Archives for November 2022

Sidus Space, Inc. (NASDAQ:SIDU) has signed an agreement with Dawn Aerospace (“Dawn”) to implement the latter’s green, chemical propulsion technology into the company’s LizzieSat smallsat.

Among the novel characteristics of Sidus Space’s proprietary LizzieSat is that its size allows Sidus to include propulsion and provide precision pointing and maneuvering otherwise not available to smaller cubesats. Additionally, propulsion provides a longer life on-orbit and that means continued data transfer and revenue opportunity. Each LizzieSat is 100 kg. with approximately 20 kg. dedicated to payloads including remote sensing instruments. The larger mass also allows design for redundancy and reliability into the spacecraft.

Dawn is a space transportation company, specializing in non-toxic chemical satellite propulsion and sustainable space launch. Dawn has provided in-space propulsion products – used to propel satellites – to customers globally since 2019.

“We are excited to partner with Dawn Aerospace on this important feature for our LizzieSat constellation. We believe Dawn’s turnkey propulsion technology will allow us to extend our time in orbit and deliver on our future value proposition of providing space-based data to a multitude of industries,” said Carol Craig, Sidus Space Founder and CEO.

“We look forward to partnering with Sidus Space to enable propulsion for their missions,” said Jeroen Wink, Dawn Co-founder. “Sidus is one of many customers we are providing propulsion to as demand for space products and services continues to grow.”

Sidus Space (NASDAQ: SIDU), located in Cape Canaveral, Florida, operates from a 35,000-square-foot manufacturing, assembly, integration, and testing facility focused on commercial satellite design, manufacture, launch, and data collection. The company’s rich heritage includes the design and manufacture of many flight and ground component parts and systems for various space-related customers and programs. Sidus Space has a broad range of Space-As-a-Service offerings including space-rated hardware manufacturing, design engineering, satellite manufacturing and platform development, launch and support services, data analytics services and satellite constellation management.

Dawn Aerospace’s mission is to enable the next generation of space users by providing dramatically more scalable and sustainable ways to access and move around in space. It is now a leading supplier of turnkey green propulsion systems for NanoSat, MicroSat, ESPA, and ESPA Grande-class satellites. Dawn is also active in reusable launch vehicle development, with an active test flight program of the Mk-II Aurora spaceplane demonstrator, with 30+ flights completed.

Spire Global, Inc. has been awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to deliver a preliminary design for a satellite that would carry an array of sensors to Very Low Earth orbit (VLEO) for in-situ ionosphere measurements.

The award is part of DARPA’s Ouija program, which aims to use sensors on satellites to provide new insights into high-frequency (HF) radio wave propagation in the ionosphere, the area spanning 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 novel HF capabilities.

DARPA’s award uses Spire’s Space Services model, which offers organizations fast and scalable access to space through a subscription model that eliminates the high upfront cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in space. Organizations can leverage Spire’s established space, ground, and web infrastructure to deploy and operate a constellation of satellites, a hosted payload, or a software application in space. Spire handles the end-to-end management, from manufacturing to launch to satellite operations, and the customer operates the system through a web API.

Recently, the company was also awarded a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) contract for its Space Services to develop a sensor with hyperspectral microwave sensing technology on a 16U satellite to collect near real-time weather observations and improve measurements.

“Spire is proud to be supporting DARPA’s efforts to advance our understanding of the ionosphere. Spire has built and launched over 150 satellites in the decade since the company was founded, and we’re excited to bring that heritage and experience in ionospheric data collection to this project,” said Kamal Arafeh, Senior Vice President of Sales, Spire. “For innovative programs like Ouija, the Space Services model provides a fast and cost-effective platform to build and scale new technology in space.”

Spire (NYSE: SPIR) is a leading global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, offering access to unique datasets and powerful insights about Earth from the ultimate vantage point so that organizations can make decisions with confidence, accuracy, and speed. Spire uses one of the world’s largest multipurpose satellite constellations to source hard to acquire, valuable data and enriches it with predictive solutions. Spire then provides this data as a subscription to organizations around the world so they can improve business operations, decrease their environmental footprint, deploy resources for growth and competitive advantage, and mitigate risk. Spire gives commercial and government organizations the competitive advantage they seek to innovate and solve some of the world’s toughest problems with insights from space. Spire has offices in San Francisco, Boulder, Washington DC, Ontario, Glasgow, Oxfordshire, Luxembourg, and Singapore.

NorthStar Earth & Space‘s first three of the firm’s constellation of 24 satellites dedicated to commercial Space Situational Awareness (SSA) will be among the payloads carried by Spire Global’s satellites to be launched by Virgin Orbit — the launch is scheduled for mid-2023.

NorthStar will be the first to monitor all near-Earth orbits from space, delivering an enhanced level of SSA services to the global satellite community, with timely and precise information for resident space object detection, tracking, orbit determination, collision avoidance, navigation and proximity alerts.

