Generation Orbit Launch Services (GO) is an American

aerospace company An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry. ...

based in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

that is developing the technology for launch services for small

payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...

s. The air-launch approach developed by GO and its partners offers flexible launch capabilities, poised to reduce fixed infrastructure needs, launch costs, and the time from contract signature to launch for government and industry customers alike.

History

GO was founded on April 25, 2011 as a subsidiary company of SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. In 2013, GO competed in the

NewSpace Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency. In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Unio ...

Business Plan Competition (BPC), winning first place and the $100,000 prize. The BPC was administered by the

Space Frontier Foundation The Space Frontier Foundation is an American space advocacy nonprofit corporation organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space. I ...

and held at Stanford University. Following the Business Plan Competition, GO was selected in September 2013 for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

's Enabling eXploration and Technology (NEXT) contract, with an award of $2.1 million.

GOLauncher family

Generation Orbit is developing the GOLauncher family, a series of high-speed flight and space launch systems designed to lower costs, improve responsiveness, and increase overall mission flexibility. GO-FET is a captive carry test platform for avionics, spacecraft hardware, fluids experiments,

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

nanosat A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites ca ...

s, and pre-release flight maneuver testing. The GO-FET configuration uses a

Learjet 35 The Learjet Model 35 and Model 36 are a series of American multi-role business jets and military transport aircraft manufactured by Learjet. When used by the United States Air Force they carry the designation C-21A. The aircraft are powered by ...

aircraft platform that was first flown on July 30, 2014. The X-60A GOLauncher 1 (GO1) is an air-launched single stage suborbital rocket vehicle.

References

External links

* {{URL, www.generationorbit.com Commercial spaceflight Companies based in Atlanta Private spaceflight companies