Archives for July 2020

Orbital Micro Systems (OMS) recently marked the one-year anniversary of their IOD-1 GEMS Earth Observation (EO) satellite.

The system, part of the firm’s Global Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS) constellation, was deployed from the International Space Station July 3, 2019. The satellite continues to deliver precise, unique datasets that translate into highly reliable weather intelligence for a broad range of customers.

The IOD-1 GEMS satellite gathers global readings, at altitudes ranging from the surface up to the troposphere, approximately two and one-half times each day. The information gathered often fills gaps between government-operated satellites.

During its first year of operation, IOD-1 captured images of Super Typhoon Hagibis and numerous other weather systems over oceans and land that were not observed by other orbiting radiometers. The data transmitted from IOD-1 GEMS has been validated by numerous organizations and labs, and utilized in datasets that have already been purchased by the U.S. Air Force and other public agencies.

IOD-1 GEMS was launched through the In-Orbit Demonstration Program managed by the U.K.’s Satellite Applications Catapult and funded by Innovate U.K. The GEMS constellation is planned to grow to some 16 satellites, providing sub-hourly revisits of the entire planet. With additional launches planned for mid-2021, OMS is planning to fulfill demand for its weather data across markets including insurance, transportation, agriculture, and governments.

Executive Comments

“We are delighted that the satellite continues to gather and downlink reliable and high-definition data that can be utilized by commercial and public organizations to gain clearer insights into weather conditions and propensities across multiple geographies,” said Brian Sanders, chief operating officer for OMS. “The length of service life for satellites without propulsion systems—particularly those launched from the space station—which are typically around six months, so we are ecstatic with the performance of IOD-1 GEMS. It is highly unusual for a demonstration platform to deliver commercially viable data. The fact that we have paying customers is a testament to the quality of the design as well as a strong indicator that markets are thirsty for reliable data at much higher refresh rates than previously possible.”

Alok Sharma, the UK’s Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and the man about to be responsible for running the UK’s arm of OneWeb, told a House of Commons all-party BEIS scrutiny committee that using OneWeb as a replacement for Europe’s Galileo GPS system was not key to the acquisition.

However, he did say that OneWeb could offer “resilience” as far as a satellite-based positioning system was concerned.

The UK is now in a 50/50 partnership with India’s Bharti Global in acquiring OneWeb out of bankruptcy.

Sharma was addressing the BEIS committee on July 9th, although the committee covered much other ground besides the OneWeb move.

“We looked at this from the perspective of a commercial case and a strategic case,” Sharma told MPs. “We have co-invested alongside Bharti. From the commercial case, this was looking at the provision of broadband to people in rural areas, and people in aviation and maritime.”

He added that in terms of the strategic case for OneWeb, the UK wanted to be a world leader in the space sector and that OneWeb presented geopolitical opportunities for the UK.

Sharma also made no commitment to move production of OneWeb’s satellites away from Florida and into the UK.

Additionally, satellite operator SES has reached an agreement with its personnel delegations to discontinue social plan talks for the firm’s Luxembourg-based employees, instead shifting gears to negotiate an employment safeguard plan.

In Luxembourg, SES management and its personnel delegation reports they have had multiple meetings in the last four weeks. Together, they have managed to reduce the number of impacted employees through a voluntary phased retirement program and redeployment of employees into positions in new growth areas. SES management and its personnel delegation will now work jointly on an employment safeguard plan to find the best solution for the remaining employees.

SES says this global restructuring exercise is part of its Simplify & Amplify program, which aims to position the company for future growth and deliver maximum value to current and potential customers and stakeholders in a highly-competitive satellite market.

SES adds it remains on track to generate EBITDA optimization ramping to €40-50 million annually from 2021.

Reports by journalist Chris Forrester, filing at the Advanced Television infosite...

Gilmour Space Technologies has achieved one of the longest, hybrid rocket engine test firings in the world: a 110-second mission duration burn of the company’s upper stage engine.

The test is a significant milestone for Gilmour Space, which is pioneering new, single-port, hybrid propulsion rocket engines that will be significantly cheaper, greener and safer to operate than traditional liquid and solid propulsion rockets.

The Queensland-based company is developing a new three-stage hybrid propulsion rocket that will launch smallsats into orbit from 2022.

Space-based technologies, previously the domain of big governments and space agencies, already provide vital services such as broadband internet, communications, GPS, and support almost every sector of the economy, including Defence.

Executive Comments

“We more than doubled the duration of our last 45-second test fire, and in the process proved a lot of the technologies we will need for our larger engines,” said Gilmour Space CEO and co-founder, Adam Gilmour. “What you see here is a mission duty cycle and throttle test of our smallest upper-stage engine. We also conducted a controlled throttle-down during the test to demonstrate our engine’s on-orbit maneuvering capability to a customer, which could be very useful for surface landings on the Moon or Mars.

“With space now opening up to commercial players, we are seeing an explosion of innovation in the global space industry — constellations of smaller satellites in low earth orbits transmitting massive amounts of data for our mobile needs, enabling cheaper and faster internet, autonomous vehicle systems, the Internet of Things, and much more,” Gilmour added. “However, launch costs and availability are still big challenges for small satellite players globally, and we remain committed to providing customers with more cost-effective and reliable access to space. Our team has started to take bookings for launch and I look forward to announcing some customer contracts in the coming months.”

