Archives for 2020

The EUREKA project, in partnership with Enterprise Singapore and Innovate UK, has awarded £440,000 in funding together with access to research and development facilities and resources to Alba Orbital and consortium partners SpaceChain UK Limited (SpaceChain) and Addvalue Innovation Pte Ltd (“Addvalue”).

Awarded under the EUREKA Globalstars-Singapore Call, the companies will jointly develop a decentralized satellite infrastructure (DSI) that powers a blockchain payload at its core to enable direct tasking of a satellite in real-time.

The DSI innovation will be formed by a mesh-network of heterogeneous spacecrafts that is owned by multiple parties across jurisdictions operated in LEO. The DSI is set to democratize access to the nascent space sector with lower barriers to entry by individual companies. The innovation also bridges the communication gap between technology and data.

Once the DSI architecture and the blockchain payload are developed, stringent testing will be carried out on the blockchain-based satellite tasking to ensure secure, reliable connectivity and performance between the DSI infrastructure and ground-based users in real-time. The DSI infrastructure will advance the development of commercial use cases linking space resource providers, satellite application and fintech companies with an ultra-secure and low-latency network.

The innovation will be made possible collectively with the the Unicorn-2 PocketQube platform built by Alba Orbital, blockchain payload and software package developed by SpaceChain, and on-demand real-time communication provided by Addvalue through their Inter-Satellite Data Relay System (IDRS) that leverages LEO-Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) links.

“We are honored to receive support from EUREKA, Enterprise Singapore and Innovate UK as we forge ahead on our mission to develop a New Space Economy and minimize the entry barriers to space with the DSI,” said Nick Trudgen, CCO and UK Director at SpaceChain. “Space exploration projects are tremendous in scale and require close collaboration and partnership, and this milestone unlocks new opportunities for building commercial solutions that leverage space and blockchain applications.”

“We are very excited to collaborate with SpaceChain and Addvalue as we integrate our expertise for ground-to-satellite communications to create this pioneering DSI Innovation,” said Tom Walkinshaw, the CEO at Alba Orbital. “Built upon our shared vision in advancing the frontiers of space technologies for businesses, the partnership will catalyze the use of space systems and services in the commercial market with unparalleled performance and security.”

“With the global blockchain market size projected to grow at a CAGR of 67.3% per annum from USD3.0 billion in 2020 to USD39.7 billion by 2025¹, it is undeniable that blockchain technologies will play a very significant role in space applications, especially in the name of cyber-security in protecting the different assets in the space information network. The Addvalue IDRS solution is a key enabler in ensuring the availability of low latency and reliable connectivity for the effective blockchain applications in a decentralized and distributed satellite infrastructure,” said Francis Low, Head of Advanced Development at Addvalue Innovation. “The funding from EUREKA epitomizes our collective innovation in redefining the future of space applications. Addvalue, through the offering of its proven inter-satellite communication expertise and developmental capabilities for such embedded systems, is excited to be part of the consortium which put us in a pole position to target the fast growing blockchain market in a satellite environment,”

The EUREKA project is expected to commence in early 2021.

¹source from MarketsandMarket

This is the final week to register for SmallSat Symposium 2021 Virtual, which will be held virtually from February 8th through February 11th.

This is also the final week where registrants can receive the Early Bird Discount of 20 percent for this highly informative and extremely well-received symposium that deals with the smallsat universe.

For details regarding this major event, please access this direct link…

Rocket Lab has successfully launched their 17th Electron mission, deploying the first spacecraft to orbit for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite data and solutions provider Synspective.

‘The Owl’s Night Begins’ launched from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula at 10:09 UTC, December 15, 2020, and successfully deployed Synspective’s StriX-α to a 500 km circular orbit. The mission brings the total number of payloads deployed by Rocket Lab to 96.

The StriX-α satellite will demonstrate synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology developed by Synspective to be able to image millimeter-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space, independent of weather conditions on Earth and at any time of the day or night. StriX-α is the first of more than 30 satellites planned by Synspective to form a constellation in LEO to collate data on a daily basis that can be used for urban development planning, construction and infrastructure monitoring, and disaster response across Asia.

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck, said, “Congratulations to the team at Synspective for the successful deployment of their first satellite. We’re proud to be able to continue to provide dedicated launch opportunities for small satellite customers like Synspective. Electron provides truly tailored access to space, enabling our customers to choose exactly when they launch and under their specific mission parameters.”

