Archives for February 2021

GomSpace and J.P. Morgan have successfully used the GOMX-4 satellites for an in-orbit demonstration (IOD) and tested tokenized value transfer in space.

The IOD from GomSpace enabled J.P. Morgan to test the world’s first bank-led, tokenized value transfer in space, executed via smart contracts on a blockchain network established between satellites orbiting the Earth.

GomSpace and J.P. Morgan successfully executed a transaction between two LEO satellites, which validated the approach towards a decentralized network where communication with Earth is not necessary. This breakthrough opens the door to a potential peer-to-peer DvP (data versus payment) satellite marketplace in the long term, as private companies prepare to launch their own constellations.

The project was made possible due to GomSpace’s GOMX-4 satellites already on-orbit and which are highly reconfigurable. This allows GomSpace to provide rapid on-orbit demonstrations, such as this project, as a service to the firm’s customers exploring new uses of space technology and the company’s smallsats.

“We are proud to have supported J.P. Morgan as they explored this novel use case of a space-based payment infrastructure utilizing blockchain technology,” said Niels Buus, the CEO of GomSpace.

Orbex has commissioned AMCM to build the largest industrial 3D printer in Europe, allowing this UK-based space launch company to rapidly print complex rocket engines in-house.

The custom-made, large volume, 3D printer will allow Orbex to print more than 35 large-scale rocket engine and main stage turbopump systems annually, as the company scales up its production capabilities for launches.

The multi-million pound deal was signed with AMCM following a series of successful trials printing various large-scale rocket components over a number of months. AMCM will deliver a complete printing suite with post-processing machinery and ‘Machine Vision’ systems, providing automatic imaging-based inspection of printed components. To accommodate the new machinery, Orbex is expanding its factory floor space by an additional 1,000 m².

The 3D printing system will print rocket parts using a custom blend of metals including titanium and aluminium to create a lightweight system designed to withstand the temperature and pressure extremes of spaceflight. Orbex will print components such as rocket engines as a single piece, eliminating the weaknesses which can arise from joining and welding.

The 3D printed rocket components will be critical parts of Orbex’s launch vehicle, a 19-metre long “microlauncher” rocket, designed to deliver smallsats into polar orbits around the Earth. Planning permission was granted for Orbex’s home spaceport, Space Hub Sutherland, at the A’Mhoine peninsula in Sutherland in August of 2020. The A’Mhoine site is currently the only UK spaceport to receive planning permission, with construction expected to begin in 2021 and the first orbital launch expected to occur in 2022.

Uniquely for a commercial rocket, the company’s Prime rocket is fueled by bio-propane, a clean-burning, renewable fuel that reduces CO² emissions by 90% when compared to kerosene-based fuels. The Prime rocket was designed to be re-usable, incorporating a novel recovery and reusability system. The rocket has also been designed to leave zero debris in orbit around the Earth.

Orbex also recently announced that it had secured $24 million in a funding round led by BGF, one of the UK’s most active investment company, and Octopus Ventures, one of the largest VCs in Europe. The additional funding brings significant new investment in high technology employment opportunities and large-scale production facilities in the Highlands region of Scotland.

“Although our rocket engines and other critical systems are already quite mature after years of testing, a large-scale in-house 3D printing system like this gives us far greater speed and agility as we ramp up production,” said Chris Larmour, CEO of Orbex. “It means we can continue to iterate and drive up performance even further. Longer term, as we get ready for multiple launches per year, it will give us greater control over our costs and supply chain. After exhaustive trials, the results we’ve seen from AMCM were very successful and we’re confident that we’ve made the right choice of partner.”

“Investing in a large-scale 3D printing system like this says a lot about Orbex’s ambition in the European spaceflight sector,” said Martin Bullemer, MD of AMCM. “If they are to lead the European market, they need the production reliability and speed that a large-scale 3D printing system like this will give them. And although this is a major purchase, it will allow for significant cost control for Orbex in the years to come.”

Orbex is a UK-based spaceflight company with headquarters, production and testing facilities in Scotland, and design and testing facilities in Denmark. Orbex staff members have professional backgrounds with NASA, ESA, Ariane and several commercial spaceflight organisations. The company is now funded by two of the UK’s largest and most active venture capital funds, BGF and Octopus Ventures, who join two of Europe’s largest venture capital funds, Heartcore Capital and the High-Tech Gründerfonds, as well as strategic investor Elecnor, parent company of Deimos Space, the UK Space Agency (UKSA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission Horizon 2020 program.

Additive Manufacturing Customized Machines (AMCM) engineers and produces custom, high-performance industrial 3D printing solutions. Based on EOS technology AMCM offers customized AM solutions, modified and enhanced EOS systems tailored to customer requirements – from new lasers to adapted heating concepts and modified build volumes. AMCM also builds completely new systems designed specifically to meet customer requirements. AMCM is an EOS Group company.

Earlier this month, Momentus Inc. and Xona Space Systems have signed a service agreement to advance the latter’s 2022 Alpha mission.

