DARKFORCE - A Fast Orbital Transfer Vehicle for Dynamic Space Operations

Dark Fission Space Systems offers a proposal to accelerate its efforts to demonstrate and commercialize the DARKFORCE nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) and reusable orbital transfer vehicle (OTV).  Our DARKFORCE OTV promises fast, inexpensive ferry missions anywhere in the cislunar domain – enabling unprecedented sustained space maneuver capabilities, for every orbital regime of interest, in just “days to hours.”  We will design, build, and test a subscale engine demonstrator (non-nuclear) and a modular "FlatSat" of the OTV’s critical subsystems, which will include preliminary algorithms and emulations supporting the control, maneuver, and rapid execution of rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) - essential for commercial customers and defense missions alike.  These efforts will pave the way for Dark Fission’s operational standup and commercialization, which culminates in a 2028 on-orbit demonstration of the DARKFORCE OTV. The DARKFORCE OTV is predicated on a novel nuclear thermal rocket engine, designed to be both ultra-lightweight and high[1]performance.  The engine leverages extremely efficient heat extraction techniques and recent advances in high-temperature materials fabrication and manufacturing to provide high thrust and high specific impulse - allowing for rapid, efficient transport everywhere between the Earth and Moon.  Dark Fission is already performing risk reduction efforts on key elements of the rocket engine - the ground demonstration proposed for this solicitation provides essential information about the integrated engine's performance, informing our final design for a flight system.  Likewise, buildup of a hardware-in-the-loop testbed - or "FlatSat" - of the DARKFORCE OTV will demonstrate our ability to control a complex, fully integrated platform on[1]orbit, in various scenarios of interest.  Finally, assembly of a representative RPO suite from mostly commodity components - to include sensors, software, and electrical integration with our DARKFORCE OTV FlatSat - will demonstrate our ability to perform rapid ingress, docking, and egress with prepared and unprepared customers payloads and cargo.  These three activities are key to our progressing to flight in five years.