Archives for April 2022

Synspective Inc. has contracted for a “demonstration project for expanding the use of small SAR satellite constellations” led by Japan’s National Space Policy Secretariat of the Cabinet Office.

In recent years, in the field of remote sensing satellites, there has become an increasing need for smallsat constellations that enable high-frequency imaging — in particular, SAR satellites (radar satellites) that are capable of making observations at night and in any weather conditions. Such smallsats are expected to be used in various fields, such as disaster management, marine monitoring, security, and national land management.

These smallsats have been considered desirable for government agencies; however, at present, the number of satellites is still small in number and it is necessary to build a large number of constellations to meet the demand for timely imaging. In addition, the effectiveness, feasibility and issues of the small SAR satellite constellation have to be to be properly evaluated.

In order to expand the full-scale use of SAR data in domestic ministries and agencies, the National Space Policy Secretariat of the Cabinet Office will lead a project to test small SAR satellite constellations in various administrative fields, and organize and evaluate their effectiveness, feasibility, and issues at an early stage. Furthermore, the project will conduct usage verification in the administrative field for potential usage needs, verify and evaluate effectiveness and feasibility, and sort out any issues that need improvement. Based on the results, Synspective will identify the best approaches for full-scale use in each ministry of the Japanese government to promote future use expansion.

Synspective will set the demonstration theme, carry out the use demonstration with the firm’s small SAR satellite constellation, summarize the results, and report them to the authorities.

The demonstration theme is eight fields in total that include disaster response, infrastructure management and energy. For the demonstration, the company will use their StriX-a smallsat that is currently in operation, StriX-ß that is on-orbit since March of this year) and StriX-1 that is scheduled to be launched within the year.

The company is planning to capture land displacement caused by the river flooding due to heavy rain, earthquakes and landslides. Also to be demonstrated are evaluation and monitoring methods for various infrastructures as well as technical methods that contribute to the promotion of offshore wind energy over a wide-area and highly accurate wind measurement. After conducting use demonstrations in each ministry, Synspective will evaluate the effects on improving operational efficiency and quality and formulate a concrete plan for actual use.

Dr. Motoyuki Arai, Synspective Founder and CEO, said, “Synspective sees this project as a new government-led challenge in Japan, which is in need of sustainable economic development to withstand various disasters. By launching and operating two satellites since its establishment in 2018, Synspective has finally entered the stage of promoting customers’ value creation in their decision-making and business opportunities. Synspective is a leading company for the realization of a sustainable society using satellite data, and we are strongly committed to expanding our contributions from this project to the private sector and to the world.”

Hyperspectral satellite technologies enable environmentally responsible decision-making …

Finnish startup Kuva Space fights climate change with their plans for the world’s most extensive hyperspectral satellite constellation.

The following is an explanation/announcement from Kuva Space:

Humankind faces tough challenges: we need to improve food security and productivity while reducing the associated climate risks. This is possible with the right adaptations, but the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights a gap between regional needs and actions taken – partly due to a lack of reliable information. Finnish space tech startup Kuva Space aims to bridge that gap with its constellation of satellites and Green DataⓇ platform so industries, governments and research institutions can make financially smarter and environmentally responsible decisions. 

Kuva Space plans to build the world’s most extensive hyperspectral constellation of 100 nanosatellites to capture the molecular composition of materials at scale. The company will transform this intricate space-borne data into actionable insights that customers can access via an AI-driven data platform. The company will play a critical role in land and water management, monitoring carbon emissions and measurement of carbon sequestration, and have a noticeable impact in the field of climate action.

“The commercial use of nanosatellites will prove a pivotal moment in our global fight against climate change”, says Jarkko Antila, CEO of Kuva Space. “We’re all aware that urgent action is needed. However, it can be difficult for markets, organisations and other stakeholders to know which actions have the most positive long-term impact. Hyperspectral technologies complement field testing with highly detailed and extensive insights from space. What’s more, they can unlock new applications that were previously unthinkable due to the cost of manual labour required. It’s not surprising the sector is seeing rapid growth, and we’re proud to say that Kuva Space is part of this growth journey.”

