Solstar Space Co., a Santa Fe-based startup, announced April 3 it landed a contract under the U.S. Department of the Air Force that will help the company develop one of its flagship space communication technologies.
The award, a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, is worth just shy of $1.25 million. It's under AFWERX, the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force powered by the Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, and operated out of Kirtland Air Force Base.
Money through the contract will support the development of Solstar's Slayton Space Communicator product, which is a wideband communications unit that the startup hopes can provide high-speed downlink and uplink communication capabilities between systems on earth and in-space assets for people and spacecraft operating in low earth orbit (LEO).
Commercializing the Slayton unit has been part of Solstar's strategic plan "for a long time," said Brian Barnett, the startup's founder and CEO.
"As LEO becomes increasingly congested, it is imperative that the U.S. Space Force has complete situational awareness," Barnett said in a statement. "Slayton will provide reliable wideband connectivity with space assets to ensure resilient data delivery."
Slayton, Barnett said, could eventually enable an internet connection for astronauts in space. It could be paired, too, with another one of Solstar's products, called the Deke Space Communicator, which is a narrowband network device used to provide Wi-Fi access on board space assets like commercial space stations.
In combination, Slayton would provide internet access between space assets and the earth, and Deke would provide Wi-Fi access for those operating the assets in space. Solstar landed a $1.2 million U.S. Space Force contract in September 2023 for developing its Deke product.
"We're really excited about this opportunity to kickstart this very important product for us," Barnett said about the SBIR award for the Slayton product.
Solstar moved into a lab space within NewSpace Nexus' Launchpad, a multi-purpose facility in Albuquerque operated by the nonprofit NewSpace Nexus, in February. The Santa Fe-based startup will handle the bulk of its product development at the Launchpad, Barnett said.
Around 25 people work with Solstar currently in full-time, part-time and consultant roles. Barnett said the company will look to "beef up" its engineering capability to handle work under the AFWERX contract, which could include a few full- and part-time hires.
"It's really nice to have a customer here in New Mexico that we're doing this work for," Barnett said in reference to the AFWERX contract being based out of Kirtland Air Force Base.
While Solstar has received close to $2.5 million worth of government funding recently to support development of its Slayton and Deke space communications products, Barnett said the startup is "preparing" for a private round investment later this year. He didn't provide a target dollar figure for that round, but said it would be in the seed-plus or Series A range, both earlier-stage funding rounds typically used to help companies scale existing proven technologies.
In addition to working under the new AFWERX contract and fund raise, Solstar is set to showcase a bit of its company history at the upcoming Santa Fe Film Festival. Barnett is the focus of a documentary film called "Space Drummer: Bringing the Arts Into Space," which is scheduled to show at the festival on Sunday, April 28 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Barnett, who's a classically trained professional percussionist and rock drummer, has a production company called DrumsAstro, which produced the film alongside Los Angeles-based Bonnavedda Entertainment LLC.
