The premier networking event for the satellite and space industry — Satellite Innovation 2021 Silicon Valley — is delighted to return to the Computer History Museum for 2021. Invest in making new satellite industry connections and gain technical and marketing knowledge from the world’s foremost industry experts.
Early registration rates are now in effect for Satellite Innovation 2021 — save $200 by registering for the early bird discount for this major event… today.
Analytical Space has appointed four new leaders to the company’s senior leadership team — this expansion of the company’s senior leadership team enables the firm to fast track the development of the Fast Pixel Network, in preparation for a 2022 initial deployment.
The following appointments, effective immediately, come after a record year for Analytical Space, after the company secured over $4.5 million in revenue and developed more than $20 million in revenue backlog:
Katherine Monson, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)
Katherine is an experienced aerospace executive, having supported thousands of satellite and rocket programs during her time serving as CEO of KSAT Inc. She is passionate about creating communications infrastructure for the growing space industry. She will be leading the Operations and Business Development efforts of the Analytical Space team. Katherine started her career in Government working at the Pentagon for the Undersecretary of Acquisitions, Technology, and Logistics (OUSD AT&L). She has also previously served as Spire’s Head of Ground Stations, helping to build out the company’s key infrastructure components.
Dr. Jose Velazco, Chief Innovation Officer (CIO)
Dr. Velazco brings more than 25 years of expertise designing and integrating cutting edge Optical and RF communications technologies within industry and government leadership positions. He will be overseeing Analytical Space’s Research and Development initiatives. He joins Analytical Space after serving as the Technical Supervisor of NASA JPL’s Advanced RF & Optical Technologies group, where he developed many patents related to his work with advanced telecommunications payloads. Dr. Velazco is a visionary thinker in the field of satellite communications and is passionate about enabling new satellite sensor types and delivering higher fidelity datasets via the improvement of existing satellite communications infrastructure. Dr. Velazco began his career in industry by founding Microwave Technologies Inc., a Research and Development firm that developed microwave electronic components for the Department of Defense, NASA, and the National Institute of Health.
Rhonda Landers, VP of Finance
Rhonda has more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles within finance, strategy and operations. She joins Analytical Space to lead the Company’s financial operations and play an integral role in corporate strategy development. Rhonda most recently served as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Nanosteel, a venture-backed, private company focused on the development and commercialization of advanced high strength steel. Through similar advanced technology CFO positions at companies such as Globe Wireless and Seawave LCC, she has demonstrated leadership in capital raising, strategic planning, scaling operations, and strategic initiatives for continued business growth including strategic investments, licensing and acquisitions.
Alejandra Herrera, Head of People
Alejandra joins Analytical Space to lead the HR and recruiting departments after more than 30 years of experience growing and scaling startups. She has led multiple scaling efforts, across a variety of technology-centric businesses and specializes in rapidly growing distributed and remote teams. Ale has served as the Head of Operations at The Boston Consulting Group, Sr. Director of HR at Brightstar, Director of HR and Administration at Deremate.com, and Sr. VP of HR at Xapo. At Analytical Space, Alejandra will focus on furthering the technical depth of the team, while retaining a diverse and inclusive company culture.
“As we translate our vision of a global data relay network into reality, I’m excited to welcome Katherine, Jose, Rhonda and Alejandra to the Analytical Space executive team. They come with decades of experience imagining and materializing innovative concepts in the space industry, navigating companies from early capability demonstrations to sustainable business models, and rapidly scaling organizations while maintaining a mission driven and inclusive culture.” said Analytical Space CEO, Dan Nevius. “I’m honored and humbled by their decisions to deploy their incredible talents toward accelerating ASI’s mission of building the in-orbit infrastructure to give humanity access to a high fidelity, persistent view of our planet.”
Analytical Space is launching a network of satellite relays that will provide a high-speed data connection for Earth observation satellites. ASI’s network will allow satellite operators to generate more data and get it to the ground faster, all while using their existing hardware. By closing the connectivity gaps in orbit, our network will unlock new possibilities for innovation in space, enable insights to optimize the global economy, and help us understand our planet like never before.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center has contracted Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) to develop a smallsat platform for the StarBurst astrophysics mission — part of the newly formed NASA Pioneers Program, StarBurst seeks to detect high-energy gamma rays that are emitted from events such as the mergers of neutron stars.
NASA announced the Pioneers Program in 2020 to develop small-scale astrophysics missions using smallsats, balloons, and modest International Space Station payloads to explore cosmic phenomena. In the first round, NASA selected four proposals to study galaxy evolution, exoplanets, high-energy neutrinos, and neutron star merger.