“We’ve completed three successful satellite missions and are on track to launch our first commercial hyperspectral satellite in early 2023,” explains Antila. “We’re committed to transforming how industries respond to the urgency of climate change with data that was previously out of reach. Via our Green Data platform, companies can soon take a spaceborne data-driven approach to decision-making to reduce their impact on the climate and safeguard their financial interests. It’s a win-win situation.”

Various industry applications….
Hyperspectral nanosatellite technology solutions open up opportunities for various industry verticals, including carbon sequestration and environmental, safety and security, insurance and finance, precision agriculture and aquaculture.

Carbon management will deliver economic benefits worth 26 trillion US dollars by 2030, with the carbon credit market alone worth more than 50 billion US dollars. Organizations can compensate for their residual CO2 emissions by buying carbon credits on Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCM) but reliable, verifiable and environmentally-robust data is currently lacking. Hyperspectral imaging from space will play a vital role in its development.

“For VCMs to thrive, we must help the market to develop beyond forestry to include other areas, such as agriculture where it’s currently very hard to measure changes in carbon emissions accurately,” adds Antila. “Spaceborne hyperspectral technologies enable the independent supervision of carbon sequestration across forests, oceans and agricultural sectors. More importantly, they will bring much-needed accountability, trust and pricing transparency to the entire market, fuelling its growth.”

“The team at Kuva Space has the knowledge, experience and ambition to build the largest hyperspectral nanosatellite constellation in a relatively short period. It’s exciting to see our market intelligence from space encouraging industries to take more action and implement climate-friendly policies while boosting our collective efforts to create a sustainable and prosperous future for all,” adds Inka Mero, Chairman of the Board at Kuva Space. 

OneWeb and New Space India Limited, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), have entered into an agreement that will help ensure OneWeb completes its satellite launch program. 

The first launch with New Space India is anticipated in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. The launches will add to OneWeb’s total on-orbit constellation of 428 satellites, 66 percent of the planned total fleet, to build a global network that will deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity. 

This launch contract follows a separate agreement between OneWeb and SpaceX to enable the company to resume satellite launches, announced in March 2022. OneWeb has already activated service with its network at the 50th parallel and above, as demand for the company’s broadband connectivity services continues to grow from multiple sectors and markets.

Other terms of the agreement with New Space India are confidential.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, OneWeb Executive Chairman, said, “This is yet another historic day for collaboration in space, thanks to the shared ambition and vision of New Space India and OneWeb. This most recent agreement on launch plans adds considerable momentum to the development of OneWeb’s network, as we work together across the space industry toward our common goal of connecting communities globally.“

Kymeta and OneWeb Technologies have an agreement now in place to distribute reliable, secure, and cost-effective broadband connectivity services to the U.S. government.

The new managed satellite service offering enables Kymeta to provide government customers with hardware solutions that are packaged with secure and resilient network access from OneWeb Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of LEO satellite communications company, OneWeb. Access to broadband connectivity services from this satellite connectivity platform will provide customers with an additional mission-critical connectivity resource, supplementing Kymeta’s existing broadband GEO and 4G cellular service offering.

“The LEO network delivers the low latency, high-speed, and multi-orbit network sought after by the Department of Defense and other government customers,” said Walter Berger, President and Co-CEO, at Kymeta Corporation. “We are pleased to join in this partnership with OneWeb Technologies as we continue to bring advanced solutions across a wide range of applications for defense agencies, government, public safety, and commercial customers around the world that meet the highest levels of security and encryption requirements needed for mission-critical operations.”

“We are focused on meeting and exceeding the demands for resilient end-to-end commercial SATCOM solutions for U.S. government agencies, its allies, and warfighters,” said Bob Roe, CEO, OneWeb Technologies. “The Kymeta u8 product family is designed for rapid deployment and acquires service within minutes of installation for seamless and uninterrupted communications on the move. When paired with our high-speed broadband connectivity solutions, we ensure voice, video, and data communications are available when needed most, no matter the global location.”

Kleos Space S.A (ASX:KSS, Frankfurt:KS1) has confirmed that the first two Patrol Mission satellites (KSF2-C and KSF2-D) were successfully deployed from D-Orbit’s ION Satellite Carrier orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) and contact has been established.

The remaining two Patrol satellites (KSF2-A and KSF3-B) are expected to be deployed into a different orbit from the transfer vehicle in the coming weeks to establish the four satellites’ formation.

D-Orbit’s orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) is a self-propelled satellite deployer. Carrying Kleos’ four Patrol Mission satellites, it was successfully launched into a 500 km. SSO from Cape Canaveral in Florida aboard the SpaceX Transporter-4 mission on April 1st. Kleos’ technical team has established bi-directional communication with the KSF2-C and KSF2-D satellites, and on-orbit system commissioning has commenced.

As all four satellites are deployed from the orbital transfer vehicle, satellite developer Innovative Solutions In Space (ISIPACE) will assist with Launch and Early Operation Phase (LEOP) support, including uploading and testing payload software, re-calibrating the Attitude Determination and Control System (ADCS), and maneuvering the satellites into their operational formation. Improvements to the Patrol Mission’s flight software is expected to significantly reduce commissioning times.

The Patrol Mission expands Kleos’ LEO constellation to 12 satellites and increases radio frequency data collection capability to 253 million km² per day. The cluster features new frequency spectrum capabilities, enabling geolocation of X-Band radar transmissions in the 8500 -9600 MHz range, commonly used for maritime vessel traffic control.

Kleos Space CTO, Vincent Furia, said, “D-Orbit’s orbital transfer vehicle enables us to precisely deploy our nanosatellite cluster into orbit. By deploying pairs of satellites into two slightly different orbital planes, it enables us to establish our four satellites’ formation more quickly, while also saving propellent. Our third satellite cluster almost doubles our constellation’s data collection capability and improves revisit rates over key areas of interest. The Patrol Mission satellites add the ability to geolocate X-Band radar frequencies to further enhance our existing maritime situational awareness capabilities. Our constellation geolocates radio frequency transmissions to improve the detection of illegal activity, providing unprecedented intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities when tracking systems such as AIS have been switched off.”

TransAstra, a provider of orbital logistics and space domain awareness solutions, and ReOrbit, a provider of software defined smallsats for beyond LEO missions, announced they have signed binding contracts for initial spacecraft development and orbital logistics services.

Under these contracts, TransAstra will provide mission definition and engineering analysis for TransAstra ’s Worker Bee orbital transfer vehicles to deliver ReOrbit s customer satellites to LEO, MEO, GEO and Cislunar orbits. In addition, ReOrbit will provide development options under which ReOrbit generates cost, feasibility and integration considerations to complete the production and testing of Worker Bee.

Under a separate Memorandum of Agreement, TransAstra will explore selecting ReOrbit as a preferred provider of microsats and smallsats for certain customer payloads, while ReOrbit will explore selecting TransAstra’s Worker Bee as the preferred supplier of orbital transport vehicle services, including satellite delivery and hosting.

“We are delighted about this revenue generating contract with ReOrbit,” said Joel Sercel, CEO of TransAstra. “This agreement takes us an important step forward in TransAstra ’s leaders hip in providing orbital logistics services throughout cislunar space. We look forward to deepening our partnership with ReOrbit.”

“ReOrbit is very pleased to engage in this contract with TransAstra. The cooperation between both companies will strongly pu sh space technology further. Through this agreement we will be able to demonstrate the versatility of the Gluon platform to adopt to in orbit applications such as orbital transfer vehicles. As a platform provider we continuously look for new opportunities and missions to supply,” said Sethu Saveda Suvanam, the Founder and CEO of ReOrbit.

