Archives for 2024

For more than a decade, RTX’s small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider, Blue Canyon Technologies’, high-precision, advanced solutions have disrupted the space industry by demonstrating how lower-cost smallsats serve as a complement to larger satellites in the commercial, science and defense sectors.

Now, the same can be said for the company’s components. By leveraging existing technology, Blue Canyon is bringing the final frontier a little closer to home.

Just 10 years ago, the capabilities of inexpensive smallsats were limited and tech demos were the typical posture. Today, we’re at an inflection point where significant investment and expectation is being put into constellations of high-performance operational smallsats. The capability and mission value multipliers offered by Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMG) are already becoming market differentiators and is expected to accelerate.

Previously reserved for larger, more traditional satellites, CMGs offer at least 10 times the torque of reaction wheels with up to five times less power. They provide a quantum leap in the speed with which a spacecraft can reorient and point in another direction, multiplying the return on investment for any mission limited by the responsiveness of its bus platform, especially Earth Observation (EO).

This advanced spacecraft agility, coupled with low jitter that maximizes the quality of mission data, allows CMGs to offer the performance needed to maximize payload-pointing operations while on-orbit.

Blue Canyon Technologie has delivered multiple sets of flight CMGs designed at a SWaP-C appropriate level for the smallsat market while maintaining the increased performance for which CMGs are known. Additionally, Blue Canyon stands ready to integrate CMGs into the firm’s standard product offerings to help customers achieve extreme agility and precision pointing.

Blue Canyon offers the CMG-12, which has 12-Newton-meter-second rotor momentum and 12Nm of output torque, and the CMG-8, featuring 8Nms of momentum and 8Nm of output torque. The CMG-12 is designed using a radiation-hardened parts paradigm with redundancy options to meet the risk tolerance and mission length needs of various markets.

The vibration and jitter isolation are integrated into each CMG, with the control electronics as a separate unit. CMGs provide long life, high-control accuracy, and low-induced vibration performance required for demanding precision-pointing missions.

To aid customers in harnessing this opportunity, Blue Canyon is integrating CMGs into its standard spacecraft platforms and turnkey guidance, navigation and control systems. These platforms provide increased performance, low-cost, high-reliability CMG-based solutions designed for high-volume production in response to space mission needs.

Founded in 2008, Blue Canyon built its reputation on flight-proven, reliable components, with nearly 300 sun sensors, 200 star trackers and 800-plus reaction wheels launched to date. With 70 spacecraft launched since its inception, Blue Canyon has an impressive flight heritage of 100 years on-orbit for spacecraft, 151 years for turnkey guidance and navigation systems and 3,100 years for components.

The company’s components and bus platforms have completed missions ranging from Very-Low Earth Orbit (VLEO), LEO, GEO, Cislunar and an interplanetary journey. Equipped with dedicated facilities and staff for each business unit and in-house production resources, Blue Canyon continues to solve the toughest challenges in space with its high-performance solutions to support all types of missions regardless of size or scope.

Further information is available via an email to info@bluecanyontech.com

HawkEye 360 is preparing to launch six satellites aboard SpaceX’s Bandwagon-1 Rideshare mission from Florida on Sunday, April 7, 2024, with the launch window opening at 7:12 PM.

This is the first time HawkEye 360 is placing two clusters simultaneously into orbit, positioned at mid-inclination for increased coverage over the busiest maritime traffic corridors of the world.

Clusters 8 and 9 are equipped with upgraded payloads that enable up to a 5x increase in data collection, significantly larger collection bandwidths, and multi-band signal collection. High-speed downlink transmitters quadruple the speed at which data is delivered back to the Earth, bringing actionable, multi-dimensional, geospatial information for swift and informed decision-making. The mid-inclination orbit of Clusters 8 and 9 will further support HawkEye 360’s work to help monitor and prevent Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing across the Indo-Pacific region.

HawkEye 360 currently operates a constellation of 23 satellites. Once Clusters 8 and 9 are in orbit, the constellation of 29 satellites will detect, characterize, and geolocate RF signals from a broad range of emitters used for communication, navigation, and security.

“The launch of Clusters 8 and 9 underscores HawkEye 360’s commitment to consistently enhance our constellation to address the mission needs of our customers across the globe,” said Rob Rainhart, HawkEye 360 President. “Through the dedication and ingenuity of our space team and partner Space Flight Laboratory (SFL), we are pleased to introduce significant upgrades to our satellite payloads that will further significantly expand our RF data collection and processing capabilities.”

ESA’s new Arctic Weather Satellite has taken center stage at OHB’s facilities in Stockholm, Sweden, before the spacecraft is packed up and shipped to California for a launch currently scheduled for June.

Embracing the New Space approach to demonstrate new concepts in a cost-effective and timely manner, the Arctic Weather Satellite has been designed to show how it can improve weather forecasts in the Arctic.

Today, satellites provide a wealth of information that meteorologists use routinely to forecast the weather. Geostationary satellites, which are positioned 36,000 km above the equator, do not have visibility over higher latitudes, so cannot be used for Arctic weather forecasting.

