Turion Space's DROID-002 Makes History at Exercise SALITRE 2026

Turion Space, a Veteran Ventures Capital portfolio company, has made history during Exercise SALITRE 2026 at Cerro Moreno Air Base in Chile. The company's DROID-002 satellite performed the first-ever commercial on-orbit evasive maneuver in response to a simulated adversary during a combined military exercise - a milestone for both commercial space operations and multinational defense cooperation.

The Exercise

SALITRE 2026, the largest multinational air exercise in South America, featured something no combined exercise has attempted before: a commercial satellite performing a real, on-orbit evasive maneuver flown live and watched by coalition space operators on three continents.

U.S. Space Forces - Southern (SPACEFOR-SOUTH) led the Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) space cell supporting the Chilean Air Force-hosted exercise, part of the U.S. Southern Command Resolute Sentinel series.

The Maneuver

In a "sim-over-live" event, an aggressor spacecraft - role-played by Brazilian and Colombian space operations centers - closed on Turion Space's real DROID-002 satellite. Turion responded by executing an actual maneuver of its spacecraft in excess of 1 m/s, providing coalition operators the rare opportunity to detect, characterize, and report a genuine on-orbit event in real time using commercial space domain awareness data.

Coalition Participation

The exercise brought together space operators and planners from:

• United States
• Chile (host nation)
• Brazil
• Colombia
• NATO's space community
• Republic of Korea
• New Zealand

These operators were integrated into a single around-the-clock coalition watch, passing the space picture across time zones in a continuous follow-the-sun rotation - a first for any SPACEFOR-SOUTH exercise.

"This milestone demonstrates that security in the space domain is a team sport. By executing a live, on-orbit maneuver with a commercial partner under a simulated threat, we aren't just validating theoretical concepts - we are proving our collective, real-time operational agility." - Col. Brandon P. Alford, Commander, Space Forces Southern

"Integrating cutting-edge space capabilities directly with our air assets in a multinational environment is exactly how we prepare for the future of combat." - Col. Steven Cabrera, U.S. Exercise Commander, Resolute Sentinel - Salitre 2026