Muon Space, a space technology company, has been granted an option to expand its contract with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLMC) to gather ionospheric data through its MuSat-2 satellite mission. The Department of Defense (DoD) will assess the commercial data provided by Muon Space’s satellite for applications such as weather forecasting, ionospheric modeling, impact assessments, and climate change evaluations.
The agreement was announced by Muon Space on July 11 and involves collaboration with AFLMC’s Weather Systems Branch and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The contract will be in effect for two years, lasting until September 2024. This expansion comes after Muon Space was initially awarded a contract in September 2022 to develop a space-based prototype for global weather sensing.
CEO of Muon Space, Jonny Dyer, expressed gratitude for the recognition from the Air Force, Space Force, and DIU, stating that the company is eager to demonstrate the operational significance of their commercial space dataset to the DoD. The dataset includes information on soil moisture, ocean winds, and total electron content.
Muon Space recently launched its first satellite, MuSat-1, as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-8 mission in June. This launch marks the beginning of Muon Space’s plan to deploy a constellation of satellites dedicated to collecting climate data.
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