True Anomaly gets clearance from regulators to demonstrate space imaging capabilities

True Anomaly to use Jackal vehicles for SpaceX missions next year.

True Anomaly, a defense-oriented space technology start-up, has received two permits from US regulators that will allow it to conduct on-orbit imaging and rendezvous demonstrations for the first time. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Communications Commission provided the necessary green light for the Denver-based company to perform non-Earth imaging and to demonstrate in-space rendezvous proximity operations. True Anomaly to use Jackal vehicles for SpaceX missions next year. The two craft will launch on a SpaceX Transporter-10 rideshare mission scheduled to depart Earth no earlier than February 2024. The company intends to supply the US Department of Defense with defensive technology to protect American assets in space as well as conduct reconnaissance on adversary spacecraft.

CEO Even Rogers said he was focused on using manufacturing techniques similar to those used in the auto industry to build the craft and could produce a spacecraft every five days at its new 35,000-square-foot factory, called GravityWorks, in Centennial, Colorado. The CEO said True Anomaly's aim is to build "potentially hundreds" of spacecraft for every orbit, including cislunar orbits. True Anomaly's CEO, Even Rogers, aims to close the "information asymmetry" between the US and its space adversaries by providing the Pentagon with defensive technology, including an "autonomous orbital vehicle" called Jackal. The company has already raised around $30 million in funding for its technology, which also includes a virtual training system for US warfighters. True Anomaly is focused on securing the US's national security space mission from space domain threats.