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Systems Progress and Suborbital Rendezvous

Time Flies! Micro-Space is making steady progress on several fronts. Our Google Lunar X PRIZE update captures some of this progress. We are making good progress on the wireless data links which will enable the modular, clustered flight systems which are at the core of our commercial strategy. We do not envision a large market for a single type of low mass, deep space experimental system. The cumulative market for a number of configurations will probably be significant, but this is only relevant if specialized configurations can be assembled – and flown – with limited custom engineering. Among the configurations we are targeting, and plan to operationally demonstrate, are the lunar access system, the Google type Lunar Lander, and a sample return adaptation of the Lunar Lander. Our wireless link uses modulation, decoding and synchronization hardware we are concurrently applying for our “Electro Magnetic Tractor Beam” (which will be employed for autonomous rendezvous of our lunar sample return “PAV” and the orbiting “Earth Return Module”) and for high efficiency communication and navigation. This development has been somewhat more demanding than expected – and other demands have consumed considerable time – but we have the core subsystems for this cluster of applications now working. I will provide more details in the coming days. Since the market for small payload transportation to orbit is still neither stable nor well supported, Micro-Space remains committed to developing independent flight systems to demonstrate our abilities. These will include “Suborbital Rendezvous” demonstration systems. Although much more demanding than Orbital Rendezvous, near free fall conditions exist for more than 40 seconds around apogee for vertical flight above 100,000 feet.
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