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Spaceport America and the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) have announced that the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, has been selected as the winner of the 2021 Virtual Spaceport America Cup. Spaceport America also announced the return of an in-person Spaceport America Cup in 2022 from June 21-25 at the closing ceremony of the 2021 virtual event.

Seventy-five teams from 16 different countries competed during the three-day, online event, that occurred from June 18-20. The virtual competition allowed university student teams to submit rocket designs for evaluation and included technical presentations and forums, keynote addresses from aerospace industry leaders and rocket safety training. Competitors also had the opportunity to meet with sponsors and exhibitors to learn more about aerospace career pathways and recruitment.

“Congratulations to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and all the other teams that competed in the 2021 Virtual Spaceport America Cup,” said Spaceport America Executive Director, Scott McLaughlin. “The event turnout has been incredible, and the caliber of the design and innovation has really impressed us. We look forward to welcoming the teams back to New Mexico in 2022.”

“ESRA is extremely pleased to be able to provide a virtual competition this year,” said ESRA President, Cliff Olmsted. “We thank Spaceport America and all of our sponsors especially Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, AIAA, Kansas City National Security Campus Honeywell and Kron Technologies for supporting this event and meeting with the students. The level of engagement and commitment by university teams competing from across the globe has been outstanding and inspiring. These teams are paving the way to the future. We are looking forward to the 2022 competition!“

Other awards and recipients include:

The Team Sportsmanship Award goes to Carleton University, with the runner up being Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The Team Sportsmanship Award recognizes a team which goes above and beyond to assist their fellow teams and the event organizers assure the Spaceport America Cup Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition is a productive, safe, and enjoyable experience for all involved.

The Nancy Squires Team Spirit Award was given to Kathmandu University, with the runner up being Auburn University. The Team Spirit Award recognizes a team which arrives at the Spaceport America Cup with proverbial (or literal) smiles on their face, a school flag in their hand, and never lets either waiver throughout the event. They show great pride in their work, learn from their mistakes, remain positive when things don’t go their way, engage members of the general public with respect and enthusiasm, and show respect for invited guests by attending and participating guest speaker presentations whenever possible.

The Kron Video Challenge was awarded to Cukurova University. The Kron Video Challenge is a new Technical Challenge for the best team video. The video covers the team’s year-long journey leading up to the Virtual Spaceport America Cup Event.

SDL awards 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for teams whose payloads exhibit innovation through scientific or technical objectives, payload construction and overall professionalism, readiness and execution of design objectives. The 2021 winners are 1st Place with a prize of $1,000: The George Washington University from Washington D.C, United States, with their Marco-Polo payload demonstrating gimballed laser communications.

2nd Place with a prize of $750: AGH University of Science and Technology, from Krakow, Poland, with the Space Habitat Research Effectiveness of Anesthetic Monitoring Payload, or SHREAMP, demonstrating the effects of sedation on invertebrates during space flight.

3rd Place with a prize of $500: University of Sydney, from Sydney, Australia, with the Tetratheca payload demonstrating picosateliite detumbling.

The Jim Furfaro Award for Technical Excellence awarded to Poznan University of Technology, with the runner up being the University of Samsun. The Jim Furfaro Award for Technical Excellence recognizes a team which demonstrates exceptional overall engineering discipline and technical skill through their analyses and conclusions, project or program planning and execution, operational procedure, manufacturing processes, iterative improvement, systems engineering methodology, robust design, etc.

The Dr. Gil Moore Award for Innovation was awarded to University of Waterloo, and the runner up was Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The Dr. Gil Moore Award for Innovation recognizes a team whose project includes one or more features (including analytic or operational processes as well as components or assemblies) the judging panel finds genuinely “novel”, “inventive”, or solving a unique problem identified by the team.

The Charles Hoult Award for Modeling & Simulation given to Monash University, with the runner up being Team 140 from the University of Western Macedonia. The Charles Hoult Award for Modeling & Simulation recognizes a team demonstrating excellence in math modeling and computational analyses.

