On Friday, April 29, at 5:27 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 53 Starlink satellites to LEO from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the sixth flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, and now two Starlink missions.
Due to weather challenges, Rocket Lab is pushing the launch of their “There and Back Again” rideshare mission to no earlier than May 1st, with a launch window of 22:35 – 00:40 UTC / 10:35 – 12:40 NZST, for this rideshare mission for a variety of customers.
This is a recovery mission where — for the first time — Rocket Lab will attempt to capture Electron’s first stage in mid-air by helicopter as it returns to Earth.
The launch will take place from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 Pad A on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
New launch window:
The “There and Back Again” mission will be Rocket Lab’s 26th Electron launch and will deploy 34 satellites to SSO for a variety of customers that include Alba Orbital, Astrix Astronautics, Aurora Propulsion Technologies, E-Space, Spaceflight Inc., and Unseenlabs, bringing the total number of satellites launched by Electron to 146.
“There And Back Again” is also a recovery mission where, for the first time, Rocket Lab will attempt a mid-air capture of Electron’s first stage as it returns from space using parachutes and a helicopter.
Like previous recovery missions, Electron’s first stage will undertake a series of complex maneuvers designed to enable it to survive the extreme heat and forces of atmospheric re-entry. Electron will be equipped with a heat shield to help protect the stage’s nine Rutherford engines and a parachute to slow Electron down in order for Rocket Lab’s customized Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to catch the stage as it returns.
Upon success of this recovery, Electron will be one step closer to being the first reusable orbital small sat launcher.
A live webcast will be available approximately 20 minutes prior to the target T-0 time at this direct link…
An attempt will be made to provide a live view of the catch from the helicopter; however, due to the remote location where the capture will take place, Rocket Lab does expect some video loss.
Satellite operator Prométhée has contracted mission integrator NanoAvionics to build the first smallsat for the French company’s planned constellation of Earth Observation (EO) smallsats and image analysis platform. “ProtoMéthée-1” will be based on NanoAvionics’ flight-proven 16U nanosatellite bus, M16P.
In addition to the satellite with onboard camera and propulsion, NanoAvionics will also provide Prométhée with full mission services – testing, integration, launch, licensing, and initial satellite operations. The “ProtoMéthée-1” satellite is intended to be launched toward the end of 2023 into LEO. The company’s service demonstrator will be based on a high revisit rate constellation (20 times more passes per day) and offering hyper-reactivity through inter-constellation connectivity.
The aim of France’s Prométhée, located in Paris and Toulouse, is to bring less expensive space applications to emerging countries, in particular to Latin America and Africa. The company recently raised 4.7 million euros after a first fundraising in September of 2020 of 2.2 million euros that was achieved through business angels, financials and three companies specialized in the space industry, Hemeria, Comat and ADF.
The possible applications resulting from Prométhée’s satellite data and digital platform range from forest fire detection to water management, food security, urban planning, desertification control, crisis management, critical infrastructure protection and defence.
Olivier Piepsz, president of Prométhée, said, “NanoAvionics is one of the most innovative European space companies with an excellent flight heritage. Leaving the manufacturing of our first satellite as well as launch services and operations in their capable hands, Prométhée will soon become France’s leading NewSpace operator for Earth Observation. It is our intention to keep innovating through new space explorations and new uses, while at the same time strengthening France’s resilience through space and digital sovereignty among the space fairing nations.”
Vytenis J. Buzas, CEO, NanoAvionics, said, “The French NewSpace market, based on the country’s space heritage and bold space technology development policies is one of the most active in the world. We are proud to be supplying small satellite technologies to household names, such as Thales Alenia Space, as well as partnering with promising and rising stars such as Prométhée, Gama Space, and ExoTrail among others. The recent mission contract with Prométhée shows our continued fast-paced business growth and further advancement into the French market. In line with our existing engagement with French NewSpace companies, growing the business and to further improve our customer service, we will be exploring different opportunities to establish a NanoAvionics base in the country. 2022 has already been another exciting year for NanoAvionics and the remaining months are looking very promising. Following the six satellite launches on Transporter-3 and 4 including our MP42, one of the first commercially available modular microsatellite buses in the industry, we intend to launch nine more satellites this year and will be announcing more new mission contracts in the coming months.”
