WASHINGTON — Satellite manufacturer Apex has unveiled its largest spacecraft yet, a bus designed to serve commercial and government constellation customers.
Apex announced May 28 it is now taking orders for Comet, a satellite bus significantly larger than its existing Aries and Nova products. Comet features a flat form factor that fits in a five-meter launch vehicle payload fairing and can generate more than five kilowatts of power. It can accommodate payloads weighing more than 500 kilograms.
Apex had long planned to develop Comet, including the bus in its product roadmap since the company’s early days. Strong interest in the bus from prospective customers, though, led Apex to pull forward its development.
“We’ve been getting a lot of inbound interest,” Ian…