Slingshot Aerospace, Inc. has raised $8 million in Series A funds for a total raised of $17.1 million to date — the round is led by ATX Venture Partners, and includes additional investments from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Techstars Ventures and Okapi Venture Capital.

Angel investors that participated in the round include former CEO of the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation and current Principal Consultant for Plum Run, LLC, Keith Masback; Gregory Mead and Marie-Alicia Chang, co-founders of Semetric; and Glenn Degenaars who was recognized as a Top Wealth Advisor for 2020 by Forbes.

Slingshot Aerospace is creating situational awareness technologies that provide customizable solutions to quickly navigate, analyze, and leverage data from earth and space. The funds raised will be used to further develop Slingshot Aerospace products for commercialization, enable the company to expand into new industry verticals outside of aerospace and defense, and grow the team.

Satellites, airplanes, drones, and ground-based sensors generate petabytes of data every day, but it’s impossible to quickly analyze and use the information in a meaningful way. Slingshot Aerospace is creating tools that unlock the power of data intelligence to save lives, time and money.

In less than 3 years, Slingshot Aerospace has experienced rapid growth by earning millions of dollars in revenue from early customer contracts, and is leveraging government contracts to accelerate digital transformation within defense to build the company’s intellectual property. The innovation of Slingshot Aerospace has helped the company cultivate a strong foundation of customers over the last three years including NASA, United States Air Force, BAE Systems, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and more. The company is currently working with the United States Space Force to create Slingshot Orbital Laboratory, and has partnered with the United States Air Force on two contracts to develop Slingshot Edge and another solution for the military branch’s Base of the Future initiative. Slingshot Aerospace aims to disrupt a $51.5 billion market by significantly improving the value of data.

Executive Comments

“Slingshot Aerospace is providing government and commercial customers a high-impact return on investment through its innovative situational intelligence technologies,” said Chris Shonk, Co-Founder and Partner, ATX Venture Partners. “There is no doubt Slingshot Aerospace will continue to experience high growth as the company has only scratched the surface in terms of customer acquisition and industry use across verticals.”

“Our mission is to invest in startups that are upending traditional industries with innovative technologies outside of Silicon Valley,” said David Hall, Managing Partner of Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. “Slingshot Aerospace’s innovation speaks for itself as the company has already brought in significant revenue while building its IP. We look forward to working with Slingshot Aerospace as it continues to scale operations and product development.”

“The funds we raise enable us to continue developing our innovative technology, bringing us one step closer to creating a safer and more sustainable world,” said David Godwin, Co-Founder and CEO, Slingshot Aerospace. “By providing users with the right data, at the right time, all in one place, we are giving users the tools they need to make faster, better informed decisions so they can protect and improve our way of life.”

WORK Microwave has announced one of the first end-to-end solutions for cubesat missions, thanks to a new collaboration with IQ Spacecom, a provider of satellite radio solutions.

By combining WORK Microwave‘s AX-60 IP modem (photo above) with IQ Spacecom‘s XLink advanced transceiver system, a brand of IQ wireless GmbH, operators have an affordable, one-stop-shop solution for new space applications, including LEO satellite missions for Earth Observation (EO).

The end-to-end solution includes WORK Microwave’s AX-60 19-inch rack-mount modem unit and XLink cubesat-sized communication module from IQ Spacecom. Both platforms connect to IP networks and provide easy-to-use, straightforward connectivity. Supporting satellite communication for the ground and space segments, the solution allows operators to reliably perform telecommand and telemetry transmission tasks to and from satellites. Featuring space communication waveforms according to Consultative Committee for Space Date System‘s (CCSDS) Recommended Standards (Blue Books) 131.0 and 231.0, it is one of the first cubesat solutions.

Executive Comment

“Using the standardized CCSDS waveforms, we have created a cost-efficient, end-to-end solution for CubeSat missions, solving a critical challenge for the wider industry,” said Jörg Rockstroh, Director, Business Development and Digital Products at WORK Microwave. “There are few companies with our longstanding experience and track record in the field of satellite communications, and by making this solution available with our partner, IQ Spacecom, we can provide customers with the reliability that WORK Microwave is known for.”

Created in partnership with more than 100 subject-matter experts, participants in this year’s SmallSat Symposium conference will collaboratively identify the most important market trends and new technologies that are set to alter the smallsat market.

