Redwire secures $20 million US defence contract for VLEO spacecraft testing
The award will support a preliminary flight test to gather data ahead of a larger flight demonstration designed to test technology for sustained spacecraft operations at very low altitudes.
The US Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded aerospace and defence technology company Redwire a $20 million contract to carry out further tests involving a scaled version of its SabreSat spacecraft, which is designed to operate in very low Earth orbit (VLEO).
The new award adds a second flight mission to Redwire’s work under DARPA’s Otter programme – a research initiative aimed at developing technology that would allow satellites to operate at low altitudes of just 90-450km above Earth for extended periods of time.
Redwire has previously received several awards for its work on Otter. In June 2024, the company was named the prime mission integrator for the programme, and in November 2025, it received a $44 million contract to finish building the full-scale spacecraft and prepare it for launch.
Redwire says the award “marks a major step toward sustained operations in VLEO”, which the company describes as “one of space’s most challenging and strategically important orbital regimes”.
Operating in VLEO is particularly challenging because atmospheric drag is greater at these lower altitudes. This slows spacecraft down and causes them to lose altitude more quickly. To counteract this drag and remain in very low orbit, spacecraft must regularly use their thrusters to maintain altitude. However, conventional spacecraft carry a limited amount of propellant, restricting endurance at these relatively low altitudes.
The SabreSat spacecraft aims to address this problem by using an air-breathing electric propulsion system that collects atmospheric particles and uses them to generate thrust, potentially allowing spacecraft to remain in VLEO for extended periods of time without having to rely on stored onboard propellant.
In the defence sector, VLEO satellites – which operate closer to Earth – could be particularly valuable because they can potentially capture higher-resolution images than comparable spacecraft operating at higher altitudes, ultimately improving military intelligence-gathering and surveillance capabilities.
Redwire also says that VLEO spacecraft like SabreSat have the advantage of “operat[ing] in a relatively unimpaired environment” as low Earth orbits (LEO) and geosynchronous orbits (GEO) “becom[e] increasingly congested and contested”.
In addition to serving as the prime mission integrator for DARPA’s Otter programme, Redwire is also the prime contractor for the European Space Agency’s Skimsat mission, which aims to demonstrate sustained satellite operations in VLEO using Redwire’s Phantom spacecraft, which is equipped with a conventional electric propulsion system.
The Otter programme is expected to culminate in an orbital spaceflight demonstration lasting more than one year, during which DARPA plans to evaluate the performance of SabreSat’s air-breathing electric propulsion technology under actual space conditions.
The newly announced precursor flight test is intended to gather additional data about how the spacecraft will perform in VLEO that cannot be collected through ground testing alone, helping to reduce risk ahead of the larger demonstration.
Launch dates for the two missions have yet to be announced.
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