Managed by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, StarBurst will focus on neutron star research, using a 250 kg smallsat built by SFL to observe the gamma rays emitted from these merger events, which form most of the heavy metals, such as gold and platinum, in the universe. It is believed StarBurst could observe up to 10 neutron star mergers every year.
SFL will develop the StarBurst mission on its space-proven 1x1x1-meter scalable DAUNTLESS bus. Under Phase A of the program, SFL will complete the platform concept design, and upon approval by NASA, will then proceed with detailed design, integration, and testing of the spacecraft. SFL will also support the launch, commissioning, and operation of StarBurst, notionally scheduled for 2025.
“SFL is pleased that NASA has chosen us to participate in the Pioneers Program that was created specifically to perform astrophysics science with smaller, more cost-effective hardware, including small spacecraft developed the microspace way,” said SFL Director Dr. Robert E. Zee.
Kleos Space S.A (ASX:KSS, Frankfurt:KS1) has now received confirmation that the Kleos Polar Vigilance Mission (KSF1) will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station onboard the Spaceflight SXRS-5/SpaceX Transporter-2 Mission targeted for the June 29, 2021 (US).
The four satellites will be deployed into a 525 km Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) that will increase Kleos overall coverage density in the equatorial region and cover areas North and South of the Kleos Scouting Mission satellites, which successfully launched on in November into a 37-degree inclined orbit.
Kleos uses clusters of four satellites to collect radio transmissions over key areas of interest around the globe and after processing a geospatial data product is delivered to analytics and intelligence entities for government and commercial use – efficiently uncovering the locations of human activity on land and sea.
A third cluster of satellites, the Polar Patrol Mission (KSF2), is scheduled and will launch at the end of this year.
Original report…
Kleos Space S.A (ASX:KSS, Frankfurt:KS1) has confirmed the successful dispatch of their cluster of four Polar Vigilance Mission satellites (KSF1) from Delft in the Netherlands to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Under a rideshare contract with Spaceflight Inc., the satellites will liftoff aboard the Spaceflight SXRS-5 / SpaceX Transporter-2 mission no earlier than June 2021. The satellites have been built by smallsat specialist Innovative Solutions In Space B.V (ISISPACE).
The Polar Vigilance Mission will provide global data that will will increase Kleos overall coverage density in the equatorial region and also cover areas North and South of the Kleos Scouting Mission satellites, which successfully launched on in November into a 37 degree inclined orbit.
Kleos uses clusters of four satellites to collect radio transmissions over key areas of interest around the globe and after processing a geospatial data product is delivered to analytics and intelligence entities for government and commercial use – efficiently uncovering data points of human activity on land and sea. The Kleos clusters enable up to six antenna pairs to be used in proprietary multilateration algorithms – aiding data accuracy.
Kleos CEO Andy Bowyer said, “ISISPACE have done an incredible job delivering four satellites in a very short time period to our exacting standards, we look forward to them entering service in our growing constellation – more satellites, means more data for our customers increasing their insight into human activity in key areas of interest.”
Leaf Space is adding three ground stations to the company’s global Leaf Line Network — these new stations will be installed in Sri Lanka, the Azores and Scotland and will enhance Leaf Space’s capability to provide Ground Stations as a Service (GSaaS) solutions to their growing list of customers.
With these additional ground stations, Leaf Space now fully owns and operates 12 stations globally. The new, state of the art, 3.7 meter antenna, paired with high performance, baseband processing hardware, add important additional coverage for Leaf Space’s customers, allowing satellite operators expanded opportunity to communicate with spacecraft, sending and receiving critical data to support each mission. With these additional ground stations, Leaf Space now fully owns and operates 12 stations globally.
Leaf Space’s new ground station in Sri Lanka will expand the range of missions the company can support, adding equatorial orbit to the company’s list of capabilities. Further distributing Leaf Space’s medium-latitude network provides customers with a strategic advantage as it helps to mitigate the risk of interference, band saturation and licensing as well as overlapping, providing customers with more capacity using fewer antennas.
The station in Northern Scotland also adds a desirable high northern latitude location to Leaf Space’s distributed ground station network, positioned on the 61st parallel.
In addition to announcing the expansion of the company’s distributed ground station network this week, Leaf Space will also be supporting 14 new spacecrafts from six different international customers on SpaceX’s Transporter-2 dedicated Falcon 9 rideshare mission — that launch will signal an important milestone for Leaf Space, as the company will be supporting their largest number of customers in a single launch to date.
