| PatNum | IssueDate | Assignee | AssigneeLoc | Patent Title | Abstract |
|---|
| 12698104 | 8/4/2026 | Space Exploration Technologies | Starbase, TX | Spacecraft antenna restraint system | A spacecraft system may include a first spacecraft having a chassis and a first antenna moveably mounted to the chassis, and a second spacecraft having a chassis, wherein the second spacecraft is adjacent the first spacecraft during launch to define a stacked configuration, and a passive restraint system defined between the first and second spacecraft that is configured to substantially prevent movement of the first antenna in a launch position while in a launch state when the first and second spacecraft are in a stacked configuration.... |
| 12698557 | 8/4/2026 | Blue Origin Manufacturing | Huntsville, AL | Solar heating for thin film evaporation and directional solidification | Configurations for solar heating and processing of a material, such as a metal or metalloid, are presented. Such processing may have an end-goal of purifying the material or depositing the material as a thin film on a substrate. The use of solar heating allows these processes to occur without electricity, which may be a scarce resource on the moon. Metals and metalloids derived from lunar regolith or other impure feedstocks may lead to materials with impurities. Generally, materials, such as silicon, need to be purified before being utilized. Techniques for solar heating may be applied to puri... |
| 12698728 | 8/4/2026 | Blue Origin Manufacturing | Huntsville, AL | Regolith heating and hydrolox fuel production via energy from a nuclear powered brayton cycle | A system powered by a nuclear reactor to heat regolith, extract water from the regolith, perform electrolysis on the water to produce hydrogen and oxygen, and liquify the hydrogen and oxygen to produce fuel is presented. For example, among other possible celestial bodies, the regolith may be lunar regolith and the system may operate on the Moon to perform these activities on the Moon. The system may operate in a permanent shadow region of the Moon, such as at the bottom of a crater, where water-ice is present. In such regions, solar energy may not be available and thus a nuclear reactor provid... |
| 12698749 | 8/4/2026 | X-Bow Launch Systems | Albuquerque, NM | Modular rocket motors and methods of making modular rocket motors | The modular rocket motor is disclosed, featuring a cylindrical composite case with a forward end and an aft end, the latter fitted with a nozzle. The interior of the composite case houses a plurality of cartridges, each containing propellant, and retained coaxially within the case. The forward end is characterized by a forward cartridge with a radial retention interface, while the aft end includes an aft cartridge. A gas gap exists between the cartridges and the case, allowing the composite case to expand radially and axially during ignition and combustion. This design facilitates gas flow fro... |
| 12698750 | 8/4/2026 | Blue Origin Manufacturing | Huntsville, AL | Rocket nozzle assembly with separable nozzle extension | Rocket nozzle assembly having a separable outboard nozzle extension for transitioning from a vacuum-optimized to an atmospheric-optimized configuration. The nozzle assembly includes an inboard divergent nozzle section attached at an interface with a detachable outboard divergent nozzle extension. The nozzle and extension are removably attached via a connector, such as a clamp and strap. An actuator causes the connector to release and thereby allow the extension to separate from the nozzle in flight. The nozzle assembly may be used with a reusable second stage rocket that lands on the ground or... |
| 12698897 | 8/4/2026 | Relativity Space | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA | Additively manufactured combustion chambers, manifold structures and hybrid additive processes related thereto | Additively manufactured thrust chambers and thrust chambers with integral fluid manifolds, and hybrid additive manufacturing methods for their production, are provided. Hybrid additive manufacturing techniques may combine a variety of processes including, WAAM, PBF, cold spray and DED, for example, to produce objects with variant dimensional requirements, i.e., large overall size and small features. Hybrid additive manufacturing may be defined as provide various process layers within any manufactured object. These process layers in turn allow for the introduction of variable feature and size d... |
| 12699032 | 8/4/2026 | UNITED LAUNCH ALLIANCE | Centennial, CO | Load test apparatus with integrated thermal conditioning | A system and method for conducting thermal condition testing on a test object or objects where a first test fixture in contact with a test object has a first temperature and a second test fixture in contact with the test object has a second temperature. The test object or objects may also be secured to the text fixtures which permits a force or load placed on one or both test fixtures to be applied to the test object or objects while subjected to a temperature gradient from the test fixtures. The applied force or load may be tensile of compressive.... |
| 12700665 | 8/4/2026 | EAGLE TECHNOLOGY | Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL | Space antenna having deployable, steerable antennas and related methods | A deployable space antenna may include a housing and a first telescoping boom and a second telescoping boom extendable from the housing in opposite directions from a stowed position to a deployed position. Each of the first and second telescoping booms may include telescoping boom segments. Each of a plurality of deployable, steerable antennas is carried by respective telescoping boom segment and movable between a stowed position and a deployed position. An antenna controller is configured to steer the deployable, steerable antennas.... |
| 12700882 | 8/4/2026 | Hughes Network Systems | Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV | Multiband digital predistortion for broadband communications | Techniques are described for implementing multiband digital predistortion in a broadband transmitter in a manner that provides effective compensation of non-linear distortion arising from integration of a high-power amplifier (HPA). Embodiments segment the signal spectrum of a transmit signal into multiple sub-band signals and apply non-linear distortion compensation separately and concurrently for each sub-band signal. The resulting multi-band digital predistortion (mDPD) compensates both for in-band distortion and for distortions from non-linear interactions between the frequency sub-bands. ... |
| 12701151 | 8/4/2026 | VIASAT | San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA | Media client confidence score | A communication system comprises an onboard server situated onboard a mobile platform, a remote server situated outside the mobile platform, the remote server configured to generate one or more live video channels for use by the onboard server, a virtual media client situated onboard the mobile platform, and a scoring subsystem, wherein the scoring subsystem is configured to generate a confidence score for the virtual media client based at least in part on first and second sets of performance data, wherein generating the confidence score involves comparing the first set of performance data to ... |
| 12701397 | 8/4/2026 | VIASAT | San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA | Multicast handover for mobile communications | Embodiments provide efficient multicast handover for content delivery to client devices in multi-carrier communications systems. For example, client devices in a transport craft can consume a media channel offering via a first carrier during transport through the communications system. Embodiments can establish respective multicast groups for the media channel offering in at least the first carrier and a subsequent second carrier, and can notify the craft of the multicast groups prior to the craft being serviced by the second carrier. Such pre-notification can permit multicast handover of the ... |
| 12701523 | 8/4/2026 | Apple | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | Timing advance (TA) maintenance in non-terrestrial networks (NTN) | Techniques discussed herein may better ensure proper timing and synchronization of transmissions within a wireless communications network that includes a terrestrial network and a non-terrestrial network (NTN). A user equipment (UE) may maintain (e.g., determine and update on an ongoing basis) a timing advance (TA) value that the UE may apply to uplink (UL) transmissions to account for propagation delays, including changes in propagation delays, between the UE, NTN, and terrestrial network. TA maintenance may be based on network broadcasts, random access channel (RACH) procedures, control mess... |
| 12701567 | 8/4/2026 | Space Exploration Technologies | Starbase, TX | Timing half-duplex transmissions | Systems, methods, and non-transitory media are provided for timing transmissions in a wireless communication system. An example method can include determining, at a satellite, a maximum round-trip propagation delay associated with one or more user terminals of a plurality of user terminals, determining, based on the maximum round-trip propagation delay, a respective downlink to uplink (DL/UL) offset for each user terminal, wherein the DL/UL offset comprises a time difference between a first downlink frame at the satellite and a first corresponding uplink frame at the satellite, transmitting a ... |
