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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:
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.
D-Orbit secured 15 million euros financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) in September, marking the first time that the EIB has funded a space firm — the funds will advance the expansion of the company, whose goal is to redefine the standards of the orbital transportation industry.
In March, the company had already secured a funding round of more than $10 million led by the Italian Neva F.I.R.S.T., Intesa Sanpaolo’s Corporate Venture Capital investment vehicle managed by Neva SGR, and some new and existing investors. Among the new investors are 808 Ventures, an Australian tech investor, the US-based View Different, Savim and two Italian private investment vehicles Geostazionaria and ClubDealOnline (contributing about $3 million).
Existing investors, such as Seraphim Capital, Noosphere Ventures, Elysia Capital, CDP Venture Capital Sgr., Nova Capital and TT Venture, also reaffirmed their commitment and trust in the company by incrementing their initial investments.
D-Orbit recently launched their ION Satellite Carrier, a satellite platform developed and operated in house that is able to host several satellites and deploy them in their precise operational slot in one or more orbits and the firm is completing the ground testing campaign of a new satellite carrier destined for a second, fully booked ION mission.
Executive Comment
“We are truly grateful to all our shareholders, those who have just joined our Company and those who have believed in us from the very beginning, like Indaco SGR, Comoventures, and Il Club degli Investitori,” said Luca Rossettini, Founder and CEO of D-Orbit. “Their trust and support have enabled us to carry on with our roadmap through these extraordinary times reaching exceptional objectives.”
Mynaric has been selected by Telesat to supply multiple units of its flagship CONDOR optical, inter-satellite, link terminals to DARPA’s Blackjack Track B program.
The terminals are scheduled to be delivered in mid-2021 to DARPA’s Blackjack System Integrator with satellites scheduled to launch in the latter part of 2021. The launch will be the inaugural ride to space for Mynaric’s flagship CONDOR terminals – a key milestone and final trial for the product’s successful market introduction.
As part of the deal, Mynaric will also establish the industry’s first laser communication interoperability lab at its Los Angeles premises. The lab will be equipped with a link testbed capable of emulating conditions in space and testing inter-vendor operability – a key requirement of DARPA for its proliferated LEO constellation plans.
The soon-to-be-established interoperability lab will provide laser communication vendors selected as part of the Blackjack program with the opportunity to verify their compatibility with Mynaric’s terminals and between each other. It is intended to serve as a hub and enabler for testing interoperability and to help establish a common laser communication standard within the Blackjack program and potentially beyond.
Blackjack is a joint technology demonstration project by DARPA and the U.S. Space Force to evaluate utility and concepts of operation for a large-scale proliferated low Earth orbit satellite constellation. The overarching goal of the program is to leverage developments from the commercial sector to create a generic satellite bus and payloads for defense purposes. Mynaric’s CONDOR terminal, specifically developed for mass deployment and under stringent low size, weight, power and cost requirements (SWaP-C), is a natural fit for the program.
This award represents further validation that the laser communication market is now experiencing an inflection point and is moving from concept to implementation. Current developments are heavily driven by the fact that procurement for government is changing from acquiring bespoke projects to industrialized commercial products – especially in the USA.
Mynaric expects this to become the standard for how governmental agencies will work at large and globally in the future as it allows for the leveraging of commercial industrial achievements most effectively. As such, initial contract awards from the governmental markets are considered a precursor to the wider establishment of civil and commercial large-scale aerospace communication networks of the future.
Executive Comments
“We are very happy to welcome Telesat and DARPA as inaugural launch customers for our CONDOR terminals and we are very much looking forward to supporting the mission’s target to demonstrate interoperability between different vendors. Interoperability allows not just DARPA but all of our customers to de-risk their supply chains and we expect it to work as a catalyst accelerating the large-volume deployment of laser communication systems. Consequently, Mynaric aims to take a leading role in establishing open industry standards for laser communications and it is an honor to host the industry’s first interoperability lab at our facilities in Los Angeles,” said Bulent Altan, CEO, Mynaric.
“Optical Inter-Satellite Links are the essential building block for next generation commercial and government space networks. Mynaric has developed impressive laser communications terminals that we will be demonstrating on-orbit under the DARPA Blackjack program. We expect that Mynaric, as a part of Telesat’s Blackjack team, will show the way to affordable ultra-high bandwidth laser communications capability for future resilient government space networks,” said Don Brown, GM, Telesat U.S. Services.