Synspective Founder and CEO, Dr. Motoyuki Arai, said, “Thanks to the efforts and hard work of both the Rocket Lab and Synspective teams we were able to achieve a successful launch as scheduled, despite the difficult environment of COVID-19. With the launch of StriX-α, Synspective will be able to demonstrate its satellite capabilities and data processing technology. This is the first step towards our constellation of 30 satellites and along with the development of our solutions, a full-scale business expansion will begin. Starting with this success, we will move tangibly closer towards the attainment of an advanced world, expanding people’s understanding and learning capabilities with new data and technologies.”

Details concerning Rocket Lab’s 18th Electron launch will be announced shortly, with the next mission scheduled to take place from Launch Complex 1 early in the new year.

Original launch information…

The 17th Electron launch by Rocket Lab for ‘The Owl’s Night Begins‘ is now scheduled for between 09:00 and 10:59 hours, UTC, on December 15.

A live webcast of this launch will be available about 15 to 20 minutes prior to launch at https:www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream.

In case such is needed, backup windows for this launch are available through December 24th… let’s hope such is simply not a necessity and that the launch will be successful.

The launch window for ‘The Owl’s Night Begins’ is…

UTC: December 15 (09:00 – 10:59) 
NZT: December 15 (22:00 – 23:59) 
PT: December 15 (01:00 – 02:59) 
ET: December 15 (04:00 – 05:59) 
JST: December 15 (18:00 – 19:59) 

Original launch information…

Rocket Lab has announced Japanese Earth-imaging company Synspective as the customer for Rocket Lab’s 17th Electron launch and the company’s seventh mission of the year.

The dedicated mission for Synspective is scheduled for lift-off during a 14-day launch window opening on December 12 UTC and will launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula to a targeted 500 km circular LEO.

The mission is named ‘The Owl’s Night Begins’ in a nod to Synspective’s StriX family of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft developed to be able to image millimeter-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space, independent of weather conditions on Earth and at any time of the day or night. Strix is also the genus of owls.

The StriX-α satellite onboard this mission will be the first of a series of spacecraft deployments for Synspective’s planned constellation of more than 30 SAR smallsats to collate data of metropolitan centers across Asia on a daily basis that can be used for urban development planning, construction and infrastructure monitoring, and disaster response.

For this mission, Rocket Lab will use a custom, expanded fairing to encompass Synspective’s wide-body satellite C, the first use of the expanded fairing options that Rocket Lab recently introduced alongside a suite of vehicle performance improvements, including advances in battery technology which enable an improved payload lift capacity up to 300 kg (660 lbs). Rocket Lab will also perform an advanced mid-mission maneuver with its Kick Stage space tug that will shield the StriX-α satellite from the sun to reduce radiation exposure ahead of payload deployment.

Executive Comments

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck, said, “We’re honored to be providing the ride to orbit for Synspective and playing a pivotal role in deploying the first satellite of their constellation. By flying as a dedicated mission on Electron, the Synspective team have complete control over their orbit and launch schedule, giving them a degree of certainty over a crucial time in their business development.”

Synspective Founder and CEO, Dr. Motoyuki Arai, added, “We are so happy to share this launch of our first satellite, the StriX-α, together with Rocket Lab. This is just the start of a 30 SAR satellites constellation. We are very excited to begin the scaling of our business, which includes both SAR satellites and downstream solutions.”

Sunil Mittal, Executive Chairman of OneWeb, has confirmed that the satellite operator will add a global positioning, navigation and timing system onto its 2nd Generation of satellites for a GPS-type service. Mittal’s Bharti is a joint investor with the UK government in OneWeb.

Meanwhile, he said that OneWeb’s current fleet can provide a timing service. He was addressing the ITU’s (virtual) spectrum allocation event, and asked international governments to speedily grant permissions for OneWeb to establish Earth stations for connectivity and transmission of data.

“A very large number of countries have open-door policies,” said Mittal. “Some of those with tighter control regimes should make LEO availability subject to fulfilling certain conditions to satisfy their legal interception needs, their security and privacy needs — and above all, the cyber issues that plague a lot of countries, to ensure that a proper handshake between each regulatory regime and the constellation provider is in place.”

Mittal’s main trading company, Bharti Global, is already operating cellular and data services in some 17 countries.

Mittal added, “Our Gen 1 [craft], which is being launched in the coming months, will have the timing built into it. The positioning and navigation will have to wait for Gen 2, which is a couple of years away. But we have the ambition of providing PNT [Positioning, Navigation and Timing] through OneWeb, which will be more accurate and safer from interception than GPS. We believe we will be on this path in the coming years.”

