John Rood

New Capabilities

As of October 2026: Leading company's push into autonomous in-orbit services

Momentus proved it can track and characterize a NASA CubeSat in orbit using a sensor suite built from commercial off-the-shelf parts, not the expensive military-grade hardware that usually does this work. The company's Vigoride-7 Orbital Service Vehicle used optical cameras, a compact solid-state LiDAR unit, and onboard edge-computing microprocessors to run autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) in any lighting condition. Vigoride-7 launched in March 2026 aboard SpaceX's Transporter-16 rideshare mission, and the demonstration ran under a $1.86 million SpaceWERX contract from the U.S. Space Force's innovation arm.

Updated Oct 6