“NorthStar is proud to join forces with both Spire Global and Virgin Orbit for this historic first launch, as part of a vibrant community committed to advancing innovation in the service of space sustainability and the secure growth of the space economy,” said Stewart Bain, CEO and Founder of NorthStar Earth & Space. “NorthStar is committed to making a meaningful contribution to the peaceful and sustainable use of space. We deliver valuable information that enhances the detection and precision tracking of space objects across all near-Earth orbits to support sustainability, greater safety, and confidence in space operations.”

“Virgin Orbit is delighted to play a role in this ground-breaking mission,” said Virgin Orbit CEO, Dan Hart. “The proliferation of space debris and emerging threats in orbit necessitate responsive space domain awareness via space-based platforms. By working with NorthStar and Spire to deploy this innovative technology to a precise, targeted orbit via our proven LauncherOne system, we are fulfilling Virgin Orbit’s role as an affordable responsive space provider.“

“We’re proud that NorthStar is leveraging our Space Services model and established space, ground, and web infrastructure to rapidly deploy its constellation, which is critical to tackling the pressing issue of space debris and delivering fundamental information for satellite operators,” added Joel Spark, Co-Founder and General Manager, Space Services, Spire.

NorthStar seeks to empower humanity to preserve our planet through a unique Space and Earth information & intelligence platform using space-based satellite systems. NorthStar strives to help transform the way governments, industry, and institutions assess risk, enforce regulations and make decisions to foster the sustainable development of our Earth and Space environment. NorthStar’s transformational space-based commercial Space Situational Awareness services address many of the critical and immediate challenges facing all satellite operators. Striving to improve the prospect of space sustainability, NorthStar will deliver more frequent and precise observations of resident space objects than any current system. NorthStar generates its Space Information & Intelligence services through a suite of high-speed, decision-quality information services derived from its unparalleled coverage, object custody, and enhanced predictive analytics.

Advanced Space LLC. has completed its fourth trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) for CAPSTONE — TCM-4 was the fourth of six planned maneuvers en route to the Moon, targeting the precise orbit for the CAPSTONE demonstration. This follows the restoration of the spacecraft’s capabilities as it has recovered from the anomaly that occurred after TCM-3. CAPSTONE is just two weeks away as of this writing from arrival at the Moon.

The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, CAPSTONE, spacecraft mission will test the lunar Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) that is the intended orbit for Gateway, a lunar space station that will support NASA’s Artemis program, making CAPSTONE the first milestone launch of the Artemis program.

The primary mission is planned for at least six months of operations orbiting the Moon, with enhanced mission opportunities in the following 12 months. CAPSTONE has already contributed insights with shared navigation and operational data to the Artemis I rideshare payloads that will assist them in their mission operations.

Recently, the Deep Space Network (DSN) performed a test with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to confirm that LRO could receive and return the signal CAPSTONE will be using to interact with the spacecraft as part of the CAPS software demonstrations once it arrives at the Moon.

CAPSTONE launched on June 28th and is a 12U, 55-pound cubesat built by Terran Orbital. Using a fuel-efficient, Ballistic Lunar Transfer (BLT) method, CAPSTONE’s journey from launch to lunar orbit is a total of four months. A key feature of the BLT is that the mission operations and commissioning have the time during transit to evaluate performance and complete thorough check-out of systems before arriving at the Moon. As expected, the cruise thus far has focused on preparing the spacecraft for its mission at the Moon.

“The CAPSTONE team at Advanced Space, Terran Orbital, and their partners has shown great resilience over the past several weeks. Now, as CAPSTONE approaches lunar orbit, we are looking forward to getting into more of the technology demonstrations that are part of this mission and gathering operational data with the spacecraft in orbit at the Moon,” said Christopher Baker, program executive for the Small Spacecraft Technology program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “CAPSTONE is a great example of the work we can do with our commercial partners, small businesses, and small spacecraft.“

“This TCM confirms the preparation, extensive analysis, teams working together and continued hard work to allow this mission to remain successful, especially following the recent anomaly,” said Alec Forsman, Systems Engineering Lead and Mission Operations Manager for CAPSTONE at Advanced Space. “Every activity provides many lessons learned before our arrival at the Moon. These experiences better prepare the team for lunar operations.”

Some numbers from the TCM include:

• Maneuver telemetry shows that the spacecraft propulsion system fired for the nominal duration of approximately 220 seconds.

• At the time of maneuver execution, the spacecraft was approximately 308,076 miles or 495,800 km from the Earth (~14 times further than the GEO belt and ~69,200 miles or 111,400 km further than the Moon).

• CAPSTONE has been flying solo in space for more than 100 days (125 days since launch, 119 days since separation).

A primary mission objective is to demonstrate autonomous spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation services that will allow future spacecraft to determine their location in space without relying exclusively on tracking from Earth. This technology was developed by Advanced Space and is called CAPS, the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System.

“What is amazing about this team at Advanced Space is how they execute. CAPSTONE is one of the many important projects that we have delivered successfully to our customers,” said Tom Gardner, Director of Engineering and Program Manager for CAPSTONE. “We have the great fortune of working with interplanetary projects to Mars and other planets, on AI in space, XGEO Awareness, and other novel space technologies. Each team member ensures success with them all and the interdependencies become a benefit to our customers and our industry as a whole.”