Xona’s patent-pending, system architecture is combining the efficiency and innovation of the new space era with the world of satellite navigation to help enable modern intelligent systems to operate safely in any conditions, anywhere on the planet. Once complete, their LEO smallsat constellation will provide a resilient alternative to Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) with more than 10x better accuracy.

“Xona is developing a truly innovative system to enhance the reliability and precision of global PNT and GNSS. As an infrastructure company, Momentus is excited to partner with other like-minded pioneers to help build out the future services needed to enable human presence in space while improving life on earth,” said Dawn Harms, Momentus CEO.

“We have been very impressed with the capabilities and services that Momentus offers with their Vigoride spacecraft,” said Xona CEO Brian Manning. “There is a rapidly growing demand for higher performance navigation and timing services as well as alternatives to GNSS. Forming this partnership with Momentus represents a key milestone in our technology development roadmap as we work towards our on-orbit demonstration and deployment of the full constellation to meet these needs.”

Horizon Aerospace Technologies Division has received an order for a FlyingFish FF3/S Sat Phone geolocation system (and ancillary items) from a UAE prime contractor for use on a surveillance aircraft to monitor critical infrastructure in the region.

The order is valued at approximately £400,000 and delivery will take place in 2021 pending export approval.

Horizon Technologies’ AMBER Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) Intelligence system was featured on the UK Government’s stand at the show and attendees viewed the AMBER cubesats small size as well as the powerful payload and additional capabilities.

AMBER is a 2nd Generation, cubesat-based, SIGINT system and will be operational later in 2021. It is a public/private partnership with the UK Government and the UK National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC), slated to be the first consumer for AMBER intelligence data.

“IDEX has been a huge success for Horizon Technologies,” Horizon Technologies CEO John Beckner said while attending IDEX 2021. He continued, “It was good to resume face-to-face meetings with our customers and partners in the region.”

ClimaCell, a leading weather intelligence platform, has announced Operation Tomorrow Space.

To improve global forecasting technology and capabilities, ClimaCell has designed proprietary, radar-equipped smallsats and will start launching dozens of them into space over the coming years. ClimaCell’s radar-equipped smallsat constellation represents a first in the history of the weather industry.

While weather-focused satellites have been in space for decades, most existing satellites still are not able to accurately detect precipitation from space. The few that can cost more than $1 billion each and offer refresh rates in the order of a few days, rendering them practically useless for day-to-day weather applications such as hurricane forecasting and even less severe storm predictions.

Through technological breakthroughs, ClimaCell achieved a significant (over 95%) reduction in size and cost of weather-radar satellites, making the dream of true global radar coverage closer than ever.

ClimaCell’s proprietary satellite design includes comparable performance to the existing $1 billion weather satellites such as NASA’s Global Precipitation Mission (GPM), but at a fraction of the price, enabling the opportunity to launch a constellation of dozens of satellites.

To put into perspective the physical transformation of ClimaCell’s satellites, the company has reduced the size of existing weather satellites from the size of a school bus – considered industry-standard until now – to the size of a miniature refrigerator. Each satellite will be equipped with its own radar, and ClimaCell expects that its constellation will increase global revisit time from satellite to earth by 50x.

“We are building the first of its kind proprietary satellites equipped with radar, and launching them into space to improve weather monitoring and forecasting capabilities,” said Shimon Elkabetz, CEO and Co-Founder of ClimaCell.

“We are positioned for an exciting year in 2021 with Operation Tomorrow Space at the lead of our continued disruption and pioneering across the weather technology industry and beyond,” said Rei Goffer, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder at ClimaCell. “While today signifies the next generation of weather capabilities for every person and business on the planet, this is only the first step in support of Operation Tomorrow Space.”

ClimaCell offers the All-in-One Weather Intelligence Platform that is fully customizable to any industry impacted by the weather. Customers around the world including Uber, Delta, Ford, National Grid, and more use ClimaCell to dramatically improve operational efficiency. The company was built from the ground up to help teams predict the business impact of weather, streamline team communication and action plans, improve productivity, and optimize profit margins.

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) has signed a contract with Rocket Lab to launch the GA-EMS developed Orbital Test Bed (OTB) satellite carrying the Argos-4 Advanced Data Collection System (A-DCS) hosted payload.

The contract was awarded to GA-EMS by the United States Space Force’s (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) under a USSF Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) delivery order, on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The anticipated launch will occur between late 2021 and early 2022 using Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle.

The Argos-4 A-DCS mission is supported by the NOAA Cooperative Data and Rescue Services Program. Argos is an international program that collects data from thousands of sensors and transmitters located around the world. Currently, data is collected and distributed for use in numerous applications, including ocean buoy tracking, wildlife and fishery monitoring, and maritime security, as well as non-environmental uses.

“We are excited to work with Rocket Lab to launch the Argos-4 satellite,” stated Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS. “GA-EMS is continuing to expand our presence in space. This contract demonstrates our commitment to quickly and reliably launch new payload technologies to space and meet our customer’s schedule requirements.”

