By: Courtney Albon for Defense News
The Space Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to develop a satellite refueling capability and demonstrate it through a new mission called Elixir.
The award follows a Space Systems Command contract Northrop received last year to develop a tanker satellite called GAS-T, or the Geosynchronous Auxiliary Support Tanker, and incorporates technology and lessons learned from that effort, which the company recently completed. “The Elixir program enables us to complete development, build and launch of our refueling payload, which was at the heart of our GAS-T tanker,” Lauren Smith, Northrop’s program manager for in-space refueling, said Monday in an interview with Defense News. “So, this is building on Northrop Grumman’s existing work and continuing to advance technologies for refueling.”
