editorial

Varda Space Industries has signed a Launch Services Agreement with SpaceX to launch their initial space factory aboard a SpaceX rideshare mission, deploying to LEO in Q1 2023.

After Varda’s factory operation completes the on-orbit production run, the company’s space factory will execute a de-orbit maneuver to re-enter the atmosphere and return the finished product to customers on Earth.

Until now, nearly all in-space manufacturing research has been carried out on the International Space Station (ISS). While this research has demonstrated that innovative materials and products that will revolutionize industries on Earth can be created in the consistent microgravity environment of LEO – an environment that can’t be replicated on Earth – there has been no pathway to commercialization.

Until recently, manufacturing in orbit has been impossible to scale due to the cost, complexity and regulatory hurdles associated largely with launch vehicles. SpaceX’s new, competitively priced, rideshare program plus the FAA’s new streamlined regulatory framework now enable cost-effective access to orbit that finally makes large-scale space manufacturing and commercialization of the advancements made on the ISS a reality.

Varda Space Industries was founded by Will Bruey, who spent almost six years working on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, and Delian Asparouhov, Varda’s President and a Principal at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

Varda’s first space factory is planned to launch in Q1 2023, with the second and third factories scheduled to follow through 2024. Each mission has a nominal three-month duration from launch to landing.

“We are excited for Varda’s signing with SpaceX as its launch provider. The massive reduction in barriers to entry will allow us to finally bring the enormous benefits of space, through microgravity manufacturing, to so many people on Earth whose lives will change tangibly for the better as a result,” said Asparouhov.

“Five years ago, a company like Varda would not have been possible. But today, we can economically deliver unique products that can only be manufactured in space because launches are cheaper, space hardware solutions are commoditizing, and smart regulatory progress has been made. Since prolonged exposure to zero gravity is not possible on the planet, it’s exciting to use our expertise in spacecraft to bring that brand new capability to industries serving large markets on Earth,” said Bruey. “I’m excited to use SpaceX as our launch provider because their reusable launch vehicles have proven to be highly reliable and cost-efficient, providing the certainty and unit economics that we rely on to deliver unprecedented access and value to all kinds of new products that can only be manufactured in space.”

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has scheduled two dedicated launches in November for Spaceflight Inc.’s customer, real-time geospatial and global monitoring company, BlackSky (NYSE: BKSY).

A two-week launch window for Rocket Lab’s 22nd Electron launch will open November 11-24, 2021, while the 23rd Electron mission is targeted for lift-off during a two-week launch window that opens November 27. Both missions are scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

Each mission will deploy two Gen-2 satellites for BlackSky in a rapid expansion of the geospatial and global monitoring company’s LEO constellation. These two dedicated missions are part of a multi-launch agreement signed between Rocket Lab and Spaceflight Inc., for BlackSky earlier this year, and precede a third dedicated mission that will follow to deploy two additional BlackSky Gen-2 satellites. Together, these launches — along with a successfully deployed Gen-2 satellite on Rocket Lab’s “They Go Up So Fast” rideshare mission in March of this year — represent the largest number of satellites BlackSky has committed to a single launch provider to date.

The back-to-back launch of these two dedicated missions supports BlackSky’s aggressive scaling of its high-resolution, Earth-imaging constellation to bolster its delivery of analytics and insights to industries including transportation, infrastructure, land use, defense, supply chain management, and humanitarian aid.

“The speed to space Electron provides our customers is unmatched in the dedicated small launch industry, and we’re thrilled to be delivering a launch service that provides assurance for BlackSky to scale their constellation and services with confidence,” said Rocket Lab CEO, Peter Beck.

mu Space Corp. has announced and displayed to the public their brand-new satellite, the mu-B200, and the opening of Factory 2 in Bangkok, Thailand, at the company’s Satellite Tech Unveil 2021 event.

Factory 2 is the company’s third factory to date and aims to cement the Southeast Asian company as an aerospace leader. mu Space Corp is an aerospace manufacturer and satellite internet service provider and the organization emphasizes the importance of a vertical-integrated approach. The company designs, builds and test in-house all their products in order to improve performance and quality, while reducing the additional costs of an extensive supply chain.

The opening of the new factory and announcement of the mu-B200 is significant in that this will enable mu Space to triple their efforts in leading Thailand into the global space race. In December of 2020, mu Space opened Factory 0 for research and technology prototypes. Less than a year later, Factory 1 was opened. The factory is designated for most of the manufacturing stages, development, tests, productions of entire satellites and components.

Factory 2, unveiled via live stream at the Satellite Tech Unveil 2021 event, is considered an extension area that will enable the production of more satellites. This factory also focuses on producing electronic parts and power systems relating to mu Space’s satellites. The organization researches, designs, builds and tests all its technology in-house.

Founded in 2017 by James Yenbamroong, mu Space has conducted orbital microgravity experiments as part of Blue Origin’s New Shephard rocket launches and plans to work alongside other commercial agencies, as well as conduct their own launches in the near future.

With the production of a new satellite, the mu-B200 and the launch of a new factory, mu Space is making a statement regarding their work within the aerospace industry in 2021. The Satellite Tech Unveil 2021 event was all about announcing to the public, their followers and their investors what it takes to manufacture aerospace products. This was also an opportunity for the company to display the actual satellite on stage. The mu Space satellite is the latest satellite produced by mu Space and its team of leading engineers, proving the main talking point of this event.

The satellite weighs 200 kilograms and comes with a 1.2 kW high-power system. The lightweight and high power is accomplished through the use of nanotechnologies in the manufacturing process. The mu-B200 satellite features krypton thrusters for orbit correction, a phased array antenna and a unique TRL-9 flight-proven high-power bus system.

With global launch activity having increased by 39 percent over the last decade and the value of the global satellite industry rising rapidly and expected to be valued at $508 billion by 2024 according to the Global Satellite Industry Insights & Forecast Report 2020, mu Space Corp’s expansion into the market is a signal that Southeast Asia is accelerating its participation in the satellite industry. mu Space is backed by leading investors, including B.Grimm Joint Venture – Thailand’s private power generation industry, Majuven Fund and private business groups such as executives from the UCLA Foundation, among others.

Speaking about mu Space’s Factory 2 announcement, CEO and founder James Yenbamroong said, “I remember the days when we only had one desk, now we have over 100 employees… Factory 0 was made to produce 1 satellite, Factory 1 can produce 10 and the new Factory 2 will be able to produce 100 satellites … we do all the production processes in-house as we are a vertically integrated company.” He also talked in detail about the new satellite, saying, “The focus of this satellite is high performance and high power, the higher the power the faster the internet connection.”

Syrlinks and Synspective are partnering to integrate Syrlinks’s compact X-Band Telemetry Transmitter within the framework of the StriX β mission.

StriX β is Japanese synthetic aperture radar satellite built by Synspective as a demonstrator for their planned 30 satellite constellation. These smallsats will feature X-band synthetic aperture radar and they in the range of 100 kilograms in size and are capable of imaging at a resolution of one to three meters. By 2023 the company plans to launch the six first satellites of the constellation.

“We are very proud for having been elected by Synspective for this project. It’s a great opportunity for us to highlight the unmatched capabilities of the DVB-S2 based signal performances for High-Data-Rate downlink transmission.” said Eric Pinson, Director of Space activity at Syrlinks. “It is a great recognition of a work of several years to design COTS based compact X-Band transmitters, highly reliable and bringing cutting-edge transmitting performances.”

“For our StriX β satellite, which objective is to demonstrate the future capability of our coming-next 30 satellites constellation, we were looking for a high-performance compact X-Band Transmitter. The fact that the solution proposed by Syrlinks can achieve high data rate based on DVB-S2 has been decisive in our selection,” said Akeshi Inoshita, Project Manager at Synspective.

Intellian has entered into an agreement with SES to supply user terminals for SES’s O3b mPOWER communications system.

O3b mPOWER will extend and develop SES’s existing Ka-band Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) services, delivering low latency, high bandwidth connectivity at speeds ranging from tens of megabits to multiple gigabits per second to customers across land, maritime and government markets around the world. This scale of services will be partly enabled by Intellian terminals.

The multi-year deal will see Intellian develop a portfolio of terminals ranging from 85 cm to 2.4 m, capable of harnessing the full capabilities of SES’s second-generation MEO system. This wide array of Intellian products provides rapidly scalable solutions to a broad range of customers, including Government, Cruise, Energy, Maritime, Mining and Telecommunications sectors.

As part of the new product portfolio, Intellian will provide single, dual and tri-band systems. These will enable SES’s customers the flexibility to access its next-generation O3b mPOWER MEO service as well as its entire existing fleet of over 70 geostationary and MEO satellites. The agreement also covers current Intellian products, with easy, cost effective conversion kits available to provide existing owners of Intellian’s NX, v240M 2 and v240MT 2 antennas a pathway to upgrade to the O3b mPOWER service.

“This agreement builds upon our long-standing partnership with SES, allowing us to deliver even more value and innovation to our combined customer base,” says Eric Sung, Intellian CEO. “We continue our collaboration in Cruise, Energy and Government, whilst also opening up new markets together on Land. Intellian is proud to develop and deliver the technology and production expertise required to help customers take full advantage of this revolutionary service. Partnering with SES across so many sectors gives us intimate knowledge of the mPOWER network, and ensures all our products in the portfolio deliver the best user experience to each O3b mPOWER customer.”

“This agreement will provide innovative and critical infrastructure for the O3b mPOWER systems and leverages many years of trusted partnership between our companies. Intellian has a track record of delivering for us and our customers and we are proud to further extend our partnership with them,” said Stewart Sanders, Executive Vice President of Technology and O3b mPOWER program manager at SES.

The new range of Intellian terminals will become available in Q1 2022.

Three smallsats developed by students from Australia and the Philippines were launched from the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, October 6, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that revealed this release during a live broadcast.

The Australian Binar-1 (artistic rendition above) and two Philippine satellites, Maya-3 and Maya-4 (photo below), were deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo on board the ISS. They were brought to the station by a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft in August.

GomSpace has entered into an agreement with SpaceAble to enhance LEO sustainability — the contract is worth 21 million Swedish Kroner (MSEK) and the project will start in 2021 with an expected delivery to occur in late 2023.

The mission is designed to enhance the sustainability of LEO. By tracking the inherent risk of space weather, thanks to SpaceAble’s technology and GomSpace´s platform, the companies are working at a larger level on providing the market with a comprehensive solution—one that includes both inspector satellites and critical space data—to strengthen the resilience of new constellations.

“We are proud to work with SpaceAble and support a business that focuses on reducing debris, that significantly enhances our understanding of space weather effects so as to provide a full spectrum and interoperable space situational awareness solution that the whole LEO market is still in need of,” said Niels Buus, CEO of GomSpace.

Julien Cantegreil, the CEO of SpaceAble, said, “The expertise, agility, and reliability of GomSpace’s satellites are essential to sustainable operations in LEO and offer a breakthrough solution to enhance satellite constellations’ overall sustainability in LEO.”

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has been selected to launch NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS3, on thir Electron launch vehicle.

NASA’s ACS3 technology demonstration uses composite materials – or a combination of materials with different properties, in its novel, lightweight booms that deploy from a cubesat to support a solar sail. Just as a sailboat is powered by wind in a sail, solar sails employ the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, eliminating the need for conventional rocket propellant.

Data obtained from the ACS3 demonstration will guide the design of future larger-scale composite solar sail systems that could be used for space weather early warning satellites, near-Earth asteroid reconnaissance missions, or communications relays for crewed exploration missions.

ACS3 will launch as part of a rideshare mission, scheduled for lift-off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in mid-2022. The ability of the Electron launch vehicle’s Kick Stage to deploy individual satellites to unique orbits, even when flying as part of a rideshare, was a key factor in Rocket Lab being selected as the launch provider.

ACS3 requires a higher altitude than the other rideshare payloads launching on the same mission, so after deploying the first payloads, the Kick Stage will perform another burn with its 3D printed Curie engine to raise the orbit and deploy ACS3. Rocket Lab’s Kick Stage has demonstrated orbit raises across 18 missions to date, and also successfully conducted inclination changes and orbit lowering, providing customers with proven, flexible, and precise in-space transportation.

“We are thrilled to be NASA’s launch partner for this innovative mission,” said Rocket Lab founder and Chief Executive, Peter Beck. “It seems fitting to launch NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System on Electron, the world’s first full carbon composite orbital launch vehicle. We’re excited to see composites used yet again to unlock new capabilities in space.”

ACS3 Mission Partners:

NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is designing ACS3’s deployable composite booms and solar sail system. NanoAvionics of Columbia, Illinois, is designing and building the 12U cubesat for the ACS3 technology demonstration. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley is managing the ACS3 project and will oversee final integration of the solar sail payload and cubesat. The Santa Clara University’s Robotics Systems Lab in Santa Clara, California, will provide cubesat operations support for the ACS3 technology demonstration. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is sponsoring the ACS3 project and is providing the funding for the launch . NASA’s Game Changing Development program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is developing ACS3’s deployable composite boom technology.

Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) and the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) have signed a 12 million euros loan agreement for the finalization of a new spaceport at Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, northern Sweden.

The 12-year maturity loan will finance the investments to enable the use of reusable rockets and the ability to launch smallsats into orbit as early as 2022, making Esrange the first major orbital launch site in the EU.

The 12 million euros loan is part of an extensive modernization of Esrange that has been ongoing since 2015 – a total investment of around 50 million euros. The loan will finance the completion of the construction of a new spaceport capability, aiming at a first satellite launch in 2022.

The project entails construction work for the new launch site, including integration halls for rockets and satellites, expansion of planned fuel plants, launch pads and surrounding technical ground systems as well as development of technical support systems in Esrange’s operational communication center.

“This important milestone means that Sweden will become a launching state, offering the most modern ground technology possible to European and international satellite owners. This will be of great importance for future research, technology development and expanded international collaboration – all to support a sustainable development of life on Earth”, said Stefan Gardefjord, CEO of SSC

“With more than 50 years of experience from launching rockets and balloons, Esrange Space Center is already one of the most active and versatile launch sites in the world. And with the new spaceport capability it will most likely become the first launch site on European mainland to provide a platform for space companies to develop their next generation rocket technologies and launch their satellites”, said Philip Påhlsson, Project Manager New Esrange at SSC.