The Spaceport America Cup is the world’s largest intercollegiate rocketry engineering contest (IREC) and has been held in New Mexico since 2017. Over 1,700 students and faculty come to Southern New Mexico for the annual IREC competition. Drawn by the opportunity to collaborate and compete at a world-class spaceport facility, they represent the best and brightest from more than 100 institutions located across the world.

The annual Spaceport America Cup was canceled in 2020 due to the global pandemic and the decision to make the event virtual for 2021 was made to accommodate the restrictions teams faced across the globe.

Fleet Space Technologies will launch their sixth smallsat, Centauri 4 (C4), aboard SpaceX Falcon9 on Saturday morning , June 26, at 4:26 a.m., Adelaide, Australia, time, with the US launch occurring at Cape Canaveral. 

To be delivered into orbit at 450 km above the Earth, Centauri 4 is the size of a shoebox and has been integrated with digital beamforming technology, making this Fleet Space’s most advanced payload. This is a major achievement for the company to incorporate this tech in a smallsat payload, due to the small craft’s power and volume constraints, and this will allow for substantial increases in throughput of customer data, service a higher number of customer portals at once as well as increase data reliability and security by reducing the impact of interference. C4 will implement Fleet Space’s first 3D printed antenna system, completely designed in-house.

Fleet Space has released a video explaining the achievements of their beamforming team at this direct vlink…

“Space is no longer the sole domain of governments and multi-billion dollar satellites. Space is open for business, and we’re only just starting to tap into what is possible,” said Fleet Space CEO Flavia Tata Nardini. “With our digital beamforming technology, we are changing space and making it accessible. With a crowded radio spectrum containing all of the world’s wireless communications, bandwidth efficiency is everything. Our engineers have managed to fit this incredible technology in the vacuum of space on a tiny nanosat. This is where Fleet Space’s technology makes it world first. I have been working and launching nanosatellites for more than 10 years now and I have never been so excited by a technological breakthrough such as this latest generation of the payload. This and the new 3D printed antennas that my amazing team have built at Fleet Space. We can finally demonstrate how powerful nanosatellites can be in the comms world. We call this payload the Knight. Look at it, you can understand why!”

Additionally, there is a 2nd experimental payload which will have an even greater increase in data capacity — this new generation payload is a huge milestone in the company’s planned constellation of 140 smallsats.

Now with the ability to shape and steer multiple beams in their nanosatellites and, therefore, reduce interference, Fleet Space can perform more work, transfer more data and do it in flexible and secure ways never before possible at this scale. The firm’s smallsats are servicing IoT customers who will reap the rewards of collecting and organizing vast amounts of data from every remote corner of the Earth. Critical infrastructure customer use cases include tracking power outages, receiving alerts of unwanted encroachments along easements and bushfire risks, through to applications in defence, mining and logistics. 

Fleet Space already has five smallsats on-orbit in their LEO constellation. With significant growth in the company’s development of cutting-edge technologies, the company’s capabilities of their agnostic hybrid satellite, low-powered, wide area network (LPWAN) are being used for the development of remote, massive, IoT applications, on the Earth, the Moon and Mars, through the firm’s Seven Sisters Lunar Mission. 

Watch the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch at this direct link on June 26…

According to Fact.MR.com, the all-electric satellite market is projected to be valued at more than $18 billion and is poised to grow at a staggering CAGR of over 11% during the forecast period.

As existing operators are preferring all-electric propulsion mechanisms, the satellite industry is witnessing a steady uptake of all-electric satellites. All-electric satellites are a new category of satellites providing extended mission time along with improved efficiency. They often weigh lesser than the traditional satellites. This leads to decreased satellite operator launch costs. The market is expected to witness many operators who show a pronounced shift towards all-electric satellite solutions as part of their future and current missions, with the possibility of low-weight satellites capturing their interest.

Key takeaways from this report..

• More than 30% of all the all-electric satellites launched in 2018 were for commercial communication purposes
• Though civil operators are increasingly adopting all-electric satellites, military surveillance operators remain slow to embrace
• Earth Observation (EO) and remote sensing applications will grow at the highest CAGR of over 12% as operators are starting to diversify targeting applications
• North America holds the largest share (~35%) within the global all-electric satellite market. The presence of prominent space organizations such as NASA is attributing to such growth
• APAC is anticipated to showcase the highest growth rates (over 14%), especially in nations such as China and India, due to the growing downstream applications which are facilitating growth

“Although the market is at its foundation stage where the all-electric parts are a robust component of the conventional commercial satellites, the gradual shifting to all-electric platforms is evident. The market is embracing a combination of hybrid, traditional and all-electric platforms,” stated a Fact.MR analyst.