While the MetOp satellites return data over the poles, they can take up to 24 hours to achieve global coverage – which limits data for short-term weather forecasts worldwide.

Enter the Arctic Weather Satellite: a new prototype mission that will demonstrate that it can fill this gap – providing data for very short-term weather forecasts and nowcasts in the Arctic.

The satellite is currently in its last stages of being checked and readied for shipment by air to California ahead of its launch. Before it embarks on its journey, the satellite has been on display in the cleanroom at OHB Sweden – the prime contractor for the mission.

The Arctic Weather Satellite weighs just 120 kg and carries a 19-channel cross-track scanning microwave radiometer which will provide high-resolution humidity and temperature soundings of the atmosphere in all weather conditions. Its enhanced sounding will capture short fluctuations in humidity that can be used to better infer wind information for tracking storms and extreme weather.

The Arctic Weather Satellite is the forerunner of a potential constellation of satellites, called EPS-Sterna, that ESA will build for Eumetsat if the prototype works as expected.

EPS-Sterna is envisaged as a constellation of six smallsats in three orbital planes to supply an almost constant stream of temperature and humidity data from every location on Earth.

While weather forecasting for the Arctic region is the focus, data from the Arctic Weather Satellite and the potential constellation will also be used to improve weather forecasts around the world and contribute to climate change research.

The Arctic Weather Satellite has been developed and built on a tight schedule: it has taken just 36 months from ESA awarding the industrial prime contract to OHB in Sweden and the satellite being completed.

ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs, Simonetta Cheli, said, “The effects of the climate crisis are being felt more in the Arctic than in other parts of the world. We know that what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic: changes in this delicate icy ecosystem affect the Earth system as a whole. We are extremely excited to see the Arctic Weather Satellite ready to demonstrate its capabilities and allow, for the first time, nowcasting in the Arctic, for the benefit of weather prediction and climate change worldwide.”

Benoit Mathieu, Managing Director at OHB Sweden, said, “We are proud that ESA entrusted us this mission. After 36 months of contract, the satellite is at the stage as planned at contract signature. This is a tremendous success and underlines our reliability as a small satellite manufacturer. This was made possible by the flight proven heritage of our InnoSat platform, the engagement of our teams and of the entire supply chain, and the very good collaboration with the ESA team which fully embraced the New Space approach.”

FOSSA Systems is working with Microsoft Research and is leveraging this collective expertise to explore the vast potential of low-power and low-data rate satellite IoT.

Both companies have demonstrated efficient satellite networking IoT communications using LoRa technology, aiming to enhance the efficiency and reach of satellite based IoT solutions for industrial applications.

The heart of this research lies in the exploration of the scalability and diverse applications of satellite IoT for global connectivity. Microsoft Research and FOSSA Systems are focused on advancing the boundaries of innovation in this domain, envisioning a future where satellite IoT can seamlessly integrate with applications in the fields of precision agriculture, livestock monitoring or connected industry.

As part of this research, FOSSA launched MSRSAT-1 in May of 2022 as real-world platform for satellite IoT.

Microsoft Research will present a comprehensive research paper entitled “Spectrum-efficient Satellite Networks for the Internet of Things” at the upcoming USENIX NSDI conference in April of 2024. This paper encapsulates the invaluable insights gained through this project, highlighting the development of efficient, scalable, and robust satellite IoT networks.

“MSRSat-1 has been a unique opportunity to test satellite IoT connectivity with Microsoft on a real-world testbed,” said Julián Fernández, CEO and Co-Founder of FOSSA Systems.

“Space communication is a promising technology to bring the benefits of Generative AI to more people and industries. However, to enable space communication and space compute at scale, we need to invent new communication and spectrum sharing protocols, and test new constellations. Our combined efforts using programmable satellites have enabled researchers at Microsoft to experiment with cutting edge capabilities and to push the state of the art in spectrum sharing and space compute,” said Ranveer Chandra, Managing Director, Research for Industry, Microsoft Research

HawkEye 360 has secured $40 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, to further its mission of delivering advanced geospatial capabilities. Over the past 12 months, HawkEye 360 has raised $108 million across its Series D-1 round and this debt financing, which has underscored the support and confidence from investors and lenders regarding its business and financial momentum.

The debt financing will play a crucial role in furthering HawkEye 360’s efforts to enhance its technological infrastructure and continue the buildout of its satellite constellation. These strategic developments are pivotal in maintaining HawkEye 360’s commitment to providing actionable, multi-dimensional geospatial insights and facilitating informed decision-making for the company’s valued clients worldwide.

“Raising over $400 million in capital in under five years is a landmark achievement for HawkEye 360,” said John Serafini, CEO of HawkEye 360. “This remarkable level of funding not only underscores the strength and validity of our strategic vision but also significantly enhances our ability to pioneer and lead in the provision of vital geospatial solutions. It’s a powerful testament to our team’s ability and the trust in our path forward.”

“HawkEye 360’s innovative space-based technology and RF data and analytics is paving the way for better spectrum mapping and monitoring,” said Sean Stone, SVB Senior Market Manager. “SVB is thrilled to continue our relationship with HawkEye 360 and provide them with the financing to help them execute their growth strategy.”