ReOrbit provides software defined small satellites for MEO and GEO missions to supply the growing societal demand for connectivity and digitization. The company’s vision is to redefine space, through bringing a paradigm shift to the satellite industry by transforming the traditional approach of single use satellites into autonomous, reconfigurable, and networked systems. For this, the company has developed a satellite bus called Gluon, which is based on a payload agnostic design, maximizing service availability and cost effectiveness. By enabling the new generation of space applications, the firm aims to take an integral role in the future development of the space economy.

L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) has been selected by United Launch Alliance (ULA) to provide avionics and communication equipment critical to the launch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper commercial satellites over a five-year period.

ULA will launch the majority of the Project Kuiper satellite constellation to bring high-speed, low-latency broadband service to places not reached by traditional networks.

L3Harris, ULA’s primary launch avionics partner since 2017, will provide communication transmitters, range safety receivers, power distribution and control, data acquisition, flight computers and inertial measurement units. L3Harris has delivered proven launch avionics and services supporting Atlas V and Delta IV; and L3Harris is the primary provider of avionics for ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur rockets through 2027. L3Harris will continue to assist ULA in providing high-performance, affordable launch services and superior solutions for satellite customers.

“This award highlights the longstanding ULA and L3Harris partnership that enables competitive launch services,” said Kristin Houston, President, Electro Optical, L3Harris. “We are proud to be a key team member in the launch of this large-scale commercial satellite project to connect unserved and underserved communities around the world.”

Astra Space, Inc. (“Astra”) (Nasdaq: ASTR) and LeoStella LLC (“LeoStella”) has announced a contract for Astra to provide multiple Astra Spacecraft Engines for LeoStella satellites — Astra is expected to begin delivering the propulsion systems later this year and into 2023.

LeoStella designs and manufactures operational satellites cost effectively and at scale. Astra’s Spacecraft Engine has demonstrated that it can assist satellites in achieving and maintaining target orbits and maneuverability and is expected to be integrated onto a variety of LeoStella’s satellites.

“As demand for small satellites continues to grow, we are always looking for innovative options to provide highly efficient, reliable propulsion for our satellites,” said Tod Byquist, Director of Programs and Supply Chain at LeoStella. “Astra’s Spacecraft Engine has good flight heritage and the performance we need to get our satellites to space on schedule.”

“LeoStella is a pioneering force in constructing critical space infrastructure through a variety of satellite designs,” said Mike Cassidy, VP of Product Management at Astra. “Their vision to deploy reliable, cost-effective satellites aligns closely with Astra’s and demonstrates the innovative forces at work to expand and accelerate access to space.”

Exotrail has officially released the firm’s new, in-space, mobility service which is delivered by their SpaceVan, a unique Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV).

The debut SpaceVan mission will launch onboard a Falcon 9 rideshare mission in October 2023 following a launch service agreement signed between Exotrail and SpaceX.

At least three subsequent missions are planned throughout 2024 onboard multiple different launchers. Deploying constellations over several planes, altitudes and inclinations often means using dedicated launch vehicles which dramatically increase launch costs.

With the SpaceVan mobility service, satellite operators can now quickly and efficiently deploy their constellations over several different planes, altitudes, and inclinations, while still taking advantage of significantly cheaper rideshare vehicles. Exotrail has leveraged its capabilities in flight dynamics, system design and electric propulsion to create an in-space mobility service.

The SpaceVan uses Exotrail’s space proven ExoMG propulsion system which is a key differentiator from its chemical propulsion OTVs counterparts and offers up to 1 km/s of deltaV for a payload capacity of up to 400 kg. The SpaceVan is able to perform a typical constellation plane change maneuver in less than 3 months and a 100 km. change in just two weeks. The SpaceVan has standard connection interfaces which allows both nanosatellites and microsatellites to be deployed, as well as offering hosted payload capability.