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Rocket Lab is currently targeting no earlier than 01:44 hours, November 20, UTC, for lift-off of the company’s 16th Electron launch, the ‘Return to Sender’ mission.

This is Rocket Lab’s first recovery mission (they will be attempting to bring Electron’s first stage back under a parachute).

Launch Window:

• UTC: November 20 (01:44 – 04:34)

• NZT: November 20 (14:44 – 17:34) PT:

• November 19 (17:44 – 20:34) ET: November 19 (20:44 – 23:34)

There are launch backup opportunities available through November 30th should Rocket Lab need to stand down for any reason.

Mission Information

• ‘Return to Sender’ will deploy 30 satellites to a 500 km circular LEO for several small satellite operators including TriSept, Unseenlabs, Swarm Technologies, the University of Auckland, and Valve’s Gabe Newell.

• The mission will be Rocket Lab’s 16th launch overall and sixth mission of 2020.

• For the first time, Rocket Lab will also attempt to bring Electron’s first stage back from space under a parachute for a water landing. The mission will be the first time Rocket Lab has attempted to recover a stage after launch and is a major milestone in Rocket Lab’s pursuit to make Electron a reusable rocket to support an increased launch cadence for small satellite missions.

• For every person who watches the live launch webcast via www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream, Valve’s Gabe Newell will donate $1 to Starship children’s hospital

More information about the mission is downloadable at this direct link…

A live webcast of the launch will be available approximately 15-20 minutes prior to the target T-0 time at this direct link…

Payloads…

DRAGRACER — Organization: TriSept

The DRAGRACER mission will test the effectiveness of new tether technologies designed to accelerate spacecraft reentry and reduce orbital debris at the conclusion of space missions. TriSept has completed the integration of a pair of qualified Millennium Space Systems 6U small satellites, one featuring the tether drag device and one without. The controlled spacecraft should deorbit in approximately 45 days, while the second spacecraft is expected to remain in orbit for seven to nine years, according to Tethers Unlimited, developer of the 70-meter-long (230 feet) Terminator Tape aboard the control satellite.

BRO-2 and BRO-3 — Organization: Unseenlabs

BRO-2 and BRO-3 are the second and third satellites in French company Unseenlabs’ planned constellation of about 20 satellites dedicated to maritime surveillance. The first BRO satellite was launched to orbit by Rocket Lab in August 2019. Unseenlabs’ constellation enables improved monitoring of activities at sea, such as illegal fishing and anti-environmental behavior. Thanks to a unique proprietary technology, the BRO satellites are the first to be able to independently and precisely locate and fingerprint Radio Frequency (RF) emitters all around the globe, day or night, in any weather condition, and without requiring any special embarked tracking device. With three satellites in orbit, Unseenlabs’ clients can now benefit from the shortest revisit time available on the satellite RF geolocation market.

APSS-1 — Organization: Auckland Program for Space Systems, The University of Auckland

The student-built Waka Āmiorangi Aotearoa APSS-1 satellite is designed to monitor electrical activity in Earth’s upper atmosphere to test whether ionospheric disturbances might be linked to earthquakes. The data from this mission will deliver deeper knowledge of these hard-to-access altitudes and drive understanding of how phenomena such as solar wind and geophysical events affect this atmospheric region.

Spacebees — Organization: Swarm Technologies

Swarm will launch the latest 24 1/4U SpaceBEE satellites to continue building out its planned constellation of 150 satellites to provide affordable satellite communications services to IoT devices in remote regions around the world. Swarm’s uniquely small satellites enable the company to provide network services and user hardware at the industry’s lowest cost and deliver maximum value to customers across a range of industries including maritime shipping, agriculture, energy, and ground transportation. The SpaceBEES will be integrated into two of Rocket Lab’s 3U Maxwell CubeSat dispensers for orbital deployment.

Mass Simulator: Gnome Chompski — Organization: Gabe Newell, Founder of Valve Software

Manufactured with support from multi-award-winning design studio Weta Workshop, the unique space component is additively manufactured from titanium and printed in the shape of Half-Life gaming icon Gnome Chompski. The mission serves as an homage to the innovation and creativity of gamers worldwide, and also aims to test and qualify a novel 3D printing technique that could be employed for future spacecraft components. The 150 mm gnome will remain attached to the Kick Stage during all mission phases and will burn up upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere during the de-orbiting process.

Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) has been awarded a contract by GHGSat to build the next three smallsats in its commercial greenhouse gas monitoring constellation.

Greenhouse gas emissions detected and measured by the satellites are processed into emission reports and other products by GHGSat on behalf of a broad range of customers, including energy facilities, government agencies, and environmental organizations.

SFL built the pathfinding GHGSat-D (Claire) smallsat launched in 2016 and then was awarded the contract by GHGSat Inc. to develop the first two commercial service satellites, GHGSat-C1 (Iris) and C2 (Hugo). Iris was launched in September 2020, and Hugo is slated for launch late this year. These satellites were all developed on the SFL 15-kilogram Next-generation Earth Monitoring and Observation (NEMO) smallsat platform, as will be the case for the next three.

In just two months since its launch, GHGSat-C1 has achieved remarkable results detecting small methane emissions from point sources on the ground. In one test area, the satellite pinpointed five separate methane emissions, two of which were smaller than 220 kg/hr, a notable performance improvement on GHGSat’s demonstration satellite (Claire).

GHGSat-C1’s ability to detect and measure small point sources of greenhouse gas emissions is due in part to the precise attitude control and target tracking capability of the SFL NEMO bus. Rare among satellite platforms of this size and relatively low cost, precise pointing of the onboard sensor is made possible by an accurate and stable platform – an important factor in SFL’s selection to build the GHGSat microsatellites.

Executive Comment

“SFL has proven their technical expertise with our first two satellites. We are looking forward to this next phase of our partnership to support the growth of GHGSat’s constellation,” said Stephane Germain, CEO of GHGSat.

“SFL congratulates GHGSat on its success in providing commercial greenhouse gas monitoring services from space,” said SFL Director, Dr. Robert E. Zee. “This contract highlights GHGSat’s need to expand data collection capacity to meet the growing demand for its valuable services. We have a very mature, well-developed, and high-performance attitude control system that can handle various maneuvers and pointing modes with relative ease. We fine-tuned the attitude control required for GHGSat-C1 by leveraging the results from the GHGSat-D demonstration mission, and we will make continued advancements in the next GHGSat constellation.”

Established at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) in 1998, SFL has developed CubeSats, nanosatellites, and microsatellites that have achieved more than 128 cumulative years of operation in orbit. These microspace missions have included SFL’s trusted attitude control and, in some cases, formation-flying capabilities. Other core SFL-developed components include modular (scalable) power systems, onboard radios, flight computers, and control software. SFL’s heritage of on-orbit successes includes missions related to Earth observation, atmospheric monitoring, ship tracking and communication, radio frequency signal geolocation, technology demonstration, space astronomy, solar physics, space plasma, and other scientific research.

Arianespace has given the “green light” go-ahead for its Vega launch on November 16, which will orbit a pair of European-built satellites: Spain’s SEOSAT-Ingenio and TARANIS of France.

The approval followed today’s launch readiness review in French Guiana, which confirmed the preparedness of Vega, along with the payloads, the Spaceport’s launch site infrastructure, and the network of tracking stations.

All is now set for the nighttime liftoff on November 16 at precisely 10:52 p.m. local time in French Guiana (1:52 UTC on November 17), initiating a flight that will last 1 hr. and 42 min. until final payload separation. Total payload performance is estimated at 1,192 kg.

This mission to Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) is designated VV17, and it will be performed from the Spaceport’s ZLV launch complex – where Vega was assembled and now stands in a flight-ready configuration, protected by a mobile gantry that will be withdrawn prior to liftoff.

Flight VV17 will mark Arianespace’s seventh mission in 2020, and is the company’s second this year using a lightweight Vega – which is one of three launch vehicles operated by Arianespace at the Spaceport, along with the medium-lift Soyuz and heavyweight Ariane 5. Vega’s production prime contractor is Avio.

Vega began operations from Europe’s Spaceport in 2012, with the upcoming Flight VV17 to become its 17th. SEOSAT-Ingenio and TARANIS are to be the 84th and 85th satellites orbited by this vehicle – and the 745th and 746th lofted on an Arianespace mission overall.

