Archives for March 2023

UPDATE 2: SpaceX is targeting no earlier than Saturday, April 1 for a Falcon 9 launch of the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 0 mission to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

UPDATE: Orders came, “Abort, abort, abort,” as the Tranche 0 launch scrubbed at T-3.
SpaceX is now targeting Friday, March 31 at 7:29 a.m. PT (14:29 UTC) for a Falcon 9 launch of the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 0 mission to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The next launch attempt is set for early Thursday. The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched one Starlink mission. Following stage separation, the first stage will land on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The space vehicles launched during this mission will serve a part of SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a new layered network of satellites in low-Earth orbit and supporting elements that will provide global military communication and missile warning, indication, and tracking capabilities.

A live webcast of this mission will begin about 15 minutes prior to liftoff.

Previously:
SpaceX is targeting Thursday, March 30th., at 7:29 a.m., PT, (14:29 UTC) for a Falcon 9 launch of the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 0 mission to LEO from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Friday, March 31st., at the same time.

The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched one Starlink mission.

Following stage separation, the first stage will land on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg SFB.

The space vehicles launched during this mission will serve a part of SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a new layered network of satellites in LEO and supporting elements that will provide global military communication and missile warning, indication, and tracking capabilities.

A live webcast of this mission will begin about 15 minutes prior to liftoff … watch via this direct link…

Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) has signed an agreement to acquire the business of Holding Sinergise d.o.o. (“Sinergise”), a developer platform for Earth Observation (EO) data.

By reducing the complexity of analysis and insights extraction, as well as the cost of EO data storage, Planet aims to continue expanding into new vertical markets with products and applications where EO data is highly relevant such as agriculture, civil government, insurance, financial markets, and sustainable supply chain management.

Sinergise’s technology powers the European Union-backed Sentinel Hub, an advanced, API-driven, cloud streaming platform that allows customers to access multi-source EO data for processing, analysis, and insight extraction. Planet and Sinergise have been partners since 2016 and this acquisition reinforces that making EO data more accessible and actionable to decision makers is critical to businesses and governments.

Planet expects this acquisition to lower the barriers for current and new Planet customers to access and act on EO data. The addition of Sinergise’s platform capabilities is expected to further enable customers to more easily extract insights from various sources of satellite data and partners to build their own applications on top of Planet’s platform to gain additional value from EO data.

Sinergise’s Sentinel Hub enables businesses, governments, and farmers to transform their management practices and report their sustainable impact. These data sources and distribution services allow governments and agricultural companies to visualize and analyze a variety of data products at an unprecedented speed. The European Space Agency (ESA) recognizes the importance of innovative technologies and awareness of EO-based services, and has facilitated easy access to Planet data in Sentinel Hub.

The transaction is expected to close during Q2 of Planet’s current fiscal year and is subject to certain closing conditions. This will be Planet’s sixth acquisition (BlackBridge group of companies in 2015, Terra Bella business from Google in 2017, Boundless Spatial, Inc. in 2019, VanderSat B.V. in 2021, and Salo Sciences, Inc. in 2023).

“The technology at Sinergise is first class. Our integration with Sentinel Hub will meaningfully accelerate our Earth Data Platform plans, in particular by lowering barriers to access for EO data expanding the market, and by allowing partners to quickly and easily build applications, lowers the time to value creation. Furthermore, this acquisition underscores our strong commitment to investing in Europe, and building and enabling the downstream market ecosystem there.” — Will Marshall, CEO and co-founder of Planet

“We are thrilled to integrate our technologies to together build a powerful Earth Data Platform to unlock the full potential for EO data. Partnering with Planet over the years has inspired us to accelerate the adoption of EO driven applications at scale.” — Grega Milcinski, co-founder of Sinergise

Plan-S, Turkey’s leading, private initiative in the satellite and space technologies industry, took a selfie from space (see image above, courtesy of the company) of their Connecta satellite.

Türkiye’s fast-growing space company was established in 2021 and completed its first satellite, Connecta T1.1, within eight months after the company’s establishment and launched it with SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter 5 Mission.

The second satellite of Plan-S, Connecta T1.2, is a test platform in the company’s roadmap toward direct-to-satellite, IoT connectivity solution This satellite, which was developed and integrated within 5 months, has a software-defined radio (SDR) as an IoT payload. All development, integration, and qualification processes of Connecta T1.2 are completed by Plan-S Team. The main purpose of Plan-S is to test IoT waveform designs using this in-orbit test platform. As a special surprise, Plan-S Team also added a selfie-cam payload, making it the first selfie-cam Earth Observation (EO) for Turkish space industry.

