Vast is offering a satellite bus capable of 15 kilowatts of power, leveraging technologies the company developed for its commercial space stations. Credit: Vast
WASHINGTON — Commercial space station developer Vast is moving into satellite manufacturing with a line of high-power satellite buses.
The company announced May 19 Vast Satellite, a product line that uses the technologies Vast developed for commercial space stations to make satellite buses designed for applications ranging from broadband communications to orbital data centers.
The first product is a bus that provides 15 kilowatts of power. The flat-panel bus, with primary dimensions of 2.2 by 3.6 meters, has a dry mass of 700 kilograms and can host payloads of at least 350 kilograms. Designed for initial use in low Earth orbit, the bus has an electric propulsion system that provides more than 500 meters per second of delta-v, or change in velocity.
Vast will also offer an option to include a Vera Rubin Space-1 module from Nvidia. That module will provide advanced computing capabilities for orbital data centers and artificial intelligence applications.
