Texas Firm Plans To Fly Their Suborbital Active Rocket with GuidancE (SARGE) Vehicle From New Mexico Facility

A five year launch partnership for Suborbital Active Rocket with GuidancE (SARGE) vehicles has been announced between EXOS Aerospace Systems & Technologies and Spaceport America. The SARGE system is a suborbital reusable space launch vehicle.

EXOS, based in Caddo Mills, TX, has taken the experience gained from more than a decade of practical lessons learned, millions of dollars worth of development, and flight experience of former Armadillo Aerospace, LLC (including having the key players as co-founders of EXOS), and moved into the commercial space race, ahead of the game. In fact, this team became the first FAA-licensed launch operator from Spaceport America in 2012. EXOS plans to target research, pharmaceutical and medical markets, as well as the NASA Flight Opportunities program for suborbital technology demonstration payloads. The company expects to host their first NASA payload in late 2016.

“It is great to see such an innovative company invigorated and fully funded, and we look forward to hosting the new EXOS SARGE vehicle at Spaceport America,” said Christine Anderson, Spaceport America CEO. “This five year agreement allows EXOS to build their flight rate over time while enabling on-ramps to full tenancy and a planned manufacturing operation creating new jobs in New Mexico.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Spaceport America,” said David Mitchell, EXOS CEO. “We look forward to providing the affordability, fast scheduling time, and immediate recovery our customers require; and no other launch site on Earth offers the same combination of geography, proximity, multiple launch capability, and affordability as Spaceport America. We plan to establish a permanent presence in New Mexico after completing a series of demonstration flights beginning later this year.”

EXOS is now accepting launch manifest requests for the 2016 calendar year and targeting payload customers who want to “fly now,” rather than a year from now, and require minutes of micro G time with prompt access to their payload.

EXOS is the first company to benefit from Spaceport America and MARS Scientific’s (MARS) new First Flight First Sight promotion which includes a waived Spaceport America user fee for the first launch of a new customer’s flight campaign, coupled with MARS Scientific telescopic imaging and optical tracking at nominal cost.

(Source: Spaceport America news release. Image from file)

FMI: http://spaceportamerica.com/