Space Machines Company and Orbit Fab are combining their expertise to advance in-space servicing capabilities and to establish a sustainable space ecosystem.

This partnership joins together innovative technologies, most notably the installation of Orbit Fab’s space fiducial alignment markers on Space Machine Company’s Orbital Servicing Vehicle, Optimus. These markers will act like QR Codes in space, allowing Space Machines Company to work collaboratively with an approaching vehicle by using the markers to provide valuable position and orientation data, ensuring safe and reliable on-orbit operations. Optimus will provide on-orbit transportation and other in-space services following its launch on the SpaceX Transporter-10 in early 2024. 

The success and sustainability of Optimus’ launch will be supported by the attachment of the two fiducial markers developed by Orbit Fab. These fiducials, which are designed to support the safe and effective navigation and approach of Optimus, will demonstrate Orbit Fab’s ability to achieve safe navigation for the refueling of spacecraft in-orbit. 

This partnership will reach a significant milestone in 2024, with both companies scheduled to launch missions on board SpaceX Transporter rideshares. The mission of Space Machines Company and Orbit Fab is geared towards conducting a range of rendezvous and proximity operations maneuvers to validate and test the technologies of both companies. The cooperation between Space Machines Company, Orbit Fab, and SpaceX also represents a practical example of successful international collaboration.

Orbit Fab and Space Machines Company join forces to combine expertise as well as foster strategic national capabilities for Australia and the U.S. and to champion their shared goals of driving improved space sustainability through reduced debris and an on-orbit circular economy. By partnering to undertake a suite of safe, secure, and sustainable proximity operations, Orbit Fab and Space Machines Company will play a pivotal role in defining this developing commercial technology to unlock on-orbit refueling, servicing, repair, and de-orbit innovation for the global space sector. 

“This collaboration represents a significant milestone in the advancement of in-space servicing technologies. It is the first purely commercial partnership of its kind and will serve as a pioneering example of in-space validation of these groundbreaking technologies. By leveraging our respective strengths and expertise, Space Machines Company and Orbit Fab are setting a new standard for international collaboration in the space industry.” — Rajat Kulshrestha, Space Machines Company co-founder and CEO

“Orbit Fab was founded to eliminate the single-use spacecraft paradigm through in-space refueling. Our collaborative work with Space Machines Company demonstrates cooperative docking alignment markers that support safe, sustainable space operations. We provide these spacecraft fiducials to support cooperative refueling in space, but they can also be used to support any satellite servicing activities. By simply including a low-footprint fiducial marker, any company can make its assets serviceable, just as SMC has done.” — Daniel Faber, Orbit Fab CEO

PlanetiQ launched the company’s fourth generation Radio Occultation (RO) measurement satellite, GNOMES-4, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California — the satellite was successfully deployed into LEO at 10:36 am PT on December 1, 2023.

GNOMES-4 is equipped with the world’s best weather sensor, a PlanetiQ-proprietary technology sensor called Pyxis that enables PlanetiQ to offer the highest quality GNSS-RO data for enhanced weather forecasting and atmospheric research to both government and commercial customers, such as airlines, insurance, energy, agriculture and financial services. The data produced are temperatures, pressures and water vapor readings, similar to what a weather balloon would produce, but adds the critical capability of obtaining data over the entire globe, not just land, for better initialization of the global weather forecasting models.

Pyxis is smaller, lighter, consumes less power and has nearly three times the data collection capability than previous versions and receives signals from all four worldwide GNSS constellations (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou), and is powerful enough to provide more than double the amount of data available from the next-best GPS-RO sensors currently on-orbit. Pyxis also is capable of routinely probing down into the lowest layers of the atmosphere where severe weather occurs.

According to the company, PlanetiQ is the only system capable of profiling the thermodynamic state of the atmosphere with very high vertical resolution, precision and accuracy routinely down to the surface under any and all weather conditions, over any type of surface, across the globe.

In September of 2023, PlanetiQ, was selected by NASA to supply their highest quality GNSS-Radio Occultation data to enhance capabilities in weather and atmospheric research. PlanetiQ was one of seven companies selected through NASA’s CSDA Program, which has allocated $476 million for commercial data over the next five years.

In July of 2023, PlanetiQ began daily delivery to NOAA of their highest quality SNR GNSS-Radio Occultation data under NOAA’s IDIQ-2 operational Delivery Order-2. This data is used by NOAA to improve our environment and save lives with superior weather forecasting and atmospheric research.

SPACEBEL and GomSpace have signed a contract for implementation of Juventas Operations, where HOOP’s advanced Mission Planning capabilities will be used.

The contract valued at 930,000 euros will be implemented from now until the end of the Near-Earth Commissioning Phase (January of 2025).