Kleos Space S.A. (ASX: KSS, Frankfurt: KS1) has received commitments from entities controlled by Janet Cameron to raise €1.8 million via the issue of 10,000,000 new ordinary fully paid CDIs.

In addition, Kleos has entered into an Integrator and Channel Partner Agreement with RGT to be an Integrator of and Channel Partner for, products from their offices in Middle East and North Africa. RGT is a US owned and operated specialist in C5ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat Systems, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) solutions operating predominately in the Middle East and North Africa.

The RGT suite of advanced analytics empowers leaders and organizations to glean greater insights from current and historical information to “See First, Understand First, and Act First.” Providing the tools to dominate the intelligence environment by creating custom workflows and data visualizations that improve operational performance.

Kleos’ Scouting Mission satellites that are in the Sriharikota Range in India awaiting launch on Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) PSLV C49, will detect and geolocate maritime radio frequency transmissions to provide global activity-based intelligence, enhancing the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities of governments and commercial entities when Automatic Identification System (AIS) is defeated, imagery unclear or targets out of patrol range.

Kleos’ satellites will be in a 37 degree inclination orbit, covering crucial shipping regions for defense and security customers including the Strait of Hormuz, South China Sea, Australian coast, Southern US coast as well as the East and West African coast.

Executive Comments

Andy Bowyer, Kleos CEO, said, “I thank Janet for her continued support, the placement provides further security for Kleos Space as we move into an exciting period for our shareholders.”

Ron Demeter CEO of RGT added, “We are excited to work with Kleos Space. This is a great opportunity that we believe provides substantial value to governments as they protect their borders and Exclusive Economic Zones from illicit trafficking and other illegal activities.”

Pete Round, Kleos Chairman & Executive Director for Group Business Development, noted, “Analytical support to a commander is vital and must be of the highest quality. The quality of the analytics is critically dependant on the data fed into the engine. I am delighted that we at Kleos are able to contribute data that is both unique and an exemplar of the quality required. This is the beginning of a long relationship with RGT.”

Silicon Sensing Systems’ high performance DMU30 micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement unit (IMU) has been selected by the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (iQPS) of Fukuoka, Japan, for the control system of Japan’s first X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) small satellite.

This is a 1 meter resolution, high-performance, X-band SAR satellite weighing only 100 kg. Ultimately, iQPS plans to deploy 36 of these satellites, offering an Earth Observation (EO) data service to support tasks such as disaster management as well as land and infrastructure surveying.

In this environment the advantages of Silicon Sensing’s MEMS technology over traditional high-performance options, such as fibre optic and ring laser gyro devices, are clear. The DMU30, Silicon Sensing’s highest performing IMU, is an ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations)-free product that matches the performance of a FOG unit but is far more rugged, ideal for operating over extended periods in the harsh space environment.

This high-integrity IMU is calibrated to deliver precision performance over the full rated temperature range and is also much smaller, weighs less and is less costly than a comparable FOG device, freeing up capacity on the satellite for other technologies.

On board the iQPS satellite DMU30 commences operation immediately after separation from the launch rocket and continues throughout each mission, working with other systems to monitor and control angular velocity and attitude angle and to assess and correct any rocking motion that occurs as key structures, such as the large antenna, are deployed.

Executive Comments

Masahiko Uetsuhara, Project Manager, iQPS explained, “Normally a gyro sensor’s output will include errors that appear over time and with severe temperature change and we would need to calibrate for that, but with the DMU30 that calibration is not required. This reduces man-hours and improves work efficiency, both very important factors for us. This product is also technically reliable, has been proved in satellite projects, is ITAR free – and the price was attractive for this level of performance.”

Steve Capers, General Manager of Silicon Sensing Systems said, “This is a fast-evolving market with ever-increasing demand for precise, controllable earth observation. SAR satellites, with their ability to see through weather conditions, such as cloud cover, have traditionally been large and expensive items. Technologies such as our DMU30 all-silicon MEMS IMU are helping transform this market, enabling the development of satellites such as iQPS’s small and cost-effective X-band SAR satellite.”

AImotive and C3S are collaborating to create a prototype hardware platform for the efficient execution of artificial intelligence (AI) onboard satellites by H2 2021.

C3S will adapt AImotive’s aiWare NN hardware acceleration technology in its space electronics platform to enable high performance AI capabilities in small, power-constrained satellites. The results of this collaboration are expected to accelerate the commercialization of a wide range of services for both specialized and mass-market applications, such as telecommunications, Earth and space observation, autonomous satellite operation, docking support, asteroid mining etc.

Autonomous, intelligent operation has always been expected of satellites to a certain extent. However, currently widespread solutions are highly dependent on ground stations. Typically, satellites collect business or scientific data and downlink them to the ground in full without pre-processing. This is insufficient in use cases that require immediate action, for example natural disasters, precision agricultural solutions, remote sensing data-based forecasting and alerting, cargo tracking.

