Bothell, Wash.-based Portal Space Systems has added another spacecraft to its product line: a rapid-maneuverability vehicle called Starburst, which takes advantage of technologies that are being developed for its more powerful Supernova satellite platform.
Starburst-1 is due to star in Portal’s first free-flying space mission with live payloads a year from now, starting with a launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-18 satellite rideshare mission. Portal says the mission will demonstrate rendezvous and proximity operations, rapid retasking and rapid orbital change for national security and commercial applications.
Starburst is designed to bring maneuverability to missions that rely on constellations of small satellites, an approach known as proliferated space architecture. Such an approach is already being used for commercial constellations including SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and the concept is also gaining traction for national security applications.
Portal says the Starburst platform and the larger Supernova platform will share many manufacturing processes and core systems, including the thruster system being developed for Supernova. Like Supernova, Starburst will use heated ammonia as a propellant.
“Our strategy is to deliver what customers need now and accelerate what they’ll need next,” Portal CEO Jeff Thornburg said today in a news release. “Starburst gives operators a maneuverable bus that supports proliferated architectures in the orbit that matters to them. Supernova brings the trans-orbital reach. Flying Starburst-1 in 2026 lets us field capability quickly and advance the shared systems that raise confidence for Supernova’s 2027 debut.”
Starburst-1 is to be deployed into a sun-synchronous orbit for a one-year primary mission. Portal’s target for on-orbit maneuverability is 1 kilometer per second of total delta-v, which translates to a change in velocity amounting to more than 2,200 mph.
The ESPA-class spacecraft will carry two hosted payloads: a stereo video monitoring system provided by California-based TRL11; and a superconducting magnetic actuator provided by New Zealand-based Zenno Astronautics. Zenno plans to demonstrate the magnet technology that it has developed for satellite positioning and precision interactions between satellites.
In an email, Thornburg told GeekWire that “the Starburst-1 mission is completely funded by Portal to reduce risk and prove capability for our customers ahead of future contracted missions.” Portal plans to offer Starburst for customer missions starting in 2027.
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