Boeing SA was the first contributor towards the all-electric satellites industry in 2012 with a four-satellite watershed contract. In the aftermath of that contract, space agencies and other companies around the world have increased their investments in electric propulsion for use in research missions that go mainstream in the commercial sector.

Manufacturers of all-electric satellites are now trying to find novel ways of increasing their market share for electric propulsion while not ignoring traditionally inclined customers. However, the allures of economies of scale and less reliance on external suppliers makes vertical integration difficult in the all-electric satellite market. Presently, vertical integration is an expensive business practice, with major associated risks.

Additional report information is available at this direct link…

Request a sample of this report at this direct link…

Earlier this month, AAC Clyde Space’s US subsidiary, SpaceQuest, has received an order of $0.55 million (approx. SEK 4.6m) for global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) receivers and antennas, to be delivered to a customer in Asia over 3.5 years starting in 2021.

The GNSS receivers and antennas are primarily used to determine a satellite’s position, velocity and timing to facilitate tracking of orbital position, to synchronize clock times, etc. They operate on the L1 frequency band.

AAC Clyde Space specializes in smallsat technologies and services that enable businesses, governments and educational organizations to access high-quality, timely data from space via the firm’s three divisions:

• Space Data as a Service – delivering data from space directly to customers
• Space missions – turnkey solutions that empower customers to streamline their space missions
• Space products and components – a full range of off-the-shelf and tailor-made subsystems, components and sensors

AAC Clyde Space’s goal is to become a world leader in commercial smallsats and services from space, applying advances in its technology to tackle global challenges and improve our life on Earth. The Group’s main operations are located in Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the USA, with partner networks in Japan and South Korea.

As part of its education outreach initiative and a leader in the smallsat industry driving space mission for universities, the KSF Space Foundation announced they have released new cubesat board systems for their education kit that is also ready To fly.

The cubesat kit is affordable for most universities in developing and other countries and can be purchased, usually within the budget of any lab or school. The new circuit board was designed, manufactured and also tested for deployment for any cubesat in a space up to an altitude of up to 250 km. The electronics board modules are independent bus boards that can be stacked, attached and interconnected, as desired. The board was designed to be light in terms of weight as well as cost-effective, being designed to a smaller size and with a low power requirement for operation.

The model is tested and ready to fly, easy to integrate and can integrate with any extra, needed payload. The basic model comes with all of the major cubesat instruments; however, KSF Space Foundation is offering other advanced models that can address various missions tasks.

The foundation is offering to launch the cubesat / smallsat to near space at an altitude up to 40 km for testing and to capture climate change data or for any other missions that are needed by the university or school as part of KSF’s vision to encourage universities to develop and launch space missions to space.

The company stated that this cubesat kit is considered the world’s least expensive smallsat for education and research outreach.

KSF Space foundation is offering free enrollment to the company’s accredited Nanosatellite Engineering Professional certification “NEP Certificate” for as many as three candidates upon purchasing the cubesat kit.

Dr. Kayyali, Chairman of KSF Space Foundation, said, “This model will allow universities and schools with a small budget to develop their space project easily — there is no need to secure funding.”

KSF Space Foundation was initially founded to enable cost-efficient access to LEO with zero-environmental impact flying solutions. The foundation offers access to near-space and LEO for research and scientific experiments in many fields, as Earth or Space Observation, biological testing, satellite positioning detection, earth magnetic field measurement, radio transmit, atmosphere science and technology experiment.

Alaska Communications (NASDAQ: ALSK) has signed a Distribution Partner Agreement with OneWeb to expand the company’s connectivity solutions across Alaska.

