News

Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS) launched their 2nd demo flight of the Vigoride Orbital Service Vehicle (OSV) to LEO aboard the SpaceX Transporter-6 mission on January 3rd, 2023.

Momentus established contact with the Vigoride vehicle on the spacecraft’s first orbital pass and confirmed that both of the solar arrays are deployed and the vehicle is generating power and charging its batteries.

The Vigoride OSV is designed to support a range of transportation and in-space infrastructure services. A key part of the Vigoride spacecraft is the Microwave Electrothermal Thruster (MET) that is designed to use water as a propellant. The MET is designed to produce thrust by expelling extremely hot gases through a rocket nozzle.

Unlike a conventional chemical rocket engine, which creates thrust through a chemical reaction, the MET is designed to create a plasma and thrust using microwave energy. Using the MET, Momentus aims to offer cost-effective, efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly propulsion to meet the demands for in-space transportation and infrastructure services.

Priorities for this flight include hosting Caltech’s Space-based Solar Power Project payload, deploying a satellite with the Qosmosys Zeus-1 payload, and testing Vigoride’s performance in space, including its MET system.

Momentus launched the company’s inaugural mission in May of 2022. The Company deployed eight customer satellites during that mission for FOSSA Systems, Orbit NTNU and Bronco Space at the California State Polytechnic University.

“Today’s mission marks the second Vigoride launch to orbit and is the first of four missions slated for 2023,” said Momentus Chief Executive Officer, John Rood. “I’m proud of the substantial progress our talented team of engineers continues to make in maturing our technology. On this flight, in addition to meeting our commitments to our customers, we’ll put Vigoride through a series of tests to establish its performance in space. We’re particularly interested in testing the MET as our propulsion system aims to provide greater efficiency than a chemical system while generating a higher thrust than electric propulsion. The outcomes of this mission will continue to inform our approach as we look toward advancing our service offerings and tackling the complex in-space infrastructure needs of government, civil and commercial customers.”

Additional info regarding the Momentus Vigoride is available at this direct SatNews.com link…

Planet Labs PBC launched 36 of their SuperDove satellites, Flock 4y, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 3, 2023, at 9:56 a.m., ET (14:56 UTC), on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (SFS), Florida.

These 36 SuperDoves will replenish Planet’s current fleet of approximately 200 satellites on-orbit, working to provide a continuous, and complete view of the world from above every day. Each Planet SuperDove is equipped with eight spectral-bands and improved on-orbit capacity that helps to quickly deliver sharp, analysis-ready data to Planet’s customers. The data collected by Planet’s SuperDoves allows organizations in agriculture, government — both intelligence and civilian agencies — forestry, sustainability, and other industries to make informed, timely decisions.

Further, a select number of these Planet SuperDoves are adorned with artwork and quotes that celebrate the legacy of Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, as a part of Planet’s collaboration with The Roddenberry Foundation’s Boldly Go Campaign. The Roddenberry Foundation launched this campaign in 2021 to celebrate Gene’s hopeful vision of humanity’s future — one of inclusion, scientific progress, and cooperation. Five of the Planet SuperDoves on this mission will have artwork laser-etched onto their side panels that is inspired by the more than 1,500 submissions to the Boldly Go campaign, which asked the world to share what gives them hope for humanity’s future.

This was Planet’s eighth overall launch with SpaceX. Since its founding, Planet has launched more than 500 imaging satellites, more than any commercial company in history. Follow along at Planet’s Twitter account as the company gears up for the launch of its 36 SuperDoves.

“We’re excited to again work with SpaceX to bring 36 SuperDoves to orbit, our eighth overall launch with the launch provider,” said Planet’s Vice President of Launch, Mike Safyan. “Once in orbit, these satellites will join our current fleet and work to deliver cutting-edge geospatial solutions to our global customer base.”

Stanford Student Space Initiative (SSI), an undergraduate student group at Stanford University, will launch the Sapling Sempervirens (Sapling-1) satellite on the SpaceX Transporter-6 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The launch is planned for Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023. Sapling-1 will be deployed from Launcher Space’s Launcher Orbiter vehicle approximately one week after the launch. SpaceX will host a livestream of the launch at this direct link.

The successful launch and operation of Sapling will mark the start of open source, scientific satellite missions designed and built by undergraduate students at Stanford. Such missions will seek to advance humanity’s understanding of Earth and our place in the universe while expanding space’s accessibility for those without significant experience and financial resources.

The Sapling spacecraft’s specific mission is to demonstrate autonomous cloud filtering and smart downlinking of images using a Google Coral payload camera and Google Coral Edge TPU coprocessor. The satellite, which uses silicon solar cells, employs this highly efficient computing platform for performance without relying on higher priced GaAS cells.

The Sapling project leverages the novel opportunities available in space today. Recent rapid growth in the private space sector has generated accessible launch pricing and reliable launch opportunities, including the SpaceX rideshare mission series. SSI students have developed satellite manufacturing processes achievable in a collegiate lab setting.