Cosmic Shielding Corporation (Cosmic Shielding), a leading space radiation management company and creator of Plasteel
technology, has an agreement with European, in-space, manufacturing tech start-up Space Forge to test Cosmic Shielding’s radiation shielding technology aboard Space Forge’s new small class vehicle.
The ForgeStar-0 will be launching on Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne this summer from Spaceport Cornwall.
Space Forge recently announced that, along with partners, it is developing a world-first service incorporating launch and return of a new small class of vehicle – the ForgeStar – that can be deployed from conventional launchers to provide rapid, reliable and reusable in-space infrastructure.
This initial mission from Cornwall is an opportunity for Space Forge to test key elements of their return technology and Cosmic Shielding will send a small sample of their revolutionary, patented radiation shielding composite called Plasteel to confirm the survivability of the composite while exposed to the harsh environment of space.
This will be Cosmic Shielding’s first orbital test of the company’s proprietary advanced composite, which is based on materials tested by NASA SRAG. Plasteel has structural properties exceeding traditional alloys used in spacecraft, with shielding properties superior to water and is lighter, cheaper, and easy to manufacture.
A small sample of 3D printed Plasteel composite will be mounted to ForgeStar-0 and exposed to the harsh environment of space. Cameras will be used to monitor the sample and look for any degradation over time with a planned duration of at least nine months in LEO. As part of this mission, Space Forge will also be testing the deployment of their future low cost return technology, ready for a re-entry and landing test on the ForgeStar-1 next year.
“This inaugural mission is a big step forward for us and we are excited that we will not only be trialing our own technology but working with Cosmic Shielding to confirm the survivability of Plasteel in space,” said Andrew Bacon, CTO and Co-founder of Space Forge. “Radiation protection is one of the big challenges for space technology and we are delighted to be using our ForgeStar platforms for research into new solutions.”
“We’re thrilled to have Cosmic Shielding on our first mission,” said Joshua Western, CEO and Co-founder of Space Forge. “Their mission to increase the longevity of space systems with this revolutionary technology mirrors our drive to both increase access to space alongside return and reuse of spacecraft. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with innovative companies like Cosmic Shielding who are at the forefront of the industry.”
“Our ultimate goal is to make the space industry more sustainable, cost effective, and safer, which is why we say we are working to build a better frontier,” said Yanni Barghouty, co-founder and CEO of Cosmic Shielding. “If we are going to be successful with in-space manufacturing in the future, streamlined logistics are imperative. Having a single, multifunctional composite, like Plasteel, makes building in space or extreme environments much simpler, cheaper, and safer. We are very confident that the Plasteel sample will perform well in this initial test with Space Forge and are eager to see the technology in space, which is a very important step in our continued growth towards building entire space structures, like factories in space, from this composite in the future.”
Cosmic Shielding plans to modernize the way spacecraft are manufactured by making them safer, cheaper, faster, and less complex to build. When integrated in spacecraft, Plasteel provides complete micrometeoroids and orbital debris protection and protection from radiation for sensitive components and people. Furthermore, combining the material cost savings and 3D printed manufacturing process, Cosmic Shielding’s Plasteel spacecraft will be manufactured and delivered in approximately one week following order, cost up to 50 percent less than traditional aluminum satellite structures, and offer tremendous environmental benefits.
“Having a long-term reduction of waste in orbit is not possible without proper shielding,” added Barghouty. “Manufacturing spacecraft from safer, stronger materials in combination with advancements in on-orbit servicing technology will help us move away from the idea that satellites are disposable, creating a more sustainable space ecosystem.”
This mission is an example of the collaborative relationship between growing commercial space companies in the US and UK. It is also an historic moment for UK space, as the ForgeStar-0 is the first satellite to be built in Wales and will also be launched from the country’s first, domestic spaceport; Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay.
Cosmic Shielding Corporation (Cosmic Shielding) is the leading space radiation management company and creator of the world’s first multifunctional shielding polymer (MSP) Plasteel technology designed to radically extend spacecraft operational life, reduce operational costs, and protect people in space. Founded by world leading scientists from NASA and ESA, with 90 years of combined experience tackling the challenges of space radiation, Cosmic Shielding aims to build a future where humans can live and work as safely in space, as we do on Earth today.