“These three stations build upon our already robust network and improve our ability to deliver industry leading GSaaS solutions to our customers,” said Jonata Puglia, CEO and co-founder of Leaf Space. “Ownership of our own proprietary network offers customers complete management and flexibility to customize operations and scale quickly. We are continuing to pursue additional expansion to support the daily increases in demand from our customers and are on schedule to activate three more stations in Q3, with the goal of doubling our global network to 19 total this year. Our expanding ground station network is further powered by our end-to-end network orchestration and management software, the Network Cloud Engine, which optimizes automatic scheduling and data transfer for customers, guaranteeing efficiency, eliminating the risk of conflicts and leveraging at scale cloud services.”
According to Astra‘s Chief Engineer, Mr. Benjamin Lyon, the company is definitely acquiring Apollo Fusion. In a statement on the firm’s infosite, he noted the following…
“This acquisition enables Astra to efficiently deliver and operate throughout our solar system, and brings incredible technology and talent into our team.
“So, what is this all really about? At Astra we’re focused on rapid and affordable access to space. This really requires two kinds of transportation: You always have to first fly from Earth to a low orbit on the edge of space, and Astra shines in getting you to the best possible low orbit for your mission. However, often you need to keep going — to fly higher in space for your operational mission. And this is where Apollo comes in.
“Let’s dig into this a bit. When flying from the ground to space, you need powerful, high-thrust engines to overcome gravity and push the vehicle with its payload through the atmosphere at an ever-increasing speed. This requires a LOT of thrust and consumes a huge amount of fuel – typically, 90% or more of the weight of a rocket ready to lift off is fuel. Once you get to space and are in a low orbit, the spacecraft is floating in zero gravity, so you can use very small forces to move around. This is analogous to a getting a boat into a lake – it’s very heavy to lift and carry it on the ground, but light paddling will move it easily once it’s in the water.
“This “paddling” is where electric propulsion (EP) systems come into play in space. Harnessing the power of the sun, they use electricity to accelerate a very small flow of inert gas to high speed, producing a constant, low thrust that is highly efficient. The high efficiency allows a spacecraft to slowly but continuously accelerate, which moves it to a higher and higher orbit. This makes EP an excellent solution for going from low earth orbits to medium, high, or geostationary orbits, and even to the moon or beyond!
“We chose Apollo Fusion because they had developed a leading EP system that is cost-effective and reliable, at scale. Apollo’s design cycles are measured in months, not years, and their solutions are both easy to manufacture and to assemble. They don’t see their job as done when they have something that initially works. Apollo continues to optimize for manufacturability and scalability.
“Astra has purposefully drawn its talent from beyond the aerospace industry, and bringing the best practices from tech, automotive, services and other industries has been a key element to our rapid progress to date. Apollo Founder and CEO, Mike Cassidy, shares the same belief in the value diverse skill sets bring. He has both the understanding and experience of how bring consumer technologies like high performance, low power processing to aerospace, with team members from companies such as SpaceX, Google, Tesla and Apple. Their deep expertise is important too: Apollo team members have contributed to over 2,000 satellites in orbit today. Their culture shares Astra’s focus on maximizing development velocity, designing for scale, and passion about the opportunity that space creates.
“We are delighted to welcome the Apollo Fusion team into the Astra team! I’m excited to see what we do together.
Original information in SatNews…
Astra has announced the company’s planned acquisition of Apollo Fusion in a transaction valued up to $145 million.
Apollo Fusion manufactures a leading electric propulsion engine. This acquisition allows Astra to provide launch and space services beyond LEO to MEO, GEO and lunar orbits.
Under the agreement, Astra is acquiring Apollo Fusion for a purchase price of $50 million: $30 million in stock and $20 million in cash. Additionally, there is potential for earn-outs of up to $95 million: $10 million in employee incentive stock, $10 million in cash for reaching technical milestones, and $75 million ($60 million in stock, $15 million in cash) for reaching revenue milestones. PJT Partners is acting as financial advisor to Astra in connection with this series of transactions.
“In addition to increasing Astra’s total addressable market for launch services, the acquisition of Apollo Fusion accelerates Astra’s ability to efficiently deliver and operate spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit,” said Astra Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Chris Kemp.
“Scale is what makes innovation matter,” said Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock and lead investor in Apollo Fusion. “I’m excited that Apollo Fusion will be a key enabler of Astra’s hyperscale space platform.”