Sapling makes use of the novel PyCubed SmallSat framework; as a result, the satellite is completely programmable in CircuitPython. All project files are open-source and published through GitHub. With these resources, mission-driven students can develop space-based capabilities, handle flight hardware, and take engineering skills from the classroom into orbit.

Sapling Sempervirens takes its name from sequoia sempervirens, or the coast redwood, a nod to Stanford’s mascot, the Tree. SSI’s next satellite is named for sequoiadendron giganteum, the giant sequoia, and will launch on the SpaceX Transporter 7 mission no earlier than April of 2023.

Innoflight was awarded over $5M in government contracts to radiation-harden and cyber-harden advanced terrestrial sensor payloads for space. Within Department of Defense (DoD) space programs, there is a significant interest in leveraging affordable, advanced, and low size, weight and power (SWaP) avionics systems for use in proliferated Low Earth Orbit (pLEO) space sensors and seekers on aerospace vehicles. This approach allows the DoD to rapidly adopt advanced software-defined and reconfigurable sensor payloads to respond to emerging threats. Innoflight’s contracts cover the entire scope of these payloads, including the sensor, read-out electronics, edge processing and power electronics and will leverage Innoflight’s expertise to space qualify Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technologies for mechanical, thermal, electromagnetic and radiation requirements. 

A key element of Innoflight’s space qualification is a systems-engineering focused, multi-layer mitigation of both natural and man-made threats to the payload’s electronics and embedded systems. The largest of the government contracts emphasizes the requirement to harden against cyber threats.

“Innoflight has built upon its breadth and depth in radiation mitigation of advanced secure communications, networking and processing solutions for responsive space; furthermore, we have taken our expertise and experience in information assurance through multiple U.S. Government Information Assurance cryptographic solution certification programs to build a comprehensive cyber capability called CyberDog” states Jeff Janicik, Innoflight President and CEO.

CyberDog actively protects all communications between the spacecraft and external entities, including Internet Protocol (IP) traffic. For IP traffic, CyberDog selectively calls upon Intrusion Detection System (IDS) routines to quarantine dangerous data or suspicious outbound traffic for further analysis. The CyberDog algorithm can be tuned to provide high-assurance encryption services to protect sensitive mission data. Finally, CyberDog monitors the internal behavior of the system in real‑time. The proprietary algorithm will monitor for sudden changes in the behavior of the system and rapidly discriminate the change event as an attack or anomaly. CyberDog will meet the attack based on threat condition, programmed rulesets, or updates from an external command and control node.

These contracts will produce prototype hardware that has completed qualification testing and ready for on-orbit demonstration.

SpaceX is targeting 9:56 a.m., ET, (14:56 UTC) on Tuesday, January 3, for Falcon 9’s launch of the Transporter-6 mission to LEO from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34 and 10 Starlink missions.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9 will land on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Transporter-6 is SpaceX’s sixth dedicated smallsat rideshare mission. There will be 114 payloads on this flight, including smallsats and orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time.

A live webcast of this mission will start about 10 minutes before liftoff.

The planned smallsats deployment order…

KuwaitSat-1 / BDSat-2 / SharedSat 2211 / LEMUR 2 EMMACULATE / LEMUR 2 FUENTETAJA-01 / ConnectaT1.2 / GAMA Alpha / BRO-8 / Menut / Huygens / LEMUR 2 DISCLAIMER / STAR VIBE / LEMUR 2 STEVEALBERS / ISILAUNCH Kleos KSF3-A / Birkeland / SPACEBEE-156/ / LEMUR 2 MMOLO / ISILAUNCH Kleos KSF3-B / ISILAUNCH Kleos KSF3-C / LEMUR 2 PHILARI / ISILAUNCH Kleos KSF3-D / First Flock 4Y / EWS RROCI / SpaceBD ISILAUNCH PolyItan from Kiev / Second Flock 4Y / Guardian-alpha/ Third Flock 4Y deploys / Fourth Flock 4Y / SpaceBD Sony Sphere-1 EYE / ISILAUNCH ClydeSpace NSLSat-2 / ISILAUNCH Sternula-1 / Fifth Flock 4Y / Sixth Flock 4Y / Seventh Flock 4Y / Eighth Flock 4Y / Ninth Flock 4Y / 10th Flock 4Y / 11th Flock 4Y / 12th Flock 4Y / 13th Flock 4Y / 14th Flock 4Y / 15th Flock 4Y / 16th Flock 4Y / 17th Flock 4Y / 18th Flock 4Y / 19th Flock 4Y / 20th Flock 4Y / 21st Flock 4Y / 22nd Flock 4Y / 23rd Flock 4Y / 24th Flock 4Y / 25th Flock 4Y / 26th Flock 4Y / 27th Flock 4Y / 28th Flock 4Y / 29th Flock 4Y / 30th Flock 4Y / 31st Flock 4Y / 32nd Flock 4Y / 33rd Flock 4Y / 34th Flock 4Y / 35th Flock 4Y / 36th Flock 4Y / Lynk Tower 3 / Albania 1 / Lynk Tower 4 / YAM-5 / NewSat 34 / Albania 2 / X22 / X21 / First Umbra / Second Umbra / NewSat 35 / ION SCV-007 GLORIOUS GRATIA / ION SCV-008 FIERCE FRANCISCUS / Launcher Orbiter SN1 / X27 / Skykraft 1 / Vigoride 5 / CHIMERA LEO 1 / EOS SAT-1