The successful launch of Plan-S’s two satellites is a major step forward for the space industry in Türkiye’s and beyond. In near future, the third satellite, Connecta T2.1, will be launched by SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter 7 Mission and is a 6U satellite with high-resolution EO and on-board processing payloads. Connecta T2.1 is a test platform using Dragonfly Aerospace Caiman multi-spectral camera and satellite subsystems of Plan-S. Connecta T2.1 will be the first step toward having a constellation of many satellites in LEO with high-resolution multispectral cameras. Moreover, this will be a major step for Plan-S to combine its satellite-based IoT solutions with EO data. 

Plan-S is a satellite-IoT service provider in Turkey and will be covering Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for sectors that include transport, finance, energy, meteorology, aviation, and agriculture.

BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) successfully commissioned two new satellites that began revenue-generating commercial operations within 18 hours of “The Beat Goes On” launch mission.

BlackSky’s first-of-a-kind, commercial constellation provides reliable and dynamic hourly monitoring, as many as 15 times a day, from dawn until dusk.

BlackSky achieved a baseline operational constellation of 14 LEO smallsats in 2022. The satellites just launched temporarily bring the total number of operational spacecraft to 16. The new satellites will eventually assume the operational role of two satellites that were deployed in 2018 that have now exceeded their three-year design lifespan by more than one year.

BlackSky has more than doubled our on-orbit capacity in the last 18 months, with enough capacity to support growth over the next two years. Our flexible architecture gives us the ability to realize incremental benefits quickly as we add ever-advancing, multi-generational capability to our constellation. With next generation capabilities on the horizon, this launch reinforces BlackSky’s relentless commitment to advancing consistent and uninterrupted real-time intelligence and global monitoring services for our customers.”

Nick Merski, BlackSky chief operating officer

Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has won contracts from the European Space Agency (ESA) to supply a first batch of six small satellites with synthetic aperture radars (SAR) and one satellite based on optical technology for the Italian Earth observation constellation, IRIDE. This innovative new constellation, based on a number of different sensing instruments and technologies, will range from microwave radar imaging to optical sensors at various spatial resolutions and in different frequency ranges, thus becoming a pioneering space program in Earth Observation.

The contract for the six SAR satellites is worth €112 million and includes an option on a second group of four satellites, worth €75 million. The optical satellite contract is worth €30 million, and includes an option on an additional satellite for €19 million.

The satellites will be built in Italy under the responsibility of Thales Alenia Space with the contribution of the entire supply chain of SMEs in the space sector. It will provide valuable data not only to researchers studying the evolution of the environmental conditions of Italy but also to the Civil Protection and other Public administrations to counter hydrogeological instability and fires, protect coasts, monitor critical infrastructures, air quality and weather conditions. Finally, IRIDE will provide analytical data for the development of commercial applications by start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises and industries in the geospatial sector.

Both the radar and optical satellites are built on the modular NIMBUS (New Italian Micro Bus) platform, weighing about 170 kilograms. Built by Thales Alenia Space, the high-performance NIMBUS can be produced rapidly and is designed for high-revisit and high-capacity constellations. The optical payload is being developed by the Italian companies Media Lario and TDS, specialized in the creation of instruments and electronics for space.

© Thales Alenia SpaceIRIDE is a government project funded by Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), managed by ESA in conjunction with the Italian space agency ASI. Scheduled for completion by 2026, IRIDE features a hybrid constellation of different satellites with dedicated Earth observation sensors. This end to end system comprises a series of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite sub-constellations, ground infrastructures (downstream) and services dedicated to Italian public administration.

“I would like to thank the European and Italian space agencies for once again entrusting Thales Alenia Space competences and expertise,” said Massimo Comparini, Senior Executive Vice President, Observation, Exploration, and Navigation at Thales Alenia Space. “Building on our contributions to major Earth observation programs, we are now a key player in this ambitious new project, which entails the creation of a unique, innovative and entirely Italian constellation. We are delighted to be tackling a new challenge that paves the way for the development of new capabilities, especially the design and production of small and medium-sized satellites, which are key to the ‘New Space’ economy.”

