Archives for May 2023

Reflex Aerospace is gearing up for the company’s first commercial space mission: The Berlin and Munich-based space start-up has secured a fixed slot for the rocket launch of their demo satellite.

The launch is set to occur in the fall of 2024 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The goal of this mission is to validate new technologies in space — the demo satellite, which weighs around 120 kilograms, is currently under development and will be assembled in Munich. The local ‘micro factory‘ for the production of customer-specific satellites is scheduled to open later this year.

These steps are supported by an expansion of the so-called seed financing by a further 1.75 million euros (to a total of nearly 9 million euros). In addition to increases from existing investors, Bayern Kapital is joining the group of shareholders through its EFRE Bayern innovation fund. Bayern Kapital ranks among the most experienced and active venture and growth investors in the German
high-tech financing landscape; its investment will, among other things, support the establishment of the first micro-factory near Munich.

Driven by expected commercial order intake, seed funding is expected to increase further during the year. In addition, Starburst Accelerator – one of the most renowned European accelerators for aerospace start-ups – will also be on board in the future to support the development of the international business.

“As a new space start-up, we are of course eager to demonstrate the performance of our technologies directly in space. Therefore, we are very pleased that this milestone now comes within reach with our first fixed launch slot. The increase in our financing confirms our investors’ confidence in this goal. With this tailwind, we are pushing ahead with the construction of our micro factory, which we will open in Munich in the second half of 2023. In addition, we are fully on track to almost double our workforce across all sites to around 50 employees in 2023.”
— Walter Ballheimer, CEO of Reflex Aerospace

“We are very pleased to add Reflex Aerospace to our aerospace portfolio. Ranking among the first investors that engaged in the field of `New Space´, we have already invested in numerous exciting companies such as Isar Aerospace, Quantum Systems and OroraTech. Reflex Aerospace has a promising business model, and we are looking forward to supporting its further development.”
— Monika Steger, Managing Director of Bayern Kapital

Reflex Aerospace was founded in 2021. The Berlin and Munich-based NewSpace start-up aims to modernise the market with high-performance satellites tailored to individual needs. Through software-based operations and service-oriented offers, the company meets the needs of its customers faster, at a significantly lower cost and more flexibly than established NewSpace manufacturers today. Together with its partner companies Mynaric, Isar Aerospace and SES, Reflex Aerospace is a shareholder in the joint venture UNIO, which aims to build a European satellite constellation for broadband internet.

Last April, students from six CubeSats Teams successfully concluded the Baseline Design Review of their CubeSats as part of ESA Academy‘s new Fly Your Satellite! (FYS!) Design Booster Program — this phase of the pilot edition gave students the chance to benefit from ESA’ support to enrich and consolidate the design of their CubeSats.

The pilot edition of the new FYS! Design Booster Program aims to provide support to university teams across ESA Member States who have a preliminary design of a CubeSat and want to consolidate their detailed design.

Students learn to consider the full project lifecycle at the design stage, in terms of engineering, resources and expertise, which translates into smoother planning and execution of verification activities as well as more robust in-flight operations. Special emphasis is made on the importance of early testing, and teams are invited to work on prototypes and development models to demonstrate functionalities and performances are adequate.

In November of 2022, 80 students from different ESA Member States went through the Training Week and six teams were selected to participate in FYS! Design Booster programme.

• 6S – University: Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• AlbaSat – University: Università degli di Studi di Padova, Italy
• BIXO – University: University of Vigo, Spain
• ROSPIN-SAT-1 – University: Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
• SAGE – University: ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• ST3LLAR-Sat1 – University: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

The first phase of the Design Booster Program, called Baseline Design Review, occurred online from April 3-12. It is a tailored version of the standard ESA review, where key issues and discrepancies are identified to come up with reparatory actions together with ESA experts.

Student teams submitted their CubeSat Project File, which was reviewed by FYS! coordinators and ESA experts. They generated Review Item Discrepancies, which serve as an input to discussion during collocation meetings. As in a standard ESA review, more than 70 collocation meetings took place with experts of different domains such as Mission Analyses, Payload, Software, System Engineering and much more.

Continuing with this enthusiasm, students will now enter the Design Consolidation and Subsystem Testing Phase (April 2023 – February 2024), where they will adopt the experts‘ advices. They will develop in-house built subsystems which will be subjected to extensive testing. The teams will also work on implementation of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components and make sure the whole systems work together flawlessly.