Space Forge Ltd is a UK start-up on a mission to lead the clean industrial revolution by harnessing space. The company is developing fully returnable satellites that are designed for manufacturing next generation super materials in-space. In creating a reliable return, Space Forge will advance the expansion of the microgravity market for premium research and development applications by lowering the barriers to entry. The company is focused on R&D initiatives where dedicated return from the space environment can add a significant benefit, or overcome obstacles found terrestrially, to unlock new value and innovation.
Due to weather challenges, Rocket Lab is pushing the launch of their “There and Back Again” rideshare mission to April 29 UTC / April 30 NZST when the weather is looking far more favorable for this event, according to a company Tweet.
Rocket Lab is targeting no earlier than 22:35, Friday April 29, UTC (10:35 am, Saturday April 30, NZST) for the launch of ‘There and Back Again,’ a rideshare mission for a variety of customers.
This is a recovery mission where — for the first time — Rocket Lab will attempt to capture Electron’s first stage in mid-air by helicopter as it returns to Earth.
The launch will take place from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 Pad A on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
A two-hour, five-minute window has been allocated for launch.
Launch Window:
There are launch back up opportunities through the end of April and early May, should such be needed to stand down for any reason.
The “There and Back Again” mission will be Rocket Lab’s 26th Electron launch and will deploy 34 satellites to SSO for a variety of customers that include Alba Orbital, Astrix Astronautics, Aurora Propulsion Technologies, E-Space, Spaceflight Inc., and Unseenlabs, bringing the total number of satellites launched by Electron to 146.
“There And Back Again” is also a recovery mission where, for the first time, Rocket Lab will attempt a mid-air capture of Electron’s first stage as it returns from space using parachutes and a helicopter.
Like previous recovery missions, Electron’s first stage will undertake a series of complex maneuvers designed to enable it to survive the extreme heat and forces of atmospheric re-entry. Electron will be equipped with a heat shield to help protect the stage’s nine Rutherford engines and a parachute to slow Electron down in order for Rocket Lab’s customized Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to catch the stage as it returns.
Upon success of this recovery, Electron will be one step closer to being the first reusable orbital small sat launcher.
A live webcast will be available approximately 20 minutes prior to the target T-0 time at this direct link…
An attempt will be made to provide a live view of the catch from the helicopter; however, due to the remote location where the capture will take place, Rocket Lab does expect some video loss.
Rocket Lab is targeting no earlier than 22:35, Friday April 29, UTC (10:35 am, Saturday April 30, NZST) for the launch of ‘There and Back Again,’ a rideshare mission for a variety of customers.
This is a recovery mission where — for the first time — Rocket Lab will attempt to capture Electron’s first stage in mid-air by helicopter as it returns to Earth.
The launch will take place from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 Pad A on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
A two-hour, five-minute window has been allocated for launch.
Launch Window:
There are launch back up opportunities through the end of April and early May, should such be needed to stand down for any reason.
The “There and Back Again” mission will be Rocket Lab’s 26th Electron launch and will deploy 34 satellites to SSO for a variety of customers that include Alba Orbital, Astrix Astronautics, Aurora Propulsion Technologies, E-Space, Spaceflight Inc., and Unseenlabs, bringing the total number of satellites launched by Electron to 146.
“There And Back Again” is also a recovery mission where, for the first time, Rocket Lab will attempt a mid-air capture of Electron’s first stage as it returns from space using parachutes and a helicopter.
Like previous recovery missions, Electron’s first stage will undertake a series of complex maneuvers designed to enable it to survive the extreme heat and forces of atmospheric re-entry. Electron will be equipped with a heat shield to help protect the stage’s nine Rutherford engines and a parachute to slow Electron down in order for Rocket Lab’s customized Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to catch the stage as it returns.
Upon success of this recovery, Electron will be one step closer to being the first reusable orbital small sat launcher.
A live webcast will be available approximately 20 minutes prior to the target T-0 time at this direct link…
An attempt will be made to provide a live view of the catch from the helicopter; however, due to the remote location where the capture will take place, Rocket Lab does expect some video loss.
