New Era.
New Frontier.
New Ideas.
SCOUT AEROSPACE LLC
=We make Space a Workplace=
What came first, the airplane or the airport?
Orbital hotels, Lagrange Point shipyards, Lunar manufacturing, asteroid mining, and more. Without reliable, reusable, and practical transportation, the logistics and infrastructure needed to see these become a reality will not be possible. To this end, Scout Aerospace LLC has made its long term goal the development and construction of crewed, long term orbital transfer vehicles and cyclers.
Orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) are small, short to medium range vessels capable of servicing existing orbital assets with repairs and refueling. A satellite serviced by an OTV may be, repaired, refueled or repositioned to extend its mission, saving the owner of the satellite a fortune in recapitalization costs.
THE PROBLEM
40%-60%
The mass fraction on a typical cubesat which is not payload.
>$10,000/KG
Typical launch services cost thousands per kilogram.
~2500
Number of nano satellites expected to be launched in the next 5 years.
$40M TO $119M
Additional cost to nano satellite operators without additional value.
ASTROLABE
Our solution to orbital servicing
PAYLOADS ARE A PACKAGE
You wouldn't buy a delivery truck every time you want to ship a package would you? Scout Aerospace is bringing this simple concept to orbital servicing. You build your payload and install it inside one of our standardized, modular payload integration nodes. Send the whole payload and node back to us and we arrange to launch your payload and install it onboard an AstroLabe worksite satellite platform in an orbit of your choice. No need to purchase and assemble various nanosat components or expensive satellite buses.
SATELLITES ARE A WORKPLACE
The AstroLabe worksite platform will provide power, heat regulation and data transmission for multiple user designed and manufactured nodes. Instead of replacing the entire satellite, individual nodes may be removed and replaced to repair or upgrade the worksite. Each node may act independently or in concert. By sharing this worksite each of the payloads benefit from the GNC and communication capabilities of a larger satellite without the cost of one.
ASTROLABE OBC/TRANSPONDER
AstroLabe will be equipped with onboard flight computers with transponder capacity orbital tracking and positioning. APIs sent and received from similarly equipped servicing drones and customer constellations will relay status and positioning data to create an accountable and cooperative navigational mesh network.
COLLABORATIVE RESOURCES
Unlike the CubeSat, AstroLabe nodes can draw their power and connectivity directly from the host platform. This removes the need to install individual power supplies and transmission capabilities. This in turns frees our users to instead add more mission critical hardware to their node than they would otherwise. Defective or outdated nodes may be replaced using a much smaller service vehicle.
OPEN ARCHITECTURE
Scout Aerospace has partnered with the Georgia Space Grant Consortium and Georgia Institute of Technology to prototype the standard and specifications for the AstroLabe payload integration node. When complete, this standard will be made available, for free, to any university or commercial user wishing to design their own node.
OUR TEAM TODAY
STEVEN MELLARD
Executive Officer
Steven Mellard founded Scout Aerospace LLC in 2017 as a vehicle to create innovations for off-world transport and manufacturing technologies. He studied physics and mechanical engineering at the University of West Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology respectively. He worked for ten years Delta Air Lines as a supply chain manager and process engineer before returning to Georgia Tech to complete his Master's in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering. He is licensed as an E.I.T. in the State of Georgia.
NICHOLAS DAVIS
Operations Officer
Nicholas founded Scout in 2017 to build a world-renowned name for excellence in space technology. He is licensed by the FAA as an Airframe and Powerplant technician and by the FCC as a Ham Radio Operator. Nicholas has over 10 years of aircraft MRO and aviation maintenance management experience and 1500+ hours of detailed aircraft repair instruction. His field of expertise is in aerospace avionics, navigation, and electronics. He holds a Bachelors in Astronomy from the Georgia State University.
OUR PARTNERSHIPS
OUR VISION
Where we are going...
ORBITAL TRANSFER VEHICLES
Presently, today's crewed capsules are promoted as all purpose. Earth return, deep space, lunar return and more. Designing one tool to fit every job is costly and ineffective. As an alternative path, Scout Aerospace envisions a vessel purpose built for travel between, LEO, GEO, and Lunar orbits. Once ferried to orbit, existing commercial capsules will dock with these OTVs to make the transfer to their final destinations, be it Luna or space stations occupying the Lagrange Points. Outfitted for cargo transport, OTVs will move construction materials and supplies to feed the growing cislunar economy.
LUNAR CYCLERS
First conceived by Dr. Buzz Aldrin in the 1980's, Cyclers are long range vehicles designed to leverage Earth free return trajectories 'cycling' to make returns between LEO and Lunar orbits at regular intervals. An OTV may rendezvous with the Cycler upon its arrival to exchange goods before the it falls back into another free return trajectory. While longer and more circuitous than a direct burn to Lunar orbit, the low fuel requirement needed to keep station on a free return orbit means that a constellation of cyclers may be orchestrated to created a supply chain of frequent and efficient deliveries.