The Final Design Review will be carried out in approximately a year from now. Students will be already acquainted with ESA standards and practices and will be then ready to autonomously continue developing their CubeSat projects. They will present all the lessons learned and project outlook for the future development, launch, operations and decommission.

This detailed documentation review helps students to identify eventual issues in time and even completely avoid them. The discussion during collocations enhances students‘ knowledge on the topic and allows them to receive, understand, interpret and implement sometimes complicated and not-at-first-glance clear solutions.

“Our participation in ESA’s FYS Design Booster program has been challenging, with an intense pace and many documents and collocation meetings. But above all, the first year of the programme has been a really good opportunity to learn and especially, the ESA team has helped us take our mission from a preliminary concept to many-steps closer a consolidated system. Our thanks to the team and looking forward the 2nd year.”
— ST3LLARsat1 supervising professor

”The Baseline Design Review was a very valuable experience for the SAGE CubeSat Team. We not only got a sneak peek into the review process at ESA but also got the chance to get feedback on our CubeSat design. Over a span of 13 colocation meetings, the team was able to exchange with ESA experts, discuss the RIDs and define action items. Overall SAGE got invaluable input from this review and has already started with the implementation of the defined actions. We are looking forward to the upcoming phases of the CubeSat design process!”
— student comments

”It’s a long and difficult journey to design a satellite, but the experts are there to help and guide you along the way. Just try to enjoy the journey and the possibility to learn a lot of new things,” one student concluded.

Brightline recently announced the company is the first passenger rail service in the world to offer Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency broadband service.

The implementation of Starlink on board its trains is part of Brightline’s digital transformation which focuses on a guest-first experience to elevate each traveler’s unique journey. Brightline selected to partner with Starlink, which is engineered and operated by SpaceX, to demonstrate its commitment to innovation and sustainability paired with cutting edge technology that will set the stage for a better connected passenger rail service around the world.

Starlink’s internet connectivity is available on Brightline’s fleet of trains servicing South Florida between Miami and West Palm Beach. The service will soon include the new, five-train fleet to service Orlando this summer – for a total of 10 trains between South and Central Florida. Starlink internet is complimentary for all Brightline guests.

Starlink delivers high-speed, low-latency internet to users all over the world and is made possible via the world’s largest constellation of highly advanced satellites operating in a low orbit around the Earth. Its constellation of satellites orbit the planet at about 550km, and cover the entire globe with significantly lower latency — around 25 ms vs 600+ ms. Traditional satellite internet services come from single geostationary satellites that orbit the planet at 35,786 km with only 1 roundtrip signal to Earth per every 70 round trip signals by Starlink. As a result, Starlink has the capability to provide a seamless connection, making it possible to support everyday uses of WiFi including streaming, online gaming, video calls or other high data rate activities through even the most rural areas.

Starlink has already provided internet services to residences, businesses, and transportation providers in the aviation and marine industries, with Hawaiian Airlines, Royal Caribbean Group, and Carnival Corporation among its customers. Brightline will be its first venture into the railroad and passenger rail industry.

Brightline recently announced the unveiling of its Orlando Station with ticket sales launching in May. Reaching top speeds of 125 mph, Brightline will open its Orlando Station this summer connecting major city pairs including West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Aventura and Miami. For more information on Brightline Orlando, visit www.gobrightline.com/orlando.

"Brightline will be the first train sets in the world to use the Starlink system. This really speaks to what we represent - an innovative passenger rail provider paving the way for high-speed rail in the U.S. Brightline is working with some of the best tech teams around the globe and our partnership with Starlink will elevate our brand to the stars.”
— Kevin T. McAuliffe, Chief Technology and Digital Innovation officer at Brightline

“As the first rail service in the world to adopt Starlink, Brightline continues to lead the way in the industry. We’re excited to work with Brightline and provide Starlink to their entire fleet, which will enable all of Brightline’s passengers to access high-speed, low-latency internet that is critical in our modern age – whether you’re finishing up work during your commute, staying connected with friends and family, or simply streaming a movie.”
— Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX Vice President of Starlink Commercial Sales

LiveEO has engaged in a partnership with Capella Space and will integrate all-weather, 24/7 SAR imagery from Capella Space into the company’s advanced, analytics platform to transform the monitoring of assets, such as railways, buildings, pipelines, and other infrastructure, and will enable timely insights for disaster response.