Kleos Space (ASX: KSS, Frankfurt: KS1) has announced that the company is diversifying their business model to include Mission-as-a-Service (MaaS) capability, providing customers with exclusive access to Kleos’ dedicated, on-orbit, radio frequency reconnaissance satellite clusters for fixed periods of time and capacity.
Each Mission-as-a-Service contract will be tailored to suit the customer requirements and needs including on the percent of satellite capacity needed, level of taskability required and corresponding data rights.
Kleos’ additional product offer caters to growing market demand and complements its existing DaaS business model, which delivers geolocated RF activity over areas of interest to multiple government and commercial subscribers.
Kleos Space CEO, Andy Bowyer, said, “Our discussions with government departments, national security agencies and commercial entities have highlighted a growing need for a dedicated mission capability, including unrestricted access and utilization of sensor outputs. Our new Mission-as-a-Service offering delivers that capability to customers at a revenue level that achieves our targets without the ramp up period.
“Unlike our DaaS business model, which will continue to build, where multiple customers access the same commercial dataset, MaaS is tailored to meet the need of specific ISR requirements of an individual customer mission. As our constellation grows, we will offer a combination of DaaS data sets enabling the opportunity to monetize the high volume, low value contract market and MaaS offering to deliver dedicated, high value contract opportunities. This blend of offering reflects the balance of needs between the commercial and non-commercial customer we have witnessed developing over the last few years.”
Kleos’ constellation roadmap includes the deployment of new clusters in a short timeframe, increasing accuracy, improving latency and supporting a range of intelligence, defence, security, and commercial missions through enhanced situational awareness. Kleos is targeting as many as 20 satellite clusters for optimal global coverage for its DaaS and MaaS offerings.
Another exciting day at Planet as the company unveils details about their nex-gen satellite constellation, Pelican, designed to efficiently capture brief and rapidly changing events as they unfold.
The Pelican constellation was designed in-house and is expected to be built at the firm’s manufacturing facility in San Francisco. The advancements of this brand new constellation represent a leap forward in capabilities for the firm’s customers — from higher revisit and higher spatial resolution, to faster data access and delivery.
Pelican is expected to start launch activities early next year and will consist of the following specifications:
This next-generation constellation is expected to monitor patterns of life, such as shifting political borders and changing coastlines, and help characterize drivers of environmental change that are threatening protected ecosystems. Planet hopes these exciting product advancements will provide customers across global industries and governments with the ability to respond to global events with more speed and better informed insights.
With such revisit capacity, users should be able to capture transitory events occurring in one location, increasing their likelihood of obtaining a high quality image even during unpredictable or cloudy weather. These new rapid and accurate insights will be particularly valuable for monitoring regions with fleeting events, such as unstable conflict zones or areas vulnerable to storms and fires that spread rapidly over space and time.
The company is currently seeing strong and growing demand from multiple market segments for real-time data from their high-resolution products, including the defense sector for security intelligence, civil government for disaster response and software companies for mapping platforms. Pelican was designed to meet these growing needs as a state-of-the-art rapid revisit and very high resolution satellite system, delivering information faster and more accurately.
Global customers are able to use both of the firm’s satellite system products – the PlanetScope monitoring and SkySat tasking – in combination, to execute tip and cue strategies and design automated alert systems. Thus, Planet designed Pelican to leverage and advance on that interoperability so the company can continue to pioneer unique and comprehensive datasets to answer customers’ questions. Combined with a full suite of daily, global monitoring data and analytics solutions, Pelican believes they will help drive critical decision-making for aid organizations, businesses, international NGOs, and governments.
“We are seeing strong and growing demand from multiple market segments for our high resolution products today. We have designed our next generation ‘Pelican’ fleet to meet the evolving needs of customers who want real-time information about global events as they unfold – from floods and wildfires to political conflicts and threats to human rights. Pelican’s rapid response and higher resolution will do exactly that,” said Planet Co-Founder and CEO, Will Marshall.
Warfighters depend on high-frequency (HF) radio transmissions to operate military systems across the space, air, ground and maritime domains.
Current understanding of how HF waves propagate through the electromagnetically noisy ionosphere typically depends on ground-based methods. To more accurately understand HF propagation in space requires scientific measurements taken from within the ionosphere itself.