For this latest Vega flight, the launcher is equipped with a Vega Secondary Payload Adaptor (VESPA), which enables the multi-satellite payload to be carried and deployed. VESPA is produced by Airbus Defence and Space in Spain for Avio.

SEOSAT-Ingenio will be released first during the Vega flight sequence, deployed from atop the VESPA structure. As the initial Spanish Earth Observation (EO) satellite, this spacecraft was built by an industrial consortium of Spanish space-sector companies led by Airbus Defence and Space. It will be orbited for the European Space Agency (ESA) at the benefit of Spain’s CDTI (Center for Development of Industrial Technology). The Spanish Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA) will own and operate SEOSAT-Ingenio.

TARANIS is installed inside VESPA, and will be deployed to complete Arianespace’s Flight VV17 – sending this spacecraft on its scientific mission to observe the mysterious red sprites, blue jets, elves and sprite halos that occur at altitudes of 20 to 100 km. above thunderstorms. It is being launched for the French CNES space agency as both customer and spacecraft prime contractor.

Raytheon Technologies (NYSE: RTX) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Blue Canyon Technologies, a provider of smallsats and spacecraft systems components.

Closure of the acquisition, expected by early 2021, is subject to the completion of customary conditions and regulatory approvals. Blue Canyon Technologies will report into Raytheon Intelligence & Space upon closing.

Based in Boulder, Colorado with more than 200 employees, Blue Canyon Technologies was founded in 2008. The company currently has more than 90 satellites in production, and has supported missions for the U.S. Air Force, NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Executive Comment

“The space market is rapidly expanding and our customers need comprehensive solutions faster than ever before,” said Roy Azevedo, President of Raytheon Intelligence & Space. “What makes Blue Canyon Technologies the right fit for our business is its agile, innovative culture and expertise in small satellite systems and technologies. This acquisition enables us to deliver a broader range of solutions to support our customers’ space missions – from sensing subsystems to mission systems integration and from launch and range support to on-orbit operations.“

Satellogic has successfully launched 10 new satellites, all delivered to sun-synchronous LEO at 3:18:50 am UTC on November 6, 2020.

This launch positions Satellogic as a global leader in high-resolution data collection from orbit. Satellogic’s increased orbital capacity now enables access to as many as four daily revisits of any point of interest and the collection of more than 4 million sq. km per day in high-resolution imagery. Satellogic’s on-orbit fleet is now comprised of 21 satellites, 14 of which are used to deliver high-resolution data to customers.

The company’s newest generation of satellites also operates at 0.7 meter resolution, enabling a more detailed view of the globe for more precise decision making. Through the ongoing refinement of sub-meter imagery, Satellogic plans to further drive down the cost of high-frequency geospatial analytics for existing and new Dedicated Satellite Constellation customers in 2021.

Over the course of 2020, Satellogic has made significant strides toward its goal of building a constellation capable of delivering frequent revisits of the entire planet at a price that will set a new standard for access and affordability in this market. Today’s dedicated launch follows successful launches in January and September and significantly expands the company’s in-orbit capacity.

The 10 new satellites launched today will further expand the company’s data-delivery capabilities, enabling Satellogic to meet the growing demand for their unique Satellite-as-a-Service model. By providing access to Dedicated Satellite Constellations (DSC), Satellogic enables governments to develop national geospatial imaging programs with no capital outlay and no technical risk.

Through the company’s DSC offering, state and local governments gain control of a fleet of satellites over their area of interest, including tasking, downloading, and processing capabilities. Geospatial analytics deliver insights that governments can use to improve or protect their environments, including border, resource, and infrastructure monitoring.

Executive Comments

“Timely access to geospatial analytics enables governments and key decision makers to build resilient processes and maintain their competitive edge, particularly in times of uncertainty or dramatic change,” said Satellogic Founder and CEO, Emiliano Kargieman. “We’re excited to put the power of our growing constellation directly in the hands of our customers and empower them to make better decisions, supported by up-to-date and high-resolution geospatial imagery.”

“At Satellogic we’ve continued to validate our vertically integrated approach. We’re not only manufacturing our spacecraft at scale but also continuing to develop new technologies that extend our competitive advantage,” said Satellogic Founder and CTO, Gerardo Richarte. “Leveraging our unique camera design, for instance, we can maximize the area we can image from a small aperture, giving us a 10X advantage in efficiency over any other small satellite platform in the market.”