This collaboration will enhance the LiveEO Rapid Response Insights (RRi) product, enabling informed storm response for infrastructure and utility managers. LiveEO’s Rapid Response Insights can reduce restoration response time to a mere 10 hours, by delivering precise damage locations directly from orbit to maintenance managers, based on Capella SAR data.

As the Earth experiences increasingly frequent and severe storms, innovations such as RRi are crucial for building climate resilience in our societies. Integrating Capella SAR data into its successful Vegetation Management (VMi) product, LiveEO will enable its customers to detect and assess changes in vegetation encroachment rapidly, thanks to advanced artificial intelligence.

By becoming a certified Capella Analytics Partner, LiveEO will have access to a range of exclusive program benefits that can be leveraged to further expand analytical capabilities, increase customer value and accelerate product development. These benefits include open access to Capella’s imagery archive for research and development, and both product and sales collaboration.

"We are excited to have found a partner in Capella Space who shares our vision of automated, scalable end-user applications based on SAR data. An API-first approach, combined with best-in-class SAR imagery, will unlock the potential of SAR to solve problems that seem unsolvable today."
— Daniel Seidel, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of LiveEO.

“We are thrilled to welcome LiveEO as the first certified Capella Analytics Partner to help unlock advanced solutions to respond to the growing severity of disaster events and environmental challenges today. This partnership will enable Capella Space and LiveEO to address these challenges head-on with novel, automated solutions.”
— Payam Banazadeh, Founder and CEO of Capella Space

Aviosonic Space Tech‘s patented DeCAS (Debris Collision Alert System) for tracking and re-entry footprint prediction extends Europe´s satellite deorbit system and this sail system — ADEO — is already a leading device for quickly deorbiting almost all satellites, thereby preventing spacecraft from becoming new space junk. As ADEO is a sail, it does not produce any pollution itself, chemical or otherwise. This sail, in its next version, will be transparent and absolutely non-reflective.

Munich based HPS, a medium sized company with a subsidiary in Romania and a total headcount of 80, has invested — together with several institutional and industrial partners — 12 years of development and qualification into ADEO and is now ready to take another leap forward by joining forces with Aviosonic Space Tech.

Aviosonic Space Tech owns the patented DeCAS system for on-orbit/de-orbit tracking and re-entry footprint prediction of space vehicles. DeCAS is a 1U mm system that always maintains a constant link with a ground operation center allowing precise information on satellite position, as well as the calculation of the re-entry footprint in real time, with the aim of collision avoidance between satellites, satellites and aircraft as well as to alert government agencies. The technical characteristics and modularity allow DeCAS to be installed on any space vehicle and offers different services, depending on mission requirements.

”The integration between DeCAS and ADEO allows the creation of a unique product on the market capable of strongly implementing the safety of space operations both during orbital and decommissioning re-entry phases, even in the event of failure of the hosting satellite. This safety information is also needed by the Air Traffic Management System. The collaboration between Aviosonic Space Tech and HPS is the demonstration that in order to guarantee safety during space operations, an international cooperation between SMEs is necessary.”
— Prof. Piermarco Martegani, CEO of Aviosonic Space Tech

“ADEO has all the facts on its side: first, all space industry badly needs a deorbit device like ADEO, since the faster the sail opens free orbit positions, the longer we can keep space as a sustainable surrounding. And, from second to infinite: ADEO combines TRL9 and flight heritage, offers a comprehensive range of models, beats economically as well as ecologically any other type of deorbit device, also it is already in serial production at HPS. And now we even join forces with the two outstanding innovators in their fields, and others will join, underlining once again what´s at the core of ADEO: 100 percent European, 100 percent SME, 100 percent sustainability in space – and exactly what Europe wants for Iris2.”
— Ernst K. Pfeiffer, CEO, HPS

SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 successfully launched 56 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit on Sunday, May 14 at 1:03 a.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The batch of 56 Starlink satellites tie the record for the heaviest payload ever launched by a SpaceX rocket, matching the figure on four previous Falcon 9 missions with a full load of Starlink spacecraft.

The mission is numbered Starlink 5-9 in SpaceX’s launch sequence making today’s total half of SpaceX’s 32 launches this year dedicated to the Starlink broadband network. SpaceX says each Starlink launch adds more than a terabit per second of capacity to the constellation.

