by COLORADO SPRINGS, Co. – Sierra Space unveiled a radical new concept for on-demand cargo delivery from Earth orbit. The company aims to land critical supplies anywhere in the world within 90 minutes of being requested.
Sierra Space says the concept could enable soldiers on the battlefield or in remote areas to receive much-needed supplies on faster timescales, as they would be far from traditional infrastructure used to transport goods on the ground. The Ghost orbital delivery platform could also help first responders in disaster areas and bolster humanitarian efforts.
While several commercial launch providers, such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab, as well as the US military are discussing using rockets to quickly send cargo around the Earth, the Ghost Sierra Space concept could allow loads payloads to land in areas without dedicated launch or landing facilities. It would be very useful with smaller payloads, which would provide radical new possibilities for civilian supply chains on top of military demands.
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According to Sierra Space’s statement announcing the Ghost concept, the system would involve loading predetermined supplies such as survival kits, an inflatable boat, rations and weaponry onto various “units”. Units would then be launched into orbit.
The Ghost platform could then remain in orbit for up to five years before any preloaded supplies are called down to Earth. When the materials need to be delivered, first, the deorbit motor would lower the satellite enough for Earth’s gravity to start pulling it towards the planet’s surface. Meanwhile the system’s thermal shield would protect the payload from the intense heat of upcoming re-entry.
Once safely inside the Earth’s atmosphere, the thermal shell would be thrown aside and the soft shell of the system would open, like a parafoil umbrella. A steerable rudder on the parafoil can help guide the Phantom’s payload to within 300 feet (100 m) of its targeted landing spot, Sierra Space says.
Sierra Space’s new “Axelerator technology” incubator helped the team develop a prototype of the Ghost system in just 90 days, according to the company’s statement.
Space.com spoke with Sierra Space’s Erik Daehler, Vice President of Orbital Missions & Services, at Space Symposium to learn more about the new Ghost system. Daehler said that while the Ghost system can be scaled to various sizes, between 550 pounds and 1,750 pounds (250 kilograms and 750 kilograms) is the “sweet spot” in terms of cost compared to the amount of payload that can be returned.
Each unit currently costs somewhere in the “thousands” 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 was big enough to return something as massive as an International Space Station (ISS) module, Daehler said a similar concept could be used, but that a slightly different design would need to be used. principles.
“When you think of cool things like the ISS segment, you can design things in a similar way to scale,” Daehler said. “But you might look at a different structural way to build it nicely. So, instead of making a rigid structure like we did, which is really easy to build, you might make something inflatable.”
“We think it would be really cool to bring back something of our heritage like that,” he said. “We started designing this originally because our cargo modules were designed to burn up for our NASA missions to bring back debris. We want to reuse them eventually. So, we’re looking at that scalability; how do we give back something much. more?”
A test section of the Sierra Space Ghost delivery system was on display here at the 39th annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. The bottom of the test article was terminated from impact at the historic Space Florida 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 parachutes attached to the system, others with only the system’s soft-shell deceleration, and still others with sensors “terminals” of the cargo in question. one payload – from an altitude between 2,000 feet (610 meters) and 4,000 feet (1,220 meters).
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Similar replacement concepts have been discussed for years, other than those involving point-to-point rocket launches with reusable systems like SpaceX’s massive Starship vehicle. Just this year, the US Air Force allocated $4 million in research funding to its Rocket Cargo Vanguard program, or “Point-to-Point Delivery (P2PD)” as it is now called. It is a program that is “focused on using vehicles that traverse from or through space to transport DoD material anywhere in the world within intellectually responsive timelines,” according to Breaking Defense.
However, such a system would probably not be able to land anywhere it wants, as large rockets currently require a dedicated landing infrastructure. A much smaller and more tactical concept like Sierra’s Space Ghost system could enable pinpoint deliveries to steep, remote or contested areas without the need for landing pads.
Sierra Space has not yet announced a date for when it expects the system to be operational, but the company is moving forward with a test program to further develop the Ghost concept and determine what infrastructure, communications systems and other architecture required to turn. really it.
