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The American space company Sierra Space is known for the development of an inflatable living module for an orbital station, which, when folded, easily fits into the cargo compartment of a medium rocket. However, she has other ideas, for example, a method of fast delivery of goods from orbit. It will come in handy for supplying soldiers with ammunition and other necessary ammunition. Or disaster victims in hard-to-reach regions. At the same time, such cargoes can be in orbit and wait for their time, according to the company's plan, for up to 5 years. And then, at the signal, fall to the specified point with an accuracy of 100 meters.
While rocket manufacturers are discussing the possibility of sending cargo and passenger rockets from one continent to another, Sierra Space, listening to the Pentagon's wishes, is developing the Ghost project ("ghost"): the idea of landing a small cargo sent into orbit without complex and expensive equipment and special landing sites . As Space writes with reference to the company's press release, the cargo can be inflatable boats, dry food, weapons and ammunition, medicines and other survival equipment.
All this can wait for its time in orbit for up to five years. As soon as they are needed somewhere on Earth, the satellite starts the engine and takes the device out of orbit until the Earth's gravity reaches a sufficient value to begin free fall. Heat shields protect cargo from exposure to high temperatures. During the descent, the protective shell unfolds, turning into something similar to an umbrella, and a controllable parachute-wing helps to adjust the landing within a hundred meters of the specified point.
Thanks to the efforts of the Axelerator technology incubator, the Ghost prototype was produced in just 90 days. The tests took place at the beginning of the year: several different types of cargo - with and without a parachute - were dropped from the helicopter from different heights, from 610 to 1220 m.
According to the vice-president of the company Eric Deler, the Ghost system can be adapted to the load of the most demanded mass in the industry: from 250 to 750 kg. So far, the cost of one such "Ghost" is tens of millions of dollars, but Sierra is going to reduce it to at least 10 million. However, the company's management does not name any specific terms.
This same year, the US Air Force allocated $4 million to develop a similar concept as part of the Rocket Cargo Vanguard point-to-point delivery program "for a tactically meaningful period of time."
