Summary
One of the most significant challenges facing space vehicles in the very low Earth orbit (vLEO) regime is Earth’s atmosphere.
Though the atmosphere is extremely thin at these altitudes, the drag force encountered is significant enough to severely limit the mission span to as little as days if not effectively counteracted.
Due to the small volume on board spacecraft and the substantial cost per mass to deliver them to orbit, carrying large amounts of propellant onboard to sustain thrust to counteract the drag is unfeasible.
The DARPA Thruster Advancements for Low-altitude Operations in Space (TALOS) Disruption Opportunity aims to revolutionize the art of the possible for vLEO spacecraft by investing in innovative and non-traditional propulsion technologies for atmospheric drag compensation.
TALOS looks to develop viable vLEO propulsion technologies which could involve finding better ways to use the ambient air as a propellant, demonstrate remarkably significant improvement in ways to more efficiently use highly limited onboard consumables, or leverage other novel approaches to sustain spacecraft in the vLEO drag environment.