“Propulsion systems open new destinations,” said Apollo Fusion Founder and CEO, Mike Cassidy. “Our team is excited to combine the flexibility of in-space propulsion with the world’s most responsive launch provider.”
In addition to Cassidy, the acquisition brings a team with experience from companies such as Google, Tesla, and SpaceX, with individuals who have developed, designed and manufactured hardware flying on more than 2,000 satellites on-orbit today. This transaction will close after Astra’s business combination with Holicity (NASDAQ: HOL) is completed and is expected to be accretive to revenue starting this year.
Earlier this year, Astra and the Holicity Inc. (NASDAQ: HOL) SPAC announced a definitive business combination agreement that will result in Astra becoming a publicly traded company. The transaction reflects an implied pro-forma enterprise value for Astra of approximately $2.1 billion. Upon closing, the transaction is expected to provide up to $500 million in cash proceeds, including up to $300 million of cash held in the trust account of Holicity and an upsized $200 million PIPE led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
“This transaction takes us a step closer to our mission of improving life on Earth from space by fully funding our plan to provide daily access to low Earth orbit from anywhere on the planet,” said Chris Kemp, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Astra.
“I have long believed space provides an unmatched opportunity to benefit and enrich society,” said Craig McCaw, Chairman and CEO of Holicity. “Astra’s space platform will further improve our communications, help us protect our planet, and unleash entrepreneurs to launch a new generation of services to enhance our lives.”
With more than 50 launches in manifest across more than 10 private and public customers, including NASA and DoD, Astra has booked over $150 million of contracted launch revenue. Astra will begin delivering customer payloads this summer and start monthly launches by the end of this year. Upon the closing of the transaction, the combined company will be named Astra and will be listed on NASDAQ under the symbol “ASTR.”
LeoLabs, Inc. has revealed that the Azores is the location selected for the company’s next space radar. As a strategic addition to LeoLabs expanding global constellation of LEO sensors, the Azores Space Radar will go operational in the first half of 2022.
LeoLabs’ Azores Space Radar investment also reflects alignment with Portugal’s goals at the national and regional levels. The company’s investment in Portugal represents an important addition to LeoLabs’ global radar constellation, and a key element of infrastructure to inform satellite operators, defense, space and regulatory agencies,
“We are very excited about our decision to locate in the Azores,” said Dan Ceperley, CEO and LeoLabs co-Founder. “This is a multi-decade investment on the part of LeoLabs, and a great opportunity for us to support the space sustainability goals of Portugal as they grow their presence in the global space community. It also signals LeoLabs commitment to a long-term presence in Europe. The mission of LeoLabs remains clear: serve the growth of the LEO economy, and ensure the long-term survivability of LEO for future generations. Today we are the only end-to-end supplier of radar infrastructure and services that can execute on this mission. Our global network already produces the world’s largest number of LEO observations, and the Azores Space Radar will build on that and expand our tracking of LEO objects by an additional 25%. This opens our ability to grow our LEO catalogue from tracking 15,000 objects today to a massive 250,000 objects. The Azores Space Radar also adds more timely updates on critical events in LEO, including collisions, breakups, maneuvers, new launches, and re-entries.”
“We welcome LeoLabs to Portugal with the installation of a new space radar in the Azores,” said Ricardo Conde, President of Portugal Space. “LEO has rapidly emerged as a sphere of commercial opportunity for innovators like LeoLabs, and it is important to build infrastructure that allows us to mitigate the risks of increased space debris. The radar will improve mapping and cataloguing services that identify the positioning and dynamics of these objects in LEO and inform our ability to set policies that address risks.”
“We are pleased to welcome this ground-breaking investment by LeoLabs in the Azores,” said Dr. Susete Amaro, Azores Regional Secretary for Culture, Science and Digital Transition. “The Azores Space Radar represents an important contribution to the development of Santa Maria’s space ecosystem. It further validates our Santa Maria Teleport as an innovative model capable of attracting international investment from the space sector. We look forward to a long-term engagement with LeoLabs, and for the Azores to become a bridge to space just as we are a bridge across the Atlantic.”
AAC Clyde Space has received a 135 kUSD order to continue operating the SeaHawk-1 satellite from the company’s Operations Center in Glasgow, Scotland, for a further 12 months.
The satellite, launched in 2018 is part of a partnership between the University of North Carolina Wilmington and NASA, observes the changing biology of the ocean surface and features a compact, multi-spectral camera (HawkEye) developed by Cloudland Instruments. The images captured by the camera are used to analyze the color of the ocean and thus determine the quality of the water.
The satellite is operated from AAC Clyde Space’s Glasgow Operations Center, with instrument data downloaded to NASA Wallops facility, through the satellite’s X-band downlink. The data is integrated into NASA’s SeaWiFS Data Analysis System (SeaDAS) and is distributed worldwide. Initially, Operations will focus on providing free access to all data that has been collected and processed from mid-April 2021 to the International Ocean Color Community. The satellite is expected to produce around 100 images per week. Data generated enables a greater understanding of the marine food chain, oceanic climate, fisheries and pollution phenomena, enabling to support the health and sustainability of our oceans.
SeaHawk-1, a 3U cubesat, is a follow-on mission from the highly successful SeaWiFS (Sea-Viewing Wide field-of-View Sensor) mission, launched in 1997. For more than 20 years, SeaHawk-1 has been able to replicate the performance of the SeaWiFS mission except it is approximately 100 times smaller and lighter and, therefore, more economical, ensuring long term viability of high-quality science missions.
Under agreement with the Moore Foundation, all Hawkeye imagery will be made available free of charge via the NASA Ocean Biology Distributed Active Archive Center (OB.DAAC) on NASA’s Ocean Color Web at https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov which has been extended to handle HawkEye data. In addition, NASA’s free, comprehensive, software package for the processing, display and analysis of ocean color data known as SeaDAS (https://seadas.gsfc.nasa.gov/) has been updated to include the support for HawkEye.
“It has been quite an experience working with Clyde Space on the design, construction, launch, commissioning, and now operations of SeaHawk-1. As our partners at Clyde Space said when we started on this venture, this satellite is arguably one of the most sophisticated 3U Cubesats ever conceived. We have just commissioned a satellite the size of a shoebox that’s travelling at 7.5 km/s, at an altitude of about 600km with a better downlink rate than the broadband into my house providing scientific quality data on ocean ecology,” said John M. Morrison, UNCW Principal Investigator.
“AAC Clyde Space are delighted to continue to support the SeaHawk-1 mission. Academia, government agencies and industry are joining forces like never before to improve environmental surveillance and generate reliable data, filling in the gaps of our understanding for informed decision making. SeaHawk-1 is a prime example of this, Sustained Ocean Color Monitoring is vital to understanding the marine ecosystem and in turn climate change,” said AAC Clyde Space CEO, Luis Gomes.
Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) has been awarded a research and development contract worth up to $30 million by the United States Army (Army) to develop a payload to be hosted on smallsats that support navigation systems, guidance and control for the global positioning system (GPS) and GPS-denied precision systems— the new experimental Iridium payload is intended to be hosted by another LEO commercial satellite constellation, complementing the Iridium® constellation’s capabilities.
Through this contract, the Army intends to develop this payload to support the concept of a rapidly deployable smallsat constellation to provide more effective sensor-to-soldier data transmission when in the field. The development of this new payload is based on Iridium Burst® technology, a service that can transmit data to millions of enabled devices at a time from space.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Iridium have partnered for more than 20 years, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. government subscribers using Iridium push-to-talk (PTT), voice, IoT, L-band broadband and Iridium Burst services. The continuing growth in adoption of Iridium services also brings increased collaboration between the government and Iridium’s ecosystem of partners, that bring their knowledge to help further complement and advance the DoDs SATCOM capabilities. For this contract, Iridium partners Satelles and SEAKR will bring their expertise as subcontractors to assist with development.
This research and development project was enabled through an “Other Transaction Agreement” (OTA) in support of the Army and was entered into between Advanced Technology International (ATI) and Iridium under the authority of the Aviation and Missile Technology Consortium (AMTC). The OTA was developed through the authority of the Department of Defense to carry out these types of prototype projects and to further streamline the process for adopting new technology solutions from various industries.
“Iridium has always been focused on providing innovative, reliable and high-value services to the U.S. warfighter,” said Scott Scheimreif, executive vice president, government programs, Iridium. “This program can help add to warfighter readiness to conduct a full range of military operations at a tactical level. This includes the ability to enhance effectiveness of military units, weapons and equipment during combat against near-peer adversaries.”
“This is one of the largest engineering contracts in Iridium’s history, and we’re pleased to once again bring the value of Iridium and our partner ecosystem to the fore at the request of the United States Army,” said Matt Desch, CEO, Iridium. “It also represents another phase in the evolution of our growing relationship with the DoD, and we’re excited to engage on this experimental multi-constellation adaptation of our service.”