Kleos Space S.A. has successfully processed RF data collected by the company’s Vigilance Mission (KSF1) satellites through its signal processing technology platform to create its geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) product, LOCATE, which has been released to initial customers alongside other intelligence collected by the Vigilance Mission.

The Kleos proprietary technology platform uses signal processing techniques to convert the raw data collected from sensors onboard Kleos’ RF data collection satellite constellation that is designed to collect and downlink RF data accurately and with redundancy, or potentially from other sources, into actionable intelligence.

The technology platform performs signal analysis and processing operations to detect and locate targets, cooperative or not. The geospatial intelligence product output from the technology platform (LOCATE) provides the frequency of the detected transmitter, the reception time, the transmitter coordinates, and the confidence ellipse parameters. LOCATE provides a valuable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability to governments and commercial entities. It complements other intelligence sources to improve the detection of illegal and/or hidden activity such as piracy, drug, and people smuggling, illegal fishing, pollution, and border challenges.

Recent advancements in Kleos’ ground signal processing technology now allow the company to deliver the LOCATE geospatial intelligence product with as few as two satellites in a formation, a reduction from the previous minimum of three. The algorithm advancements will also facilitate the ability for Kleos’ processing platform to ingest raw data from other sensors in addition to those owned by Kleos, potentially accelerating the volume of intelligence available to customers with the possibility of lower CAPEX spending.

The next mission, the Patrol Mission (KSF3), is launching on SpaceX Transporter 6 and is now expected to launch in January of 2023.

Kleos CEO, Andy Bowyer, said, “Our geospatial intelligence is now available to initial customers, with additional data volumes being made available as we bring more of our satellite constellation online. Our technology delivers actionable intelligence from sensor collections, helping solve some of the world’s greatest societal, economic, and environmental challenges.”

Planet Labs PBC plans to launch 36 of their SuperDove satellites, Flock 4y, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than Tuesday, January 3, 2023, at 9:56 a.m., ET (14:56 UTC). Flock 4y is planned to launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (SFS), Florida.

These 36 SuperDoves will replenish Planet’s current fleet of approximately 200 satellites on-orbit, working to provide a continuous, and complete view of the world from above every day. Each Planet SuperDove is equipped with eight spectral-bands and improved on-orbit capacity that helps to quickly deliver sharp, analysis-ready data to Planet’s customers. The data collected by Planet’s SuperDoves allows organizations in agriculture, government — both intelligence and civilian agencies — forestry, sustainability, and other industries to make informed, timely decisions.

Further, a select number of these Planet SuperDoves will be adorned with artwork and quotes that celebrate the legacy of Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, as a part of Planet’s collaboration with The Roddenberry Foundation’s Boldly Go Campaign. The Roddenberry Foundation launched this campaign in 2021 to celebrate Gene’s hopeful vision of humanity’s future — one of inclusion, scientific progress, and cooperation. Five of the Planet SuperDoves on this mission will have artwork laser-etched onto their side panels that is inspired by the more than 1,500 submissions to the Boldly Go campaign, which asked the world to share what gives them hope for humanity’s future.

This will be Planet’s eighth overall launch with SpaceX. Since its founding, Planet has launched over 500 imaging satellites, more than any commercial company in history. Follow along at Planet’s Twitter account as the company gears up for the launch of its 36 SuperDoves.

“We’re excited to again work with SpaceX to bring 36 SuperDoves to orbit, our eighth overall launch with the launch provider,” said Planet’s Vice President of Launch, Mike Safyan. “Once in orbit, these satellites will join our current fleet and work to deliver cutting-edge geospatial solutions to our global customer base.”

On Wednesday, December 28th at 4:34 a.m., ET, SpaceX launched 54 Starlink satellites to LEO from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

This was the 11th launch and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage booster, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, and now six Starlink missions.

This launch marked the first of Starlink’s upgraded network. Under the company’s new license, SpaceX is now able to deploy satellites to new orbits that will add even more capacity to the network. Ultimately, this enables SpaceX to add more customers and provide faster service — particularly in areas that are currently over-subscribed.

Then, on Thursday, December 29th at 11:38 p.m. PT, a Falcon 9 launched the ImageSat International (ISI) EROS C-3 (Earth Resources Observation Systems C) mission to a LEO from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

This was the 11th launch of this booster, which previously supported the launch of Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15, and two Starlink missions.

According to the company, Starlink now has more than 1,000,000 active subscribers across the globe.