Under the contract, GomSpace will deliver operational support systems to enable controlling of the HERA-Juventas spacecraft under development by GomSpace. SpaceBel, as Prime Contractor of the HERA Cubesat Mission Operations Centre (CMOC) with ESA, will integrate the GomSpace’s deliverables into the ground segment for the HERA mission. The Juventas Mission Control Centre is built based on GomSpace’s Hands-Off Operations Platform (HOOP).

The HERA-Juventas satellite will launch as part of the HERA mission in October of 2024 to explore the Asteroid system Dimorphos.

“The HERA-Juventas mission will push the boundaries when it comes to affordable exploration and is an enabler for further growth in this domain. We are excited to also be taking part in the ground segment implementation reusing our HOOP product to enable the mission.” Carsten Drachmann, CEO

Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) (“Spire”) has been awarded a Space Services contract by Lacuna Space, wherein Spire will initially build and launch six satellites that will carry Lacuna Space’s payload and antenna, with the opportunity to scale the constellation to dozens of satellites. Lacuna Space will operate its payloads and receive encrypted data at its Harwell, UK, headquarters.

With six satellites manufactured by Spire at its facility in Glasgow, Scotland, in addition to Lacuna Space’s ten earlier satellites, Lacuna Space will be able to scale their IoT network for low-cost, reliable global connections to sensors and mobile equipment. Lacuna focuses on IoT services for agriculture, maritime, logistics, remote infrastructure and environmental monitoring, with applications such as measuring soil moisture for farmers in remote regions to improve crop yield or tracking the movement of assets.

These satellites feature Lacuna’s new proprietary, ultra-high density ‘Gentoo’ satellite gateway. The satellite gateways work in conjunction with Lacuna’s ground scheduling network, which enables adaptive, regional, fine-frequency algorithms developed using AI from years of satellite-based spectrum scans.

“Satellites play a critical role in providing IoT connectivity across the globe, particularly to remote, underserved, and developing areas of the world. These services are transformational in enabling new applications across a wide variety of industries and solving some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. With Spire Space Services, we have streamlined the process to architect, build, launch and operate satellites reliably, and at a much lower cost than it would typically require new space companies to build infrastructure in space, allowing revolutionary technologies, like Lacuna’s IoT network, to reach the market faster.” — Frank Frulio, the general manager of Space Services at Spire

“This contract is a very important step in Lacuna’s progression into commercial operations, and represents over five years of intensive development work to refine the concept and achieve the scalability and reliability required to provide a global commercial service.” — Rob Spurrett, CEO and co-founder of Lacuna Space.

“Glasgow produces more satellites than anywhere else in Europe, and this contract between Spire Global and Lacuna Space is a fantastic example of how the UK’s strong heritage in space manufacturing is accelerating our progress towards global connectivity and new commercial applications for telecommunications. This collaboration will unlock opportunities for businesses, using satellites to transfer data and information between millions of sensors on the ground that make up IoT, with the potential to scale up further. I’m looking forward to watching the constellation come to life.” — Craig Brown, investment director at the UK Space Agency

Spire Space Services offers fast and scalable access to space through a subscription model that eliminates the high upfront cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in space. The Company has designed, built, and launched more than 170 satellites, enabling commercial and government organizations to easily deploy and operate a constellation, hosted payload, or a software application in space leveraging Spire’s established space, ground, and web infrastructure. Spire handles the end-to-end management, from manufacturing to launch to satellite operations, and the customer operates the system through a web API.

Vyoma has been distinguished in multiple categories of the smallsat competitions organized by the German Space Agency at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) — these prestigious awards were announced during the 2023 Small Satellite Conference in Berlin on November 23, 2023.

Vyoma received two awards, one from the Microlauncher Competition and one from the Small Satellite Competition. The competitions aimed at providing launch opportunities for smallsats, under 200 kg of mass (as the competitions’ limit), whose technology aligns with Germany’s and Europe’s space strategy. Dr. Anna Christmann, a member of the Bundestag and Federal Government Coordinator of German Aerospace Policy, presented the awards.

These two awards will allow Vyoma to continue its mission to secure space assets by expanding its in-situ surveillance system with two additional telescopes that will monitor objects and space debris down to a few centimeters. By monitoring space traffic 24/7, Vyoma contributes to Europe’s autonomy in Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and geostrategic independence from current data sources outside of the European continent. Vyoma’s commitment to developing a high-precision catalogue of space debris and enhancing existing catalogues across all orbital regions further cements Europe’s space sovereignty.

As part of the Microlauncher Competition award, a launch opportunity with the RFA One launch vehicle, from Rocket Factory Augsburg, has been secured. Other notable winners in this category include esteemed institutions such as the DLR Institute of Materials Physics in Space, DLR Institute of Lightweight Systems, Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Technical University of Munich – WARR e.V., Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), EnduroSat (Bulgaria), and the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (Spain).

