSTL at the Global Space and Technology Convention (GSTC) to be held in Singapore in February.

The Faraday Rideshare satellite platform and service capability has been developed by In-Space Missions, with support from the UK Space Agency, to provide a turnkey system to get payloads into space at competitive prices. The platform design includes on-board processing to deliver sophisticated, flexible and re-configurable data from multiple sensors on board the spacecraft.

“We are excited to be working with In-Space Missions to bring a low-cost option to space players in the Asia Pacific region. One of the biggest challenges faced by emerging players developing frontier space technologies is the cost of space heritage. It is through partnerships like this that SSTL is able to support cutting edge innovation by lowering the barriers to entry,” Jonathan Hung, executive chairman of SSTL, said in a statement.