The use of AI for automated operation in many perception and decision-making tasks is widespread in the automotive industry. However, significant processing capabilities are needed to compute the large amount of data needed for neural networks (NN) and AI intensive workloads. AImotive has been developing automotive NNs on automotive-grade hardware platforms for over four years. The company has realized that the lack of optimal hardware is one of the biggest limitations of automated driving and is pioneering development in this area.

AImotive has a deep understanding of many of the challenges of deploying AI in highly constrained embedded environments, such as ensuring all data movement is tightly controlled to minimize power consumption and maximize system robustness for high reliability. However, the requirements of the space industry are even more demanding than for automotive, requiring the best minds from both automotive and space industries to come together to identify new approaches.

In addition to large satellite solutions developments, C3S specializes in highly reliable, 3-16U smallsat platforms that support In Orbit Demonstration (IOD), Earth Observation (EO), space weather forecast, and IoT missions. In addition, C3S provides a turnkey solution for nanosat missions covering the whole lifecycle from mission planning to deorbiting.

Executive Comments

“AImotive’s vast experience in deploying AI in highly constrained embedded environments is why C3S chose to adapt its aiWare NN acceleration platform for use in space,” said Gyula Horváth, CEO of C3S. “Adapting automotive or military grade tools and technologies for the space industry is not uncommon. The strong experience C3S holds in working with both cubic and large-scale satellites is an enormous advantage for this process, and we are excited to be joining forces with AImotive to make sure our space electronics platform will be the most robust on the market.“

“It is a very exciting time for the AImotive team to be involved in the introduction of such an innovative terrestrial technology to the space industry,” said László Kishonti, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at AImotive. “The solution will include extensions of our low-power aiWare hardware NN acceleration architectures specifically designed to withstand the demanding habitat of space, including heat fluctuations and cosmic radiation.”

Peter Anderson has been appointed Vice President, Business Development, with responsibility for Sales and Marketing of AAC Clyde Space’s portfolio of products and services.

In his new role, he will also join the group’s management team.

Peter Anderson joined AAC Clyde Space in 2015 and has, in his previous role as Head of Business Development Mission & Services, been instrumental in developing AAC Clyde Space’s Space as a Service offering. He has also led negotiations on various key contracts.

Peter Anderson has a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Glasgow and a Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Aided Engineering and Analysis from the University of West of Scotland.

Executive Comment

“Leveraging his extensive commercial and technical background, Peter has formed strong relationships with AAC Clyde Space’s customers and developed new and exciting propositions. He excels in providing the business direction on the latest innovations and market growth areas“, said AAC Clyde Space CEO, Luis Gomes.

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently granted 1 million euros to smallsat mission integrator, NanoAvionics, to develop key components for smallsat propulsion systems.

The new propulsion technologies, with a thrust of up to 5N, aim to further reduce the cost of small satellite projects while making each satellite more reliable, propellant supply chains safer, and constellations more economical. Based on those components a new generation of propulsion systems for small satellites will be used in future ESA missions, and available to commercial satellite operators across the world.

The first two R&D projects for NanoAvionics by ESA include the development of a miniature latch valve and a double-seat 1N valve for mono-propellant applications. They are a result of the Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS) in Lithuania.

NanoAvionics will also participate, as a partner organisation, in two additional ESA funded satellite technology R&D projects. The first, led by Vilnius University, will develop a resistojet thruster for small satellites that uses water as a propellant. The main advantages of the proposed solution will be the reduction of manufacturing costs, increased efficiency compared to existing low power thrusters and the use of a very safe propellant.

The Baltic Institute of Advanced Technologies leads the second project, which will develop an ultra-wideband software-defined radio for space communications. This technology will cover the vast majority of the space communication bands.

Funded under the 4th call for outline proposals of PECS, NanoAvionics will develop a miniature latch valve (MLV) to improve the safety and performance of mono-propellant thrusters. Designed to isolate the propellant tank from the thrusters, the MLV’s sealed construction and normally-closed configuration will prevent unwanted leaks of propellant during the satellite’s launch and orbital operations. Under the PECS grant, NanoAvionics will refine and test a prototype, demonstrating the MLV’s utility for use in chemical or electric propulsion systems.

NanoAvionics also received funding under the 5th call for outline proposals of PECS to develop a double-seat 1N valve (DSV) for mono-propellant applications. Intended to reduce the mass and complexity relative to existing valves, the DSV will make propellant supply chains in small satellites safer and more reliable.

As a European Space Agency cooperating state since 2014, Lithuania has fostered closer ties between ESA, the Lithuanian space industry, and the Lithuanian academic community.

Executive Comment

NanoAvionics CEO, Vytenis J. Buzas, said, “Designing and developing propulsion components specifically for smallsats, instead of optimising systems based on larger spacecraft, signifies a new paradigm in satellite development. By putting mass efficiency and reliability of satellite components on centre stage it will help to reduce production cost and increase revenues. At NanoAvionics we are proud to contribute to Lithuania’s growing cooperation with the European Space Agency. As a leader in nanosatellite technologies, NanoAvionics is well-positioned to support ESA in finding a new and improved solution propulsion technologies for smallsats.”