LeoStella, a specialized satellite constellation design and manufacturing company, delivered its first satellite to Loft Orbital Solutions Inc. (Loft Orbital).
LeoStella delivered the “Yet Another Mission-3” (YAM-3) satellite to Cape Canaveral for an upcoming SpaceX launch. The YAM-3 satellite will host a variety of payloads, including a demonstration for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Blackjack program and an Internet of Things (IoT) payload for Eutelsat. The satellite is part of a broader contract to build and integrate satellite buses for several upcoming Loft Orbital missions (see information below).
The delivery of this satellite demonstrates LeoStella’s ability to leverage its continuous manufacturing line of commercial satellites to respond to short-term mission needs. LeoStella’s intelligent manufacturing facility uses a software-defined digital process combined with a robust supply chain to make satellite production more flexible and efficient. The factory is designed to maximize efficiency, turning out up to 40 satellites per year, and is scalable to keep pace with the rapidly accelerating market demand.
“We have built a great partnership with Loft Orbital,” said Brian Rider, chief technology officer at LeoStella. “By pulling satellites off our production line, we are able to tailor them for Loft’s Payload Hub and get them delivered in less than half the time normally required for a satellite build cycle. Loft has a unique approach to ‘Make Space Simple’ for their customers. We are proud to be part of their ecosystem of enabling technologies and processes.”
“We’re excited to leverage LeoStella’s manufacturing capabilities to provide our customers with our in-orbit services,” said Pierre-Damien Vaujour, Loft Orbital co-founder and CEO. “We’ve been impressed by the LeoStella team’s agility and dedication, and we’re looking forward to expanding our partnership for future missions. Now that our Payload Hub is fully compatible with LeoStella’s product, our upcoming missions will be even more reliable and delivered to orbit even faster.”
Original information…
Loft Orbital Solutions Inc. (Loft Orbital) has signed a contract with LeoStella to build and integrate satellite buses for several upcoming Loft Orbital missions.
Under the contract, LeoStella will use their state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, which opened in 2019, to produce multiple satellites, based on ESPA-class buses for use in Loft Orbital’s upcoming missions, including its YAM-3 and YAM-5 satellites. YAM stands for “Yet Another Mission.” These buses will be nearly identical in design to the LeoStella satellite bus product line it has developed for other customers.
Loft Orbital flies customer payloads as a service, handling the entire mission on behalf of its customers while ensuring that the customer remains in control of payload operations. Loft Orbital has developed the hardware and software technologies needed to fly multiple payloads on a common bus design without mission-specific customization.
These technologies allow it to procure satellite buses in advance of knowing the payload configuration of the mission, supporting imagers and cameras, radio frequency sensors, scientific payloads for geophysical research or space science, weather and climate sensors, and specialized sensors focused on national security missions. This approach results in a service that provides unparalleled speed to orbit and reliability for Loft customers.
Loft Orbital’s upcoming missions will fly a variety of customer payloads, including a demonstration for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Blackjack program, multiple Internet of Things (IoT) payloads for Eutelsat as well as a hyperspectral imager for the United Arab Emirates government. Loft Orbital is currently executing several YAM missions scheduled to launch throughout the next 24 months.
Both LeoStella and Loft Orbital are approaching the increasing industry demand with a similar mindset. LeoStella is leveraging its new facility, outfitted with intelligent workstations, connected tools, and unique automated integration and test approaches combined with a robust supply chain to introduce newfound flexibility and efficiency into satellite production.
Loft Orbital has developed the Payload Hub, a modular, hardware and software payload interface unit that enables it to rideshare any payload configuration on a standard satellite bus. The company has also developed the highly automated Cockpit Mission Control System, which enables customers to task their payload without the burden of conducting mission operations.
Executive Comments
“Loft has developed the hardware and software product stack that enables us to fly a wide range of payloads on a standard bus design,” said Pierre-Damien Vaujour, Co-CEO of Loft Orbital. “Leveraging LeoStella’s existing bus architecture and its flexible production facility provides us with a reliable satellite bus twice as fast as any other vendor. That translates into massive value for our customers in the form of a faster schedule and lower program risk because we procure satellites well in advance of manifesting our missions. We couldn’t be more excited for this partnership.”
“Loft’s innovative approach to payload configuration coupled with LeoStella’s rapid manufacturing of high-quality satellites reduces the barrier of access to space,” said Brian Rider, the CTO at LeoStella. “We are excited about this program with Loft as it demonstrates our ability to minimize the cost and reduce the time required to manufacture satellites. The road to space has never been shorter.”