DARPA’s new Ouija program aims to use sensors on low-orbiting satellites to provide new insights into HF radio wave propagation in the ionosphere, which spans the upper edges of the Earth’s atmosphere to the lower regions of space. The program seeks to quantify the space HF noise environment and improve characterization of the ionosphere to support warfighter capabilities.
The program includes two technical areas. The first technical area, announced in a solicitation issued on April 21, 2022, seeks to develop, qualify, launch, and operate multiple small satellites carrying scientific and mission instrumentation. The Ouija scientific payload will measure electron density by both direct sampling and indirectly via radio occultation using navigation satellites. It is anticipated that the scientific payload will use or adapt Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components, but innovative instrumentation proposals that enhance the functionality of the scientific payload over a COTS baseline are welcome.
The second technical area, which will be fully detailed in a separate solicitation at a later date, aims to develop assimilative models that ingest direct, in-situ, measurements of electron density from a satellite in Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEO). The derived electron density models will be fed into HF propagation code and then validated with data measured on-orbit. The goal is to improve fidelity over current state-of-the-art assimilative models by incorporating high resolution (in time and space) local measures with low latency updates.
Ouija employs a simplified Other Transactions (OT) process aimed at lowering the bureaucratic barrier for companies to make proposals, especially those seeking to work with DoD or DARPA for the first time.
The solicitation for Ouija Technical Area 1, including full technical details, program structure, and instructions for submitting a proposal, is available at this direct link...
“Ouija will augment ground-based measurements with in-situ measurements from space, in very low- Earth orbit (VLEO), to develop and validate accurate, near real-time HF propagation predictions,” said Jeff Rogers, Ouija program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office. “The VLEO altitude regime, approximately 200 km – 300 km above Earth, is of particular interest due to its information-rich environment where ionospheric electron density is at a maximum. Fine-grained knowledge of the spatial-temporal characteristics of electron density at these altitudes is required for accurate HF propagation prediction.”
Rogers continued, “The HF mission payload will require a high sensitivity, high dynamic range, low noise HF measurement subsystem. The antenna for this subsystem is a particular challenge, as efficient HF antennas that operate at the lower end of the frequency band are long, presenting deployment and space vehicle drag challenges.”
Orbital Insight has partnered with Satellogic (NASDAQ: SATL) and the company’s will integrate the latter’s high-frequency, high-resolution collections of satellite imagery and full-motion video (FMV) into the Orbital Insight platform and offer customers better access to high quality data, improve the revisit rate and reduce the cost of running analytics.
Satellogic is a vertically integrated company that designs, manufactures and operates its own constellation of EO smallsats, with 22 operational satellites in LEO and with plans to launch as many as 12 additional satellites by the close of the year. The company aims to expand its constellation to more than 200 satellites by 2025 for daily global coverage of the entire surface of the Earth.
Orbital Insight‘s flagship GO platform combines information from the world’s sensors—including satellite, AIS and IoT devices—to analyze economic, societal and environmental trends at scale and support activity-based intelligence. Commercial businesses and government agencies use the self-service platform to synthesize answers to critical questions about what’s happening on and to the Earth.
Satellogic will provide high-resolution EO data at vastly superior unit economics. This will allow Orbital Insight customers to increase the number of daily revisits on points of interest, see a more granular picture and get deep insights that were not possible before.
“Advanced geospatial analytics require access to high-resolution, high-frequency satellite imagery and simple tasking,” said Kevin O’Brien, CEO at Orbital Insight. “Satellogic is disrupting the industry with a cost-effective, vertically integrated business model. This approach aligns well with our philosophy of making geospatial intelligence efficient, intuitive, and simple so that our customers can get timely insights, make critical decisions, and respond faster.”
“Our mission is to enable greater access to critical Earth Observation data. Working with Orbital Insight extends our reach, making our data available to more customers across diverse fields who need to know how the world around them is changing,” said Emiliano Kargieman, CEO and Co-Founder of Satellogic.
Orbital Insight Orbital Insight is the geospatial software and analytics company that helps organizations understand what’s happening on and to the Earth. Customers including Unilever, Airbus, RBC Capital Markets, The World Bank, and the U.S. Department of Defense use Orbital Insight’s self-service analytics platform to make smarter business decisions, build sustainable supply chains, and improve national security.