“The European Space Agency is delighted for the signature of this contract” said Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation Programs at ESA and head of the ESRIN center in Frascati. “The Italian government has entrusted us with the task of implementing this particularly challenging and innovative program, and with the signature of this contract, in addition to those signed in the past weeks, we are close to the full definition of the IRIDE constellation and in line with the roadmap that will allow ESA to reach the first milestone of the program, scheduled for the end of March. This is a very important milestone, given that the program is largely financed by PNRR funds. Congratulations to the Thales Alenia Space team for this important contribution to the IRIDE system. We firmly believe that, by integrating national and European assets, the IRIDE system will make Italy more competitive than ever in the Earth Observation sector.”

These satellites also feature sophisticated operating modes to support high revisit rates, providing data that can be integrated with that from other existing or future programs and infrastructures, including COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation and Prisma, as well as Europe’s vast Copernicus Earth observation program.

Crescent Space Services LLC has announced the firm’s entry into the lunar infrastructure sector — Crescent Space is a new commercial company launched by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) that provides infrastructure-as-a-service for lunar missions.

As humankind expands its presence beyond LEO, one of the first key challenges is uninterrupted communications between Earth, the Moon and the growing number of lunar missions. To do this seamlessly – especially on the far side of the Moon – customers need a network that helps them talk over vast distances, like what cell towers enable here on Earth.

With its agile, services-based business model, Crescent directly responds to this need, offering an initial service called Parsec®: a cislunar communications and navigation network. Parsec uses a constellation of small lunar satellites that will collectively work to provide continuous connection between Earth and the people and assets in lunar orbit, as well as on the surface of the Moon. In addition to communications, Parsec will also provide critical position, timing and navigation services for lunar missions.

Crescent will own and operate the Parsec network upon launch of its first nodes in 2025. Lockheed Martin will produce and deliver the Parsec spacecraft to Crescent, drawing upon its deep expertise developing exploration missions, communications satellites, software and GPS satellites.

Crescent is led by CEO Joe Landon, who previously served as vice president of Advanced Programs Development for Lockheed Martin Space. In this role, Landon was responsible for Lockheed Martin’s space exploration strategy. As part of this, he led growth, strategy and research and development for the company’s Commercial Civil Space line of business. He was also instrumental in developing the concept for Crescent and launching the company. Before his time at Lockheed Martin, Landon was an early entrepreneur and investor in the commercial space sector.

As a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, Crescent aims to leverage reliable technical heritage from the company and combine that with the speed and agility of a commercial services platform to deliver an array of essential services for lunar operations.

With momentum gaining around humanity’s return to the Moon, this is an immediate area of opportunity for Crescent. In the future, Crescent plans to offer additional services to further enable science, exploration and commerce at the Moon and in deep space.

For Crescent, Landon has brought together a world-class team whose previous expertise supporting civil, commercial and military space missions makes them a perfect fit to lead the charge in providing services for the lunar economy.

Crescent is well positioned to serve the upcoming wave of lunar science and exploration missions, including NASA’s crewed Artemis moon landings. With Lockheed Martin’s investment and access to its technical capabilities and deep space experience, Crescent is set up to ensure Parsec will be ready to provide reliable and affordable communications services for our customers.”

Crescent CEO Joe Landon

Crescent is a commercial services company created by Lockheed Martin that provides infrastructure-as-a-service for lunar missions operated by both commercial and government customers. The company leverages Lockheed Martin’s deep technical heritage and reliability in space with the speed and agility of a commercial services platform to deliver critical services needed to operate on and around the moon

SpaceX has successfully launched 56 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral SFS aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, sending them to orbit to join the company’s constellation.

As is becoming customary for SpaceX, the first stage successfully returned to Earth and landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship station in the Atlantic Ocean.

The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, mPOWER-a, and two Starlink missions.

Previous information posting…

SpaceX is targeting Friday, March 24th., at 11:33 a.m., ET, (15:33 UTC) for a Falcon 9 launch of 56 Starlink satellites to LEO from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

If needed, there are additional launch opportunities the same day at 1:14 p.m. ET (17:14 UTC) and 2:55 p.m. ET (18:55 UTC).

Backup opportunities are also available on Saturday, March 25th., at 11:08 a.m., ET (15:08 UTC), 12:49 p.m. ET (16:49 UTC), and 2:30 p.m. ET (18:30 UTC).

The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, mPOWER-a, and two Starlink missions.

Following stage separation, the first stage will land on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Watch the live launch webcast starting about 5 minutes before liftoff.