“We’re proud to be teaming up with the GA-EMS team and providing a streamlined path to orbit for Argos-4,” said Peter Beck, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rocket Lab. “It’s a privilege to be able to provide tailored, reliable access to space for a program that makes such a significant contribution to monitoring and protecting our oceans and wildlife.”

“Rocket Lab has demonstrated success in reliably deploying small satellites to their targeted destination in low-earth orbit,” stated Nick Bucci, Vice president of Missile Defense and Space Systems at GA-EMS. “The flexible, modular OTB platform used for Argos-4 continues to demonstrate its versatility both in terms of payload integration and launch vehicle integration and compliance, enabling a cost-efficient solution to meet a wide variety of requirements. We look forward to incorporating our satellite with Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle and putting the important Argos-4 A-DCS technology on orbit so it can perform its mission.”

Spaceflight Inc. is celebrating their 10th anniversary. Since the company’s founding, the company has launched more than 300 satellites across 36 missions on eight different launch vehicles.

During Spaceflight’s 10 years in business, the company has evolved from launch brokerage to providing comprehensive launch and mission management services for payloads of all sizes, across a wide range of launch vehicles, with integration and logistics services, a portfolio of propulsive orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs), and the widest variety of orbital destinations.

Highlights: 10 Years of Launch Experience

After founding the company in 2011, Spaceflight executed its first launch in 2013 aboard a Soyuz vehicle. In 2015, it purchased its first Falcon 9 rideshare mission, and in 2016, its first PSLV launch. More significant stats include:

36 total missions executed in the last 10 years with half occurring in the last two and a half years

327 spacecraft deployed with nearly 70% launching in the last two and a half years

Serving 79 unique customers, 75% of those commercial organizations

Customers from 29 different countries, with more than 24 countries represented in each of the last three years

More than 4,000 kilograms of total spacecraft mass launched

Fifty percent of launches have occurred on foreign launch vehicles

Launches on eight launch vehicles, including Falcon 9, Electron, Vega, Soyuz, Antares and PSLV with agreements to fly on new vehicles including Virgin Orbit, Relativity, Firefly, and SSLV, when available

“This is a monumental milestone for our company,” said Curt Blake, CEO and President of Spaceflight. “Ten years ago, rideshare was just a concept. We founded the company to serve the growing need for frequent and affordable launch options for the burgeoning smallsat industry. Since then, we’ve innovated new services, global launch practices, and OTV technology as well as executed several industry-first missions. We’re very proud of our pioneering spirit to provide the most flexible launch options for customers, helping them get their spacecraft on orbit when and where they want.”

“Spaceflight has been a trusted partner and our go-to launch service provider for years,” said Kjell Karlsen, Chief Financial Officer at Astrocast. “The team’s expertise provides us with the peace of mind that our mission will be expertly managed. This coupled with the flexibility enabled by the company’s diverse portfolio of launch options makes Spaceflight a preferred provider for us. Congratulations on the 10-year milestone; it’ll be exciting to see what innovations they pioneer and bring to market in the next 10 years.”

Spaceflight has also…

• Pioneered the Sherpa-NG program, which includes three ESPA-class space vehicles complete with electric and chemical propulsion for last-mile delivery in space; the first OTV (Sherpa-FX) flew on record-breaking SpaceX Transporter-1 launch.
• Executed the historic SSO-A mission, the first Falcon 9 dedicated rideshare mission, which launched 64 satellites from 34 customers from 17 countries. At the time, it was the largest number of satellites to ever launch from a U.S.-based vehicle.
• Orchestrated the first-ever rideshare mission to GTO, launching the first privately funded lunar lander.
• Opened a new state-of-the-art integration facility in Auburn, Washington, where the team conducts end-to-end spacecraft testing, integration and engineering services.
• Secured a U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) contract to offer cost-effective launch services for U.S. government organizations.
• Unveiled the first online booking site for customers to reserve launches and a mission management portal for easy online launch campaign coordination.
• Acquired by Mitsui & Co., Ltd., in partnership with Yamasa Co., Ltd., enabling deep resources to propel innovation and expand service offerings.

In January 2021, Spaceflight completed the successful launch of Sherpa-FX (pictured above), which carried 15 spacecraft on the record-setting SpaceX Transporter-1 mission. The company plans to launch approximately 10 missions across its global launch vehicle portfolio in 2021.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) has extended L3Harris Technologies’ (NYSE:LHX) contract to provide mission-critical avionics and related services in support of the Vulcan Centaur rocket for U.S. Space Force launches.

More than a year ago, ULA selected L3Harris to safely, securely and cost-effectively deliver on the most critical and challenging missions for the company’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket. For this contract extension, L3Harris will deliver avionics and support launches through 2027.

ULA will launch 60 percent of the critical National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions under the U.S. Space Force. The company was competitively selected as the best value supplier under the NSSL Phase 2 procurement.

“L3Harris has provided highly reliable avionics and communications technology resulting in failure-free missions for more than 60 years,” said Murali Krishnan, President, Electro Optical Sector, L3Harris. “Our partnership with ULA assures cost-effective launches for critical national security space missions now and in the future.”