Following stage separation, the first stage landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Tday’s launch totals 4,447 Starlink satellites SpaceX has sent into orbit.

This is the eleventh flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, mPOWER-a and three Starlink missions.

CesiumAstro , provider of active phased array communications technology for space and airborne systems, was selected by Raytheon Technologies to provide its Vireo active electronically scanned array (AESA) RF communications payload for integration into seven space vehicles supporting Space Development Agency’s (SDA’s) Tranche 1 Tracking Layer.

CesiumAstro’s Vireo payload will be the first Ka-band, multi-beam communications system operating in SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). Using next-generation AESA technology to create multiple steerable, shapable beams, Vireo is a step change from legacy, single-beam systems optimized for connecting to single, static ground stations. The system’s groundbreaking modular slice-based design and software-defined backend will set a new standard for resilient, low-latency, high-volume data transport to simultaneous users.

“With the recent launch of Tranche 0, SDA is setting a new pace of innovation and deployment,” said Shey Sabripour, founder and CEO of CesiumAstro. “We are proud to provide the first AESA for the PWSA, enabling multi-beam RF mission data support for the warfighter.”

Raytheon’s space vehicles are part of Tranche 1 Tracking Layer, SDA’s first operationally capable set of low-Earth orbit (LEO) infrared missile warning and missile tracking satellites. When deployed, the constellation will integrate with the Transport Layer’s low-latency meshed communication network, enabling conventional and advanced missile tracking from LEO.

“These types of missions require speed and resilience,” said David Broadbent, president of Space and C2 at Raytheon Intelligence and Space. “By integrating AESA technology as part of our overall solution, we are setting an unprecedented standard, allowing for the swift transfer of critical information and giving our military forces a decisive advantage.”

CesiumAstro designed the Vireo system to support a wide range of defense and commercial missions. Vireo’s reconfigurable architecture allows for rapid deployment with maximum flexibility.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded a contract to Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) subsidiary, ExactEarth Ltd., to deliver preparatory work for implementation phases of a wildfire monitoring satellite.

The contract is the initial step toward CSA’s planned WildFireSat mission, which aims to monitor all active wildfires in Canada from space on a daily basis to support wildfire management, provide Canadians with more precise information on smoke and air quality conditions, and more accurately measure the carbon emitted by wildfires.

Spire will partner with OroraTech for the contract. The two firms have previously worked together on the successful launch of OroraTech’s wildfire detection and monitoring mission on a Spire satellite in 2022.

Global wildfire losses from 2018-2022 totaled $69 billion, according to Munich Re. Canada spends around $1 billion every year fighting wildfires, with indirect costs estimated to be several times higher due to resulting property destruction, infrastructure damage, evacuations, health-related expenses and wider economic losses across business sectors such as forestry, energy and tourism.

In 2016, the Fort McMurray wildfire alone led to a total cost of around $9 billion, making it the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history. The mission will benefit the country’s forestry industry, wildfire managers, emergency services and Canadian communities, all of which are frequently impacted by wildfires.

OroraTech created the first global wildfire intelligence service for commercial and institutional customers. OroraTech partnered with Spire Space Services to launch its first payloads, a thermal infrared camera and data processing unit, on a Spire 6U satellite.

With more than 150 satellites built and launched over a decade of operations, Spire was able to help OroraTech validate their initial concept quickly and cost-effectively and demonstrate its functionality in the orbital environment, handling not only the satellite platform but also taking care of integration and providing access to the company’s ground station network. All of which has enabled OroraTech to advance towards its plan to provide data insights to its customers every 30 minutes and within 3 minutes from detection at any place on Earth, while also demonstrating the range of applications supported by Spire across Earth observation wavebands in addition to its radio frequency expertise.

The Canadian Space Agency’s contract is further testament to the use of cutting-edge satellite technology to improve wildfire monitoring and early detection methods. Data can be captured from remote areas of the world and processed quickly to identify current and future risks.

The design and implementation of WildFireSat is anticipated to commence in spring 2024, with the project expected to be delivered in 2029.

“We are delighted to be collaborating with OroraTech on another exciting project, building upon the momentum generated from our previous mission together. At Spire, we have a strong track record of demonstrating the benefits that space can bring to life on Earth, and I can’t think of a more important and critical application than protecting our environment, people and property from destructive wildfires. We look forward to supporting the Canadian Space Agency on this important issue.”
— Frank Frulio, General Manager of Spire Space Services