Turion Space is proud to introduce Starfire NEXUS; a breakthrough platform designed to democratize access to on-orbit compute and redefine what’s possible in space. NEXUS enables customers to run their own software on Turion DROID satellites, unlocking novel on-orbit capabilities and enabling immediate validation of operational performance. Critical Software and Tychee Research Group are the first NEXUS customers and will bring their next-generation software to space in 2025.

Every DROID satellite has onboard compute to perform critical space domain awareness missions. With NEXUS, Turion is now enabling customers to deploy software onto DROID satellites to conduct R&D and quickly validate on-orbit.

• The NEXUS platform enables customers to run their software applications before demonstrating them onboard Turion DROID satellites.

• Turion’s software-in-the-loop (SITL) and hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) environments allows rapid test and iteration cycles in a simulated environment using actual flight hardware.

• NEXUS is fully cloud-based, enabling customers to interface and develop applications from anywhere in the world.

• The platform is extendable to new applications whose products can then be sold via Archive or tasked using Fleet Command.

• NEXUS enables engineers to focus on R&D and application sophistication, rather than spending time on training, deployment scripts, and infrastructure operations.

“Our vision ith Starfire NEXUS is to enable software teams to scale their capability in space at pace. This enables our customers to go from garage to orbit in a matter of weeks not years,” said Sammy Roberts, Director of Ground Software at Turion.

Critical Software has significant expertise in embedded systems has developed ‘Karvel,’ a novel flight software platform. Karvel brings flexibility to accelerate the development of complex missions in LEO and beyond, supporting activities such as space-based situational awareness, close-proximity maneuvers, satellite inspections, in-orbit servicing, debris removal, and life extension. Critical Software will leverage NEXUS to test and deploy Karvel onto Turion’s DROID.002 satellite.

“It’s a major milestone for us to see Karvel heading to orbit via Turion’s Starfire NEXUS platform. Running on DROID.002, this mission showcases our commitment to delivering agile, high-performance flight software ready for the most demanding space operations,” said Rodrigo Pascoal, Director of Business Development at Critical Software.

The Tychee Mission Planning Library (TMPL) is a validated, performant, high-fidelity, C++ astronautics library. TMPL is designed to support the full system lifecycle from pre-SRR through operations and sustainment. TMPL is validated against leading tools from NASA and others with propagation algorithms match these tools very closely, but often run 100s of times faster — an essential feature when running applications at the edge. Tychee will leverage NEXUS to test and deploy TMLP on Turion’s DROID.002 satellite.

“We’re excited to bring the world’s fastest, high-fidelity space mission planning library to orbit.  The ability to verify TMPL performance on-orbit allows us to turn ambitious ideas into solutions that serve our customers and stakeholders.  Partnering with the world-class team at TURION is an exciting opportunity and a key step towards giving mission designers, engineers, and operators TRL-9 software that enables the future of space mission autonomy at scale,” said Robert Brady, CEO of Tychee.

STARFIRE NEXUS opens up a new operational edge environment in space with a robust development and test environment to get capability to space quickly and reliably.

“We are continuing to push the envelope of what our DROID satellites can deliver on-orbit. NEXUS complements our remote sensing capability on-orbit and enables our customers to deploy on-orbit, whether that’s their own flight software or novel edge AI workloads. Our partnerships with Critical Software and Tychee continue to grow in scope and we are honored to work with them,” said Ryan Westerdahl, Co-founder and CEO at Turion.

About Turion Space

Turion builds and operates critical space infrastructure. Their integrated software (STARFIRE OS) and hardware (DROID Satellites) platform focuses on delivering superior space domain awareness and in-space resiliency today and will expand to numerous remote sensing modalities in the future.

About Critical Software

With a strong legacy of delivering mission-critical software since 1998, Critical Software has established itself as a benchmark in the development of high-stakes software solutions for civil and defense space applications.

About Tychee Research Group

Tychee was founded in 2018 at the intersection of the aerospace, tech, and defense industries.  Tychee offers mission engineering, flight software, and ground software application development services.  Tychee has deep experience in advanced, space mission planning. Tychee designs mission planners with productization and deployment in mind. Its applications are designed for autonomous execution in austere, disadvantaged environments.