In July, Argo deployed our first spacecraft to orbit, the Argonaut Demo flight test. We successfully separated from the launch vehicle, acquired the spacecraft, delivered telemetry down from orbit to Argo HQ, commanded the vehicle, and validated many critical systems for this first-of-its-kind vehicle – all designed, built, and operated by Argo.

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While the test flight ended prematurely and we did not complete all mission objectives, Argonaut Demo provided valuable advancement and real on-orbit data with a first-of-its-kind spacecraft. The experience, flight data, and heritage the Argo team gained from building, testing, launching, and operating this vehicle on orbit are already informing the ongoing design and build of our next vehicle. We are disappointed by the early end of the mission, but through impressive work by the Argo team, we accomplished valuable technical milestones:

• Designed, built, and qualified a novel, high-propellant-mass-fraction spacecraft to operate through launch and orbital environments
• Successfully launched, separated on orbit, and communicated with our spacecraft
• Validated Argo in-house flight software suite on orbit, including automated state machine logic, communications switching and transmission, ground-based commanding and active vehicle state changes
• Validated Argo’s ground software stack, tightly integrated to flight software and exercised dynamically on mission
• Downlinked telemetry data from spacecraft
• Operated attitude determination and control system, including GNSS lock and telemetry, reaction wheels and torque rods, and automated sensor-based vehicle detumble and orientation
• Generated power through solar array
• Successfully commanded the spacecraft in flight

Many of our systems functioned as intended on orbit, including our core communications, avionics, ADCS, and unique mechanical systems that constitute the foundation of our future spacecraft. The data we got back validates the design and operation of these systems, retiring significant risk for future missions. Special thanks to our industry colleagues and US government partners for data critical to our anomaly investigation and mitigations for our next spacecraft.

Building revolutionary capability means taking real risks and testing aggressively. Every system we test, and every anomaly we work through, moves us closer to the orbital logistics fleet of the industrial space age.

More to be revealed soon on Argo’s next missions.