Dragonfly to deliver an imager for Loft Orbital

South Africa’s Dragonfly Aerospace has delivered a customised Gecko electro-optical imager to Loft Orbital to fly on its YAM-3 satellite, due to launch in Q2 2021.

 

The Gecko camera is an easy-to-integrate imaging solution with a compact design and includes large built-in mass storage. Its reliable performance comes from its mature flight-proven electronics and ruggedized optics.

 

This imager will be mounted to the exterior of the satellite and will be used to support tip-and-cue missions and demonstrations for customers.

 

“Dragonfly Aerospace is proud to be able to deliver one of our most popular products to Loft Orbital for their unique YAM programme. Our strategy is to partner with great companies from around the world to bring our vision of persistent high-quality imaging of the Earth to fruition. This mission with Loft Orbital is another step in the right direction,” said Dragonfly Aerospace CEO Bryan Dean stated.

 

“We are very excited to include the Gecko imager on our spacecraft,” said Loft Orbital CEO Pierre-Damien Vaujour. “It will provide innovative additional capabilities to support customers’ missions by enabling them to operate in ways that would not be possible without it.”

 

Loft Orbital has two missions planned for 2021, and quarterly missions planned to start in 2022. The Gecko imager will be launched along with several customer payloads including DARPA’s Sagittarius A*, a demonstration of the Blackjack Pit Boss mission system and a Eutelsat Internet of Things demonstration mission.