Mittal added that OneWeb’s prime focus was to provide rural broadband globally and in particular reaching enterprise customers, offices and factories, and depots and distribution centres, plus government applications. “My own industry needs a lot of backhauling. We currently use MEO and GEO [satellites] in combination. The experience is very poor. The latency is very high — 560 milliseconds for GEO and just under 300 milliseconds for MEO.”

Pivotel and SES have signed an agreement to build a new satellite ground station at the Pivotel teleport in Dubbo, New South Wales — this ground station will support O3b mPOWER, SES’s next-generation, non-geostationary (NGSO) constellation and enable the delivery of enhanced telecommunication services to regional communities.

The project, which has come about as part of the ongoing partnership between Pivotel and SES will provide much needed high-performance and low-latency connectivity services across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The terabit-level constellation will deliver multiple gigabits-per-second beams of data services to customers, providing fiber-like connectivity with more bandwidth and improved flexibility to remote and underserved regions across Australia and the Pacific islands.

The Dubbo gateway (pictured above) will commence operations in the second half of 2021 and will track SES’s O3b mPOWER constellation operating at MEO 8,000 km away from Earth. This ground station will also support telemetry, tracking and commanding systems needed to control the satellites during the early stages of launch and complete integration with the Satellite Operations Centre.

Pivotel has been hosting an O3b gateway since 2013, when SES’s current MEO constellation was launched. Through the O3b gateway, SES has been instrumental in enabling the delivery of connectivity services to communities and the regional government entities of countries such as Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Federated States of Micronesia.

This technology has enabled some of these countries to roll out low latency 4G/4G+ networks via satellite – a first for the satellite industry. Remote mine locations have also benefited from this technology, accelerating their digitization plans and staff welfare through high-speed internet.

“Pivotel and SES have enjoyed a long-standing relationship that stems back to the initial days of O3b services. With such an important and powerful project, SES is thrilled to be continuing this partnership with Pivotel. Working to integrate leading technology from both businesses, we have captured the key elements of high-performance connectivity that can truly benefit everyone in the region regardless of how remote they may be,” said John Turnbull, Director for Australia and the Pacific region of SES.

“We’re proud to partner with SES to deliver a new satellite ground station in Dubbo that offers an incredible number of new opportunities for regional and remote communications across the country and Pacific region. The extremely high cost of deploying fibre links to remote communities means satellite is often the only choice, but it has come at the cost of lower download speeds and higher latency. SES’s O3b mPOWER’s fibre-like performance largely overcomes those trade-offs, offering the potential of city-like connectivity to remote and isolated communities everywhere,” said Peter Bolger, CEO of Pivotel. “Once launched in 2021, the unique next-generation MEO constellation will be capable of delivering desperately needed back haul connectivity, and with the right support, has the power to deliver city-like data services to thousands of users across regional Australia including schools, community and health centres, as well as providing a vital point of connectivity for emergency and disaster first responders.”

Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies that it has completed its critical design review (CDR) for the Blackjack Program, a military space capabilities demonstration being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

By incorporating commercial sector advances in low-Earth orbit (LEO), including designs used for LEO broadband internet service, the goal of the Blackjack program is to demonstrate that a constellation of LEO satellites meets U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) performance and payload requirements, at a significantly lower cost, with shorter design cycles and with easier and more frequent technology upgrades. The Blackjack program aims to establish an economy of scale not previously available with current National Security Space (NSS) assets, which are large, costly, and would take years to replace if degraded or destroyed.

“BCT is proud to have reached this new milestone in the development of the Blackjack program for DARPA,” said George Stafford, President and CEO of Blue Canyon Technologies. “The completion of this CDR has instilled further confidence in our design and displayed more power capability than was initially expected. This not only reflects the hard work and expertise of the extremely talented team at BCT, but also the great potential for the Blackjack program to reduce costs while maximizing performance capabilities and meeting payload requirements.”

The Blackjack program CDR took place over a two-day period at BCT’s Satellite Constellation Factory in Lafayette, Colorado. It was conducted both virtually, as well in person, while in complete accordance with appropriate COVID-19 safety precautions to keep team members from each organization safe.

With approximately 40 engineers and scientific partners participating, BCT was able to demonstrate maturity of the X-SAT Saturn-class bus design, validating the design and capabilities of the system in support of the Blackjack program. The CDR completes the third milestone, which will culminate in the first two flight buses being delivered to DARPA for payload integration in August 2021.

