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Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) will integrate their In-line Network Encryptor (INE) into the world’s first Link 16-capable LEO satellite, which the company is developing for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles XVI program.

Viasat’s INE will be the first crypto deployment on a Link 16-capable LEO satellite, and will provide communications security (COMSEC) and additional enhanced cybersecurity capabilities initially associated with mission data transfer, with future evolutions expected to simultaneously secure user data; telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) management; and inter-satellite communications—at multiple security levels.

Viasat’s INE, which was designed for a very low Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) constrained system, is expected to provide radiation-tolerant network encryption aligned with the LEO space environment and will be capable of supporting speeds exceeding 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) aggregate throughput, which makes it an outstanding encryptor to secure Link 16-to-LEO communications. The INE will also be able to secure the data flow between an unclassified spacecraft bus and the classified processing domain.

Over the past two decades, Viasat’s information assurance business has achieved a number of industry milestones. The Company’s PSIAM-based rugged, compact Type-1 cryptographic product portfolio already includes a ground-based satellite TT&C crypto (the KS-252)—which is currently deployed in the U.S. Air Force’s satellite communications ground station architectures. This crypto is the foundation for providing the same innovative, multi-functional, programmable value proposition to the space segment.

“In addition to building and testing the first-ever Link 16-capable LEO satellite prototype, Viasat is also focused on delivering the first high assurance, fully-programmable crypto deployed in space,” said Craig Miller, president, Government Systems, Viasat. “Our focus is on revolutionizing space-based cryptographic and cybersecurity solutions by moving away from embedded, fixed single-application ASICs and moving to ‘plug and play,’ fully-programmable, multi-functional and highly-efficient military-grade cryptos that can be rapidly deployed by supporting commercial off the shelf technology enhancements for small satellites.”

Learn more about Viasat’s network encryption devices at this direct link.

Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) has announced Operation Arctic Lynx (OAL), a series of partnership-driven field exercises deploying Iridium® and Iridium Connected® technologies and involving more than 20 organizations, primarily focused above 60 degrees north latitude and stretching as far as 82 degrees north latitude.

Occurring between June 11 and June 26, 2021, OAL involves an international contingent of organizations including existing Iridium customers such as the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. federal agencies, Alaska state and local organizations, Canadian government organizations, scientific research organizations and multiple aerospace industry companies.

During OAL, Iridium and Iridium Connected weather resilient satellite communications technology will be deployed through a combination of on-base, Communications-On-The-Move (COTM), At-The-Halt (ATH) and remote environment applications. Technologies being featured include weather-resilient broadband (Iridium Certus®), Iridium Push-To-Talk (PTT), a variety of unattended sensors capable of tracking, environmental monitoring, remote control functions and managing data and image delivery, Beyond-Visual-Line-Of-Sight (BVLOS) capabilities enabling truly global real-time command and control for drones and autonomous vehicles (Iridium Global Line of Sight^SM), in-vehicle solutions and demonstration of cutting-edge capabilities, such as real-time, on-the-move, 1080 HD video over L-band. Iridium has a 20-plus year pedigree of providing reliable Arctic communications.

As part of the operation, multiple voice, data and video real-time communications threads will be exercised both at-the-halt and on-the-move, starting from Utqiagvik, Alaska. Utqiagvik, previously known as Barrow, is located at 71 degrees north latitude, approximately 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and situated on the Arctic Ocean.

Among these communications threads will be a site located even farther north than Utqiagvik, at approximately 82 degrees north latitude – Canadian Forces Station Alert (CFS Alert), Nunavut, Canada that is the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world and one of a number of Arctic Weather Stations. The site has deployed Iridium Certus technology in the form of a Thales MissionLINK 700 terminal to ensure reliable communications.

Additional communications threads include but are not limited to the U.S. South Pole Station, at 90 degrees south latitude, Antarctica; McMurdo Station, Antarctica; Colorado Springs; Melbourne, Florida; Tyler, Texas; Chandler, Arizona; Leesburg, Virginia; Oslo and London.

“Iridium’s Arctic and Antarctic communications capabilities have long been a part of the fabric of government, NGO and civil enterprise activities in those regions and now with our upgraded constellation and new technologies developed, we have turbocharged our portfolio of solutions to address an increasing range of polar communication requirements,” said Scott Scheimreif, executive vice president, Government Programs, Iridium. “With more than 20 participating organizations, Operation Arctic Lynx will exercise the ability to provide real-time interoperability, communications-on-the-move, command-and-control and develop and maintain a common operational picture in austere polar regions. We’re proud to have so many esteemed organizations participating.”

Astra has announced the company’s planned acquisition of Apollo Fusion in a transaction valued up to $145 million.

Apollo Fusion manufactures a leading electric propulsion engine. This acquisition allows Astra to provide launch and space services beyond LEO to MEO, GEO and lunar orbits.

Under the agreement, Astra is acquiring Apollo Fusion for a purchase price of $50 million: $30 million in stock and $20 million in cash. Additionally, there is potential for earn-outs of up to $95 million: $10 million in employee incentive stock, $10 million in cash for reaching technical milestones, and $75 million ($60 million in stock, $15 million in cash) for reaching revenue milestones. PJT Partners is acting as financial advisor to Astra in connection with this series of transactions.

“In addition to increasing Astra’s total addressable market for launch services, the acquisition of Apollo Fusion accelerates Astra’s ability to efficiently deliver and operate spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit,” said Astra Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Chris Kemp.

“Scale is what makes innovation matter,” said Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock and lead investor in Apollo Fusion. “I’m excited that Apollo Fusion will be a key enabler of Astra’s hyperscale space platform.”

“Propulsion systems open new destinations,” said Apollo Fusion Founder and CEO, Mike Cassidy. “Our team is excited to combine the flexibility of in-space propulsion with the world’s most responsive launch provider.”

In addition to Cassidy, the acquisition brings a team with experience from companies such as Google, Tesla, and SpaceX, with individuals who have developed, designed and manufactured hardware flying on more than 2,000 satellites on-orbit today. This transaction will close after Astra’s business combination with Holicity (NASDAQ: HOL) is completed and is expected to be accretive to revenue starting this year.

Earlier this year, Astra and the Holicity Inc. (NASDAQ: HOL) SPAC announced a definitive business combination agreement that will result in Astra becoming a publicly traded company. The transaction reflects an implied pro-forma enterprise value for Astra of approximately $2.1 billion. Upon closing, the transaction is expected to provide up to $500 million in cash proceeds, including up to $300 million of cash held in the trust account of Holicity and an upsized $200 million PIPE led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.

“This transaction takes us a step closer to our mission of improving life on Earth from space by fully funding our plan to provide daily access to low Earth orbit from anywhere on the planet,” said Chris Kemp, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Astra. ‍

“I have long believed space provides an unmatched opportunity to benefit and enrich society,” said Craig McCaw, Chairman and CEO of Holicity. “Astra’s space platform will further improve our communications, help us protect our planet, and unleash entrepreneurs to launch a new generation of services to enhance our lives.”

With more than 50 launches in manifest across more than 10 private and public customers, including NASA and DoD, Astra has booked over $150 million of contracted launch revenue. Astra will begin delivering customer payloads this summer and start monthly launches by the end of this year. Upon the closing of the transaction, the combined company will be named Astra and will be listed on NASDAQ under the symbol “ASTR.”

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) Laser Interconnect and Networking Communication System (LINCS) satellites have arrived at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida, to prepare for launch.

Using LINCS, GA-EMS, in partnership with the Space Development Agency (SDA), will conduct a series of experiments demonstrating optical communication in and from space. The LINCS satellites will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The LINCS system is comprised of two, 12U cubesats, each hosting a C-band, dual-wavelength, full duplex, Optical Communication Terminal (OCT) and an Infrared (IR) payload, with all elements internally designed and built by GA-EMS at their facilities in San Diego, California, and Huntsville, Alabama. In partnership with SDA, this is one of the first Department of Defense (DoD) contracted efforts to develop and deploy a state-of-the-art, 1550 nm OCT to test capabilities to increase the speed, distance, and variability of communication in space.

“The arrival of GA-EMS’ LINCS system at Cape Canaveral marks the start of final preparations and integration on board the Falcon 9, bringing us one step closer to demonstrating the next evolution of space-based optical communication,” said Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS. “It is an honor to support SDA on their first launch and to demonstrate this critical technology that will enable the future national security space architecture.”

“The launch of our two cubesats, supporting the LINCS mission, demonstrates GA-EMS’ ability to provide a complete tailored solution of both satellites and payloads integrated into an affordable design that provides customers significant launch versatility and cost effective solutions to their missions,” said Nick Bucci, vice president of Missile Defense and Space Systems at GA-EMS.

LeoLabs, Inc., has closed a $65 million Series B financing round, jointly led by Insight Partners and existing investor Velvet Sea Ventures. With this round, LeoLabs has raised over $100 million in total capital.

LEO is rapidly emerging as the commercial frontier in space. Rapid deployment of new satellite constellations, the demand for innovative services from imaging to broadband to Internet of Things (IoT) and the billions of dollars of new investment in space-based infrastructure are redefining a domain shared by governments, space agencies, regulators, commercial operators and space insurance.

Against this backdrop of unprecedented opportunity are two challenges critical to investment and the long-term viability of LEO. The first is the need to develop LEO sustainably by addressing the threat posed by space debris. Approximately 250,000 dangerous pieces of orbital debris have gone untracked by government legacy systems that can no longer keep pace with increasing risks to satellite constellations. Sustainability is not just an arena for operators to address, but also for regulators to establish international best practices, set standards, and define rules of behavior.

The second challenge critical to the long-term viability of LEO is keeping it open and secure. As the number of private space enterprises and space-faring nations continue to grow, so does the need to track and make transparent the full range of threats to an open space environment.

“This latest round of funding is a testament to our mission to inform, secure and enable the revolution of services entering Low Earth Orbit,” said Dan Ceperley, LeoLabs CEO and co- Founder. “It sets the stage for the next phase of our growth as we build our team and our global footprint in the SSA domain. We now have the resources to accelerate the global deployment of next-generation radars for tracking small debris and satellites in LEO, and to expand development of our scalable LEO mapping and SSA platform. The single greatest challenge to both the sustainability and security threats in LEO is solving the ‘data deficit’. The number of assets in LEO doubled last year, will double again this year, and is expected to grow 25x in the next five years. LeoLabs is already the largest provider of data for LEO today, and this lead will expand rapidly as we execute on our constellation of radars.”

Ceperley continued, “The legacy government-built SSA infrastructures of the past simply cannot scale to track the new levels of LEO activity, and they have no path to get there. Our market-driven infrastructure is the only viable and scalable way to address this “data deficit.” The growth phase for LeoLabs is all about scaling our business along two dimensions. The first is infrastructure. With the Kiwi and Costa Rica space radars, we’ve proven our rapid deployment model for building radars, and we are actively evaluating additional sites. June, 2021 We intend to upscale our model to build out multiple radar sites concurrently, beginning this year. Our goal is simple, establish a global constellation of ground-based radars. The second dimension is scaling our SaaS business offering, which is a strategic advantage in deploying innovative, critical services to our customers. We are especially pleased to welcome our new lead investors who bring decades of experience in building world-class SaaS companies.”

“We are excited about LeoLabs’ vision and the progress they’ve made on both the radar network and the SSA platform,” said Nick Sinai, Senior Advisor at Insight Partners. “LeoLabs is uniquely positioned to deliver the data, analytics, and software that government and commercial customers need to understand where satellites and debris are at all times. We are thrilled to back an all-star team at LeoLabs as they develop the leading space awareness software company.” As part of the financing round, Nick Sinai will join the LeoLabs Board of Directors.

“As one of the first investors in LeoLabs, I have watched the team build an end-to-end solution, from radars to its platform that makes mission critical analytics available and actionable as a commercial off-the-shelf service to any company interested in leveraging low-earth orbit solutions as a growth driver,” said John Giampetroni, Managing Partner of Velvet Sea Ventures and LeoLabs angel investor. “Their vision for the future of the commercial space industry and their ability to execute on that vision makes LeoLabs a formidable industry leader.”

 Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) will integrate its In-line Network Encryptor (INE) into the world’s first Link 16-capable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite that Viasat is developing for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles XVI program.

Viasat’s INE will be the first crypto deployment on a Link 16-capable LEO satellite, and will provide communications security (COMSEC) and additional enhanced cybersecurity capabilities initially associated with mission data transfer, with future evolutions expected to simultaneously secure user data; telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) management; and inter-satellite communications—at multiple security levels.

Viasat’s INE, which was designed for a very low Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) constrained system, is expected to provide radiation-tolerant network encryption aligned with the LEO space environment and will be capable of supporting speeds exceeding 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) aggregate throughput, which makes it an outstanding encryptor to secure Link 16-to-LEO communications. The INE will also be able to secure the data flow between an unclassified spacecraft bus and the classified processing domain.

“In addition to building and testing the first-ever Link 16-capable LEO satellite prototype, Viasat is also focused on delivering the first high assurance, fully-programmable crypto deployed in space,” said Craig Miller, president, Government Systems, Viasat. “Our focus is on revolutionizing space-based cryptographic and cybersecurity solutions by moving away from embedded, fixed single-application ASICs and moving to ‘plug and play,’ fully-programmable, multi-functional and highly-efficient military-grade cryptos that can be rapidly deployed by supporting commercial off the shelf technology enhancements for small satellites.”

On Friday, May 28, 2021, OneWeb launched 36 satellites to bring the company one step closer to completing their commercial service by the end of the year — this was OneWeb’s seventh overall launch and the fourth in a five-launch program to fulfill the company’s ‘Five to 50’ service,.

The satellites are manufactured by OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus Defence and Space, based in Space Coast, Florida.

The venture developed a production line process for manufacturing the satellites that dramatically lowers costs and also significantly accelerates output.

With two production lines in their Florida factory, each line can build one satellite in a single eight-hour shift, allowing OneWeb Satellites to produce satellites at a scale that will enable OneWeb to rapidly build out its full constellation. OneWeb Satellites employs more than 180 people in Florida and is on track to have a headcount of 200 at the Merritt Island facility on the Space Coast by the end of the year. OneWeb has now increased their satellite constellation to more than 200 spacecraft.

This latest launch adds 36 satellites to OneWeb’s constellation as the company works to complete their 648 LEO satellite fleet that will deliver high-speed, low-latency global connectivity. This launch placed the smallsats in their designated orbits and represents 80 percent of the constellation required to enable the firm’s connectivity solution to reach all regions north of 50 degrees latitude by June of 2021.

OneWeb plans to offer connectivity across the United Kingdom, Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Iceland, the Arctic Seas and Canada. Their service is expected to be switched on before the end of the year and OneWeb intends to make global service available in 2022.

The launch occurred from the Vostochny Cosmodrome and was be conducted by Arianespace. This was the 57^th Soyuz mission conducted by Arianespace and their Starsem affiliate.

By operating this flight on behalf of OneWeb, Arianespace continues their record of fulfilling their customer’s ultimate ambition, that being to provide internet access for everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Locals and tourists in the Whitsunday region of Australia could soon be watching rockets launching into space, with the Queensland government announcing their support for the local space launch industry.

In a statement, Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, Steven Miles, said, “Growing our space industry in Queensland will add billions to the economy and create thousands of local jobs. That’s why we are committed the development of launch infrastructure. Our easterly facing position, proximity to the equator, and our leading launch and propulsion companies make Queensland the perfect place to invest in space.”

The announcement follows a technical and environmental study commissioned on Abbot Point last year, which concluded that the site is suitable for small-scale launch vehicles.

Enter Gilmour Space Technologies, a venture-funded rocket company on Australia’s Gold Coast that is developing lower cost rockets to launch smallsats into LEO starting in 2022.

“Gilmour Space Technologies has expressed an interest in the site (and) we are keen to work with the team at Gilmour and local stakeholders,” said Mr Miles.

Launching on Gilmour’s first Eris rocket next year will be several Australian payloads, including a ‘space taxi’ by Sydney-based Space Machines Company and a fire detection satellite by Fireball International, another Queensland company on the Sunshine Coast.

“A launch site at Abbot Point in North Queensland would give our customers a range of valuable orbits, inclinations, and altitudes that they will require,” said Gilmour Space co-founder and Head of Launch Operations, James Gilmour.

The company is also looking at a proposed launch site in South Australia for complementary polar orbits, in line with their vision to achieve ‘All Orbits, All Planets.’

“Our next step is to continue to work with key stakeholders to get all the necessary approvals we need to proceed on building and operating an orbital launch facility at Abbot Point,” said Mr Gilmour. “With sufficient and timely support, I see no reason why we can’t be demonstrating key, sovereign space capability next year, launching our first Australian-made rocket, with Australian payloads, from an Australian launch site.”

SES Government Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, in close partnership with a key U.S. Government customer, designed, developed and fielded an O3b Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) reachback capability to provide mission-critical communications for a key combatant command.

The awarded task order for $11.8 million is against the single-award $516.7 million Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), low-latency, High Throughput Satellite (HTS) services. This is the 15th task order awarded to SES GS on this BPA.

With this agreement, SES Government Solutions expands its high-throughput, low-latency services in support of mission-essential combatant command requirements, as the customer needs evolve, by providing innovative, flexible and secure communications solutions.

Using O3b services, U.S. Government customers can take advantage of the field-proven capabilities to support the provisioning of enterprise services to deployed warfighters. The solution leverages the MEO constellation by providing fiber-like connectivity to austere deployed locations.  

“The Department of Defense has vast and expansive information at their fingertips,” said President and CEO of SES Government Solutions, Brigadier General Pete Hoene, USAF (retired). “Utilizing reachback technology gives our warfighters the information and support needed for mission success. By leveraging the O3b MEO constellation, deployed U.S. military personnel have access to near real-time decision-making intelligence at the tactical edge.”

The target for SpaceX: Saturday, May 15, for the company’s follow-up Starlink mission, with the smallsats nestled aboard a Falcon 9 launch vehicle that lifted off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

On board this mission are 52 Starlink satellites, a Capella Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, and Tyvak-0130, an optical spectrum astronomy observation satellite.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster that supports this mission previously launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station, ANASIS-II, CRS-21, Transporter-1, and three Starlink missions.

Following stage separation, SpaceX landed the Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship located in the Atlantic Ocean. One half of this mission’s Falcon 9’s fairing previously supported the SXM-7 mission, and the other half previously supported the NROL-108 mission.