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Noosphere Ventures purchased the assets of Firefly Systems Inc. in 2017. It was renamed Firefly Aerospace after the deal, which saw it rescued from bankruptcy. Today, Firefly Aerospace is one of the leading developers of small satellite launch vehicles. NASA selected Firefly Aerospace for a Commercial Lunar Payload Service Contract in 2018. The US Air Force also selected FA for a special mission into orbit.
Taking after these advancements, Firefly collaborated with Ruag Space for its missions. Ruag Space could be a rocket and obsequious equipment supplier and will give payload connectors for the little vehicle dispatches. Firefly will use these adapters to lock satellites in place and only release them when they get on space. Tom Markusic, who is the CEO of Firefly Aerospace, is convinced that their spacecraft missions are safe with the RUAG hardware.
Ruag Space provided hardware that has successfully separated over 600 satellites in space without any recorded failure. Its adapters were used in the launch of Vega Rocket by Arianespace, Proton by Khrunichev, and Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets by United Launch Alliance. Firefly Aerospace plans Firefly Alpha in 2020.
Firefly also signed an agreement with Israel Moon mission technologies to obtain and establish the architecture of the Beresheet Lunar Lander. FA plans to use the lander as a basis for creating Genesis Lander to be used for NASA’s lunar mission.
Being a businessman with an appetite for success, Max Polyakov has his vision for a successful venture investing. While most companies go for horizontal integration, Polyakov’s vision is that of vertical integration. According to him, 30% of the sales generated by Firefly will be internal, mainly to sister companies. The government will account for 30-40% with commercial bookkeeping for the rest of the deals. This contributing is what he alludes to as three legs of wander investing.
Aleksandr Bobrov, a director At Firefly’s Dnipro research center, believes that Ukrainians are driven to succeed in rocketry by the spirit of Apollo. Ukraine played a significant role in the space race between the USSR and the USA. The first person to develop the lunar landing concept was a Ukrainian named Yuriy Kondratiuk. Max Polyakov and Noosphere are determined to preserve these rick Ukrainian science heritage by supporting rocket projects such as Firefly and SETS.
Space Electric Thunder System (SETS) is a developer of electric rocket engines for satellite positioning on the orbit. Although these engines have been around for decades, the old models were not as efficient as the modern ones. SETS expect the number of electrically powered engines to increase by 30% in the next ten years. The telecommunication satellite is to remain active for 12-17 from the previous 7-12 years.Full story link
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