The DARPA contract has an initial award value of $14.2 million with a total potential value of $99.4 million if all options are exercised. Now that the final design of the multi-mission bus has been completed, BCT will begin procurement for the build of the first four satellites. The customized X-SAT bus will include state-of-the-art electric propulsion, a robust power system, command and data handling, RF communications and dedicated payload interfaces capable of hosting several different DoD payloads. The spacecraft will be delivered on a rapid timeline to support the critical DARPA demonstration schedule, with the first spacecraft to be delivered in mid-2021.

The 17th Electron launch by Rocket Lab for ‘The Owl’s Night Begins‘ is now scheduled for between 09:00 and 10:59 hours, UTC, on December 15.

A live webcast of this launch will be available about 15 to 20 minutes prior to launch at https:www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream.

In case such is needed, backup windows for this launch are available through December 24th… let’s hope such is simply not a necessity and that the launch will be successful.

The launch window for ‘The Owl’s Night Begins’ is…

UTC: December 15 (09:00 – 10:59) 
NZT: December 15 (22:00 – 23:59) 
PT: December 15 (01:00 – 02:59) 
ET: December 15 (04:00 – 05:59) 
JST: December 15 (18:00 – 19:59) 

Original launch information…

Rocket Lab has announced Japanese Earth-imaging company Synspective as the customer for Rocket Lab’s 17th Electron launch and the company’s seventh mission of the year.

The dedicated mission for Synspective is scheduled for lift-off during a 14-day launch window opening on December 12 UTC and will launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula to a targeted 500 km circular LEO.

The mission is named ‘The Owl’s Night Begins’ in a nod to Synspective’s StriX family of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft developed to be able to image millimeter-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space, independent of weather conditions on Earth and at any time of the day or night. Strix is also the genus of owls.

The StriX-α satellite onboard this mission will be the first of a series of spacecraft deployments for Synspective’s planned constellation of more than 30 SAR smallsats to collate data of metropolitan centers across Asia on a daily basis that can be used for urban development planning, construction and infrastructure monitoring, and disaster response.

For this mission, Rocket Lab will use a custom, expanded fairing to encompass Synspective’s wide-body satellite C, the first use of the expanded fairing options that Rocket Lab recently introduced alongside a suite of vehicle performance improvements, including advances in battery technology which enable an improved payload lift capacity up to 300 kg (660 lbs). Rocket Lab will also perform an advanced mid-mission maneuver with its Kick Stage space tug that will shield the StriX-α satellite from the sun to reduce radiation exposure ahead of payload deployment.

Executive Comments

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Peter Beck, said, “We’re honored to be providing the ride to orbit for Synspective and playing a pivotal role in deploying the first satellite of their constellation. By flying as a dedicated mission on Electron, the Synspective team have complete control over their orbit and launch schedule, giving them a degree of certainty over a crucial time in their business development.”

Synspective Founder and CEO, Dr. Motoyuki Arai, added, “We are so happy to share this launch of our first satellite, the StriX-α, together with Rocket Lab. This is just the start of a 30 SAR satellites constellation. We are very excited to begin the scaling of our business, which includes both SAR satellites and downstream solutions.”

Firefly Black, LLC has been selected by NASA for the launch of Mission Two of the Venture Class Launch Service Demonstration 2 (VCLS Demo 2) contract — Mission Two involves launch of two cubesat constellations to a 550 km SSO, separated by a minimum of 10 degrees in plane change.

Firefly Black will bridge demand between pure small launch capability and that provided by the National Security Space Launch program by providing a family of small-to-medium launchers and in-space transportation services. Firefly Black, LLC is the national security and civil space subsidiary of Firefly Aerospace.

Firefly Black provides launch services to Department of Defense, intelligence community, and civil space customers seeking small-to-medium launch solutions for up to ten metric tons of payload to low earth orbit (LEO).

Using Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha and Beta launch vehicles and Space Utility Vehicle, Firefly Black provides America with industry leading capability at the lowest cost/kg in the emerging small launch vehicle class. Headquartered in Washington, DC, Firefly Black also performs Legislative and Executive Branch outreach and advocacy supporting the small satellite and small launch industries.

“Firefly Black is pleased to have been selected by NASA for this operationally challenging mission. We applaud NASA’s commitment to the nation’s emerging small launch industrial base and look forward to supporting America’s civil space launch needs for many years,” said Leslie Kovacs, company President. “The all-private development of our Alpha launch vehicle, and the impending completion of our Space Launch Complex 2 conversion at Vandenberg AFB, are on schedule to support the maiden Firefly Alpha launch in the first quarter of 2021. The men and women of Firefly, and our supply chain partners, are excited by this partnership with NASA.”