VXB Aerospace awarded $600K grant from Australian Space Agency

VXB Aerospace has been awarded the lead role for a $600K Moon to Mars: Supply Chain Capability Improvement Grant by the Australian Space Agency. 🚀 

We were excited to hear Enrico Palermo announce the news last month and share with him in-person our rapid progress toward supporting Australia’s space supply chain. 
 
This grant will support the complete development of a home-grown sovereign capability to design and manufacture Hall effect propulsion systems, the gold standard for electric propulsion. In an Australian first, VXB Aerospace will rapidly produce this crucial propulsion technology to closely meet the needs of our supply chain customers, expanding the capability of space missions in Australia and globally. 
 
Beyond the development of the core thruster units this grant will also support the development of the power processing unit, propellent management system and propellent storage tank. These components will all be designed and built with a novel approach to reduce the cost of this critical propulsion technology by an order of magnitude.  
 
Satellite companies in the local region will have access to high performing, reliable and affordable satellite propulsion for small to large satellite platforms. Furthermore, through our partnership with Orbit Fab, these systems are being developed for refuelling, to future proof the technology for the new space economy. 🛰️
 
The demonstration of this technology represents an international first, developed at home to give Australian satellites the positioning tools needed to perform efficient, effective missions while adeptly avoiding #spacedebris.  
 
We’d like to thank our grant partners and supporters: Space Machines Company, Inovor Technologies, Electro Optic Systems and Orbit Fab and to thank everyone who supported our application. Congratulations to Extraterrestrial Power power for also being awarded alongside us for this intake!