Voyager Wins Contract with Sandia National Laboratories

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Voyager Technologies was awarded a new mission management contract with Sandia National Laboratories to fly their Big Boy demonstration aboard the International Space Station in 2027. The contract underscores the continued and growing demand for access to low-Earth orbit for national security research, with additional contracts expected to follow.

“Our station-agnostic, integrated approach to mission management enables space access for everyone from academia and government agencies to civil, commercial and defense industries,” said Matt Magaña, president of Space, Defense and National Security, Voyager. “Supporting Sandia National Labs through every phase of execution from Earth to orbit is another proof point for how we are making America’s presence in space durable, commercially viable and strategically strong.”

Under the contract, Voyager will provide end-to-end mission management, including experiment design, payload integration, safety review, manifest and mission planning, and on-orbit operations. The payload will integrate with the company’s NEL, an external payload platform mountable on Voyager’s Bishop Airlock, the first and only permanent commercially owned module on the Space Station.

The first NEL platform will fly to the Space Station aboard Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s HTV-X2. A second NEL platform will follow in the spring of 2027 to meet growing customer demand.

Based in New Mexico, Sandia National Labs is a multi-mission laboratory with the primary goal of advancing U.S. national security through science-based technology development. The Big Boy demonstration and validation mission will validate on-orbit operations of parallel sensors that will improve understanding of lightning emissions and signals, the natural radiation environment, and sensor and optics degradation when exposed to launch, vacuum and reentry forces.