ST Engineering iDirect has successfully completed their first Over-the-Air (OTA) testing of iDirect’s Multi-Frequency Time Division Multiple Access (MF-TDMA) return link on the Telesat Phase-1 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite.

This milestone achievement demonstrated dynamic sharing of bandwidth among multiple terminals within a LEO constellation, a capability that extends the capacity and flexibility of Telesat’s multi-beam beam hopping architecture, and opens up a wide range of use cases for Telesat’s LEO customers in the commercial, government, and defense markets for land, land-mobile, aeronautical, maritime, and other applications.

The testing was conducted at Telesat’s Allan Park facility and featured ST Engineering iDirect’s VSAT platform networked across multiple satellite modems. The iDirect platform was able to compensate fully for the LEO satellite link dynamics, including time, frequency, signal variation and Doppler effects. Short guard times (the time intervals required between radio bursts to prevent self-interference) were achieved, comparable in length to guard times used on GEO satellite links, without compromising capacity or spectral efficiency.

The ability to leverage MF-TDMA to efficiently share bandwidth on satellite ground-to-space links improves the capacity, performance and affordability of broadband services delivered over LEO satellite constellations.

To put the link to the test, the team conducted a video conference with engineers at Allan Park and achieved seamless connectivity, low jitter and low packet loss, resulting in a high Quality of Experience (QoE) that exceeded the level typically achieved over GEO satellite networks.

Executive Comments

“This is a significant success for the ST Engineering iDirect and Telesat teams,” said Bart Van Poucke, VP of Product Management at ST Engineering iDirect. “We have achieved the benefits of MF-TDMA efficiency whilst unlocking the low latency offered by LEO satellites. This demonstration confirms the wide addressable market for LEO and particularly for applications that require mission-critical communications. We are proud to have been part of these tests and thank Telesat for the opportunity.”

“Satellite service providers are eager to take advantage of Telesat LEO’s affordable, low latency, high-speed connectivity to deliver secure Internet, VPN, video conferencing and cloud applications to their customers,” stated Erwin Hudson, Telesat’s VP of LEO. “I congratulate the ST Engineering iDirect engineering team on their successful testing campaign. They demonstrated the powerful advantages that MF-TDMA brings to LEO networks, a capability that can provide increased flexibility and higher capacity for our customers while allowing us to support a greater number of end users on each LEO satellite.”

Axelspace Corporation has launched their business continuity plan (BCP) support service to conduct timely situational analysis in response to accidents and natural disasters, using satellite imagery data.

In preparation for occurrence of incidents, including unexpected events and accidents, BCP support service will periodically monitor the designated areas by capturing with satellite imagery data. It allows to take immediate control of the crisis situation, verify the situation of target assets and the surrounding environment in a confidential manner, by conducting emergency capturing based on predetermined terms.

In addition, monitoring of the current situation and verification of the surrounding environment during the recovery phase is made possible, without going to the actual location, because of periodic monitoring prior to the occurrence of the incident.

In many cases, situational analysis is conducted in an unplanned approach as the crisis unfolds, leading to difficulty in conducting verification, especially in areas restricted to enter. On the other hand, the conventional satellite imagery data takes time to arrange for the capture and has the issue of high cost for emergency capturing order.

With this BCP support service, the plan starts as low as US$500/month to capture every three months during the normal times and in times of crisis, will automatically capture, deliver the data and in addition, can provide data analysis service based on the client’s needs.

Compared to putting a new order request at the time of incident occurrence, the BCP support service plan has a huge advantage on ease of ordering, handling speed and cost, although there will be a separate emergency handling service cost.

Reach out for details, as the emergency handling cost will be different, based on the kind of service required at the time of crisis and the latency requirements upon the occurrence of the incidents.

In delivering the BCP support service, Axelspace will mainly be using AxelGlobe, the company’s proprietary rapid Earth observation monitoring platform, currently in development.

The first GRUS, the satellite used for AxelGlobe, was launched in December 2018 and in service already. 4 additional satellites will be launched soon, making it a 5-satellite system, allowing to monitor anywhere in the world every 3 days.