Through the agreement, Alaska Communications will sell OneWeb’s LEO satellite service to their customers and use OneWeb’s infrastructure for critical middle mile connections. LEO satellites deliver fiber-like connectivity performance to areas that have been inaccessible via terrestrial options. Businesses, local governments, schools, healthcare providers and resource developers need high speed, low latency connections to keep up with growing demands, like video conferencing, telehealth, cloud computing and more.

LEO services through Alaska Communications and OneWeb will be available for service in the fourth quarter of 2021.

“We’re pleased to work with OneWeb to offer LEO services in Alaska,” said Bill Bishop, president and CEO of Alaska Communications. “We see this as a milestone moment in our ability to offer low-latency, high-speed service across Alaska, particularly in rural areas. We see this solution as an important piece of our toolkit. We’re known for creating custom solutions to meet our customer’s needs. Collaborating with OneWeb augments our capabilities in serving our business and government customers.”

“Alaska Communications has unparalleled experience delivering communications to Alaskans for more than 100 years and uniquely understands where the need is across the state,” said Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb. “We are thrilled to add our network to their offering and to be working together to see all of Alaska connected.”

Dawn Aerospace (Dawn) and Colorado Air and Space Port (CASP) have entered into an MOU, which lays out a series of future interactions that are mutually expected to occur between the two entities, but are not legally binding.

Future actions include Dawn establishing a presence at CASP, working with CASP to create a relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and, eventually, conducting test flights and spaceplane launches.

In December of 2020, Dawn was granted an Unmanned Aircraft Operator Certificate by the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority to fly from a conventional airport. Dawn’s Mk-II Aurora is their latest spaceplane iteration. Their Mk-III Aurora, a two-stage orbital system, is currently in development.

Alongside the testing and development ongoing on the company’s spaceplanes, Dawn provides in-space satellite propulsion to the firm’s global customers.. Dawn has successfully seen eight of their in-space propulsion units launched in 2021 on Vega, Soyuz, and SpaceX vehicles.

The company’s spaceplane division is interested in expanding business operations to include Colorado Air and Space Port in Adams County.

Dawn Aerospace was awarded the 2020 Hi-Tech Start-up Company of the Year at the 2020 New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards for developing technology to access space in a more scalable and sustainable way than is currently possible with traditional rockets.

“In order to provide unprecedented access to space, we’ve pursued technologies that will operate much like a fleet of aircraft – taking off and landing at airports globally,” said James Powell, Dawn Co-founder. “We’re pleased to work with the supportive Adams County Board to bring our rocket-powered suborbital plane, and longer-term our orbital spaceplane, to Colorado.”

“The Adams County Board looks forward to creating this new partnership with Dawn Aerospace and eventually having them operate at Colorado Air and Space Port,” said Eva J. Henry, Adams County Commissioner and Board Chair. “This partnership will bring a multitude of innovative opportunities for all involved, and we can’t wait to see what comes next from this impressive company.”

“The amount of interest in Colorado Air and Space Port from international and domestic aerospace companies over the past three years has been amazing,” said Raymond Gonzales, Adams County Manager. “This agreement with a truly innovative company like Dawn Aerospace is an exciting development as we continue to increase our aerospace partnerships while also expanding our general aviation activity at CASP.”

“Dawn Aerospace has successfully worked with a number of European countries for the launch of their propulsion units, and we are thrilled this company will be establishing a presence with us,” said Dave Ruppel, Colorado Air and Space Port Director. “Dawn Aerospace is a leader in the industry. Having a spaceplane that can make multiple suborbital trips a day with the same vehicle, take off and land from a conventional airport, and uses green propellants will help drive the industry to create more proficient space vehicles.”

The Australian Space Agency has announced Adelaide smallsat manufacturer for the Internet of Things (IoT) — Fleet Space Technologies — as one of two recipients in round two of the Federal government’s Moon to Mars Supply Chain Capability Improvement grant.

This will ensure Fleet Space can continue to be a growing contributor to Australia’s thriving space sector and play a key role in NASA’s Moon to Mars project, all the while cementing Australia’s ability to compete in the international space economy.

The $386,770 received through this grant will enable Fleet Space to improve the capabilities of their agnostic, hybrid, satellite, low-powered wide area network (LPWAN), as well as expanding on the firm’s already deployed solutions for partners SA Power Networks (SAPN) and OZ Minerals, including collaborating to miniaturize and ruggedize sensors in the network. Together, the partners will pursue commercial supply chain opportunities, illustrating a terrestrial application of space technology that can be extended to Moon and Mars activities.

According to the firm, the success of this grant establishes Fleet Space as a major player in the Australian space sector, significantly growing the company’s development of cutting-edge technologies and increasing international supply chain capabilities as well as creating new Australian jobs as part of the government’s $150 million Moon to Mars initiative.

Fleet Space, which already has five smallsats in LEO, with their sixth launching within the next couple of weeks, will be specifically channeling the grant into two of its customers using its device agnostic LPWAN network for the development of remote massive IoT applications, both on Earth and in space, and deployed throughout urban and regional South Australia.

The Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Christian Porter, said “These grants will support the two local businesses to develop their work and tap into national and international space supply chains, helping grow skills and capabilities in the Australian space industry. We are helping Australian companies be part of NASA’s plan to return to the Moon and prepare for missions to Mars, at the same time as strengthening our own space manufacturing base.”

Fleet Space CEO Flavia Tata Nardini said, “Winning this grant means our team can expedite and improve our manufacturing processes on devices specifically designed for our partners, that will ultimately end up on the Moon and Mars. Making them smaller with the ability to function when exposed to extreme temperatures they would experience once deployed in space, is really cool. It is an exciting acknowledgement of the high quality of work we are producing right here in Australia, and a step towards scaling up our capacity for global space industry customers to access.”

The other recipient in this round of grants was Crystalaid Manufacture that supplies electronic components to the international space industry.

Xenesis, Inc., an innovator in the free space optical communications (FSO) technology sector, has acquired a minority stake in Space Micro Inc. — this is a union both Xenesis and Space Micro have been diligently working toward solidifying.

Through this agreement, Space Micro will become the exclusive manufacturer for components used in the Xenesis product line (including Xen-Hubs and Xen-Nodes) and Space Micro will also include the Xenesis devices in their product catalog and website.

While the devices can be integrated into many other satellite designs, a number of the units have been earmarked for the Xenesis Intercessor constellation that is due to be launched in 2023. The strength of both these companies joining forces goes far beyond vertical integration as each brings unique value to the table that will only set to enhance the common goal of building the first FSO global mesh network.

There is a lot to look forward to as Xenesis and Space Micro continue to work together while offering downlinking capabilities of 10 Gbps, real time latency, reduced costs,and an inherently secure / data agnostic FSO network.

Mark LaPenna, CEO of Xenesis, said he “is elated at this opportunity to join forces with Space Micro as they have some of the most advanced LCT’s on the market today. Partnering with Space Micro will help us to build our constellation design and generate revenues only utilizing less than 50 satellites while maintaining the ability to cover the majority of the earth’s population, including many areas like parts of Asia and Africa which have never had access to a connected world. Take our two companies, Xenesis and Space Micro, and together you now have one of the most advanced backhaul networks ever launched.”

David R. Czajkowski, CEO of Space Micro, added, “The unique and transformative Xenesis business model will aid in enabling rapid growth in the emerging space optical marketplace. This teaming of a telecom company, Xenesis, and a space optical communications hardware company, Space Micro, will benefit both commercial and governmental users. We are very pleased to have been selected by Xenesis as their exclusive manufacturer of lasercom terminals and to support our joint demo mission called Intercessor.”

Based in Chicago, IL Xenesis is a space telecommunications company which uses optical technology & space as a medium, to deliver low cost, low latency & high-capacity communications to Earth Observation, Network Operator & Enterprise customers.

Space Micro is an engineering-driven business focused on technology advancement for high-reliability satellite subsystems. SMI has garnered a hard-earned reputation based on their innovative, affordable, high-performance communications, digital, and electro-optic systems, as well as their ability to leverage commercial technologies to meet military and space requirements. Their dauntless determination and enthusiasm have fueled their engineering of game-changing technologies and to date maintained a flawless space flight heritage of over 2.4 million hours with a phenomenal SATCOM data rate of 100 Gbps.