Zenno Astronautics (Zenno) has celebrated the first space launch of Z01, the company’s world-first, superconducting, magnetic torquer for fuel-free spacecraft attitude control — Zenno’s on-orbit validation of Z01 is the first-ever demonstration of high-temperature superconducting electromagnets in space, unlocking new possibilities for space operations in close proximity and beyond. 

Zenno’s Z01 SuperTorquer lifted off into space on December 1, 2023, at 10:19 a.m. (PT) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, “Korea 425” mission, from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, hosted on an orbital transfer vehicle from D-Orbit, a leader in space logistics. D-Orbit’s ION Satellite Carrier deployed after lift-off into a 560 km Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) on its “Beyond” mission. D-Orbit will perform orbital demonstrations of Z01, integrated into its satellite carrier, during the mission.

Zenno recently formed a special commercial partnership with D-Orbit to collaborate on the development of new space products and services using superconducting electromagnets – including practical solutions for the first fuel-free desaturation of reaction wheels in high-altitude orbits and radiation shielding of hardware using superconducting electromagnets. 

“The future has arrived as superconducting technology opens up a universe of new possibilities and accelerates the shift towards more dynamic operations. Z01 is a compelling innovation for satellite manufacturers and operators who want to deliver new capability and drive greater productivity from missions, now; it’s a powerful fuel-free source of force in space that is sustainable, safe, scalable, fully electric and superior to existing technology options. Our first Z01 product is designed to control the attitude of a spacecraft in orbit – enabling fuel-free maneuvering, a world-first. The Z01 single and Z01 3-axis dipole systems offer significantly lower size, weight and power cost benefits compared with the traditional magnetorquers they replace. Z01’s capability is fully scalable and unlocks yet-to-be-explored advancements for satellite mission length, productivity gains and expansion into space. Fully magnetic satellite agility is just the start.” — Zenno co-founder and CEO, Max Arshavsky

 “We congratulate Zenno on a milestone day for their Z01 technology as it embarks on its in-orbit validation on board our ION Satellite Carrier on our 13th commercial mission. This day is a step forward in our collaboration with Zenno, as together, we are committed to developing innovation to help the space industry accelerate the development of more affordable, sustainable and high-performance spacecraft.” — D-Orbit founder and CEO, Luca Rossettini

AAC Clyde Space has been selected by Iota Technology to execute an end-to-end satellite mission as part of MagQuest, a multimillion-dollar competition to advance how to measure Earth’s magnetic field.

The mission will see a 4U EPIC satellite, equipped with Iota Technology’s magnetometer payload, launched to measure the Earth’s magnetic field. AAC Clyde Space will handle the manufacturing, launch, commissioning and operation of the satellite for a three year period. The total order value amounts to GBP 1.94 million.

Through MagQuest, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is supporting the development of possible magnetic measurement solutions for the World Magnetic Model. Iota Technology emerged as one of three winners in the payload segment of the competition in September 2023, securing funding for a satellite mission.

The World Magnetic Model (WMM), a joint product of the NGA and the United Kingdom’s Defence Geographic Centre, corrects for the difference between Earth’s geographic and magnetic poles, enabling accurate navigation and orientation. It is updated every five years to account for changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and is embedded in numerous systems worldwide, from smartphones to military equipment. The production of the WMM currently relies on space-based magnetic field measurements provided by the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission.

The satellite is planned for launch in Q4 2025.

“We are very proud to have been selected for this end-to-end space mission solution, leveraging our expertise and heritage in designing, manufacturing, launching and operating reliable satellite solutions. With Iota Technology’s novel payload, the mission holds the potential to greatly advance measuring the Earth’s magnetic field for the benefit of users across the globe.” — AAC Clyde Space CEO Luis Gomes

“We are thrilled to be working with AAC Clyde Space to launch our first geomagnetic nanosatellite, Io-1. This mission will showcase a range of cutting-edge technologies that will allow us to accurately measure the Earth’s magnetic field.” — Iota Technology CEO Hugo Shelley

Amazon has signed a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches to support deployment plans for Project Kuiper, Amazon’s LEO satellite broadband network.

Project Kuiper satellites were designed from the start to accommodate multiple launch providers and vehicles, allowing us to reduce schedule risk and move faster in our mission to connect unserved and underserved communities around the world. Our earlier procurement of 77 heavy-lift rockets from Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) provides enough capacity to launch the majority of this satellite constellation, and the additional launches with SpaceX offer even more capacity to support the deployment schedule.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage launch vehicle designed for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond and it has completed more than 270 successful launches to date. Project Kuiper has contracted three Falcon 9 launches, and these missions are targeted to lift off beginning in mid-2025.

Project Kuiper recently launched two prototype satellites, and tests from the mission have helped validate the satellite design and network architecture. The company is preparing to start satellite manufacturing ahead of a full-scale deployment, beginning in the first half of 2024, and the expectation is to have enough satellites deployed to start early customer pilots during the second half of 2024.