AAC Clyde Space along with ORBCOMM Inc. and Saab will be collaborating on the development of a next generation VDES (VHF Data Exchange System) satellite, the first of an intended, cutting-edge LEO satellite to, as the company stated, “revolutionize maritime communications.”

VDES (info video at this direct link…) has the potential to the transform the international maritime sector and improve the safety of sea fairing vessels, from the broadcast of maritime safety information to route exchange. It supports direct ship-to-ship and ship-to-coast communication, but its key characteristic is that it supports two-way communications, this means that vessels can have two-way communications globally.

Additionally, when compared to other global comms systems available already, VDES is standardized and intended for every ships bridge so there would potentially be no need for new custom hardware onboard the ship, apart from the mandatory equipment.

Many small vessels currently use satellite AIS, automatic identification system, but with up to 32 times more bandwidth than current AIS services, VDES can be integrated with e-navigation systems, providing savings in fuel and emissions of up to 25 percent, while aiding maritime navigation and safety. The higher rate communications and flexibility of the service would be able to support a variety of services from vessel traffic services to search and rescue.

The space-based maritime communication infrastructure will increase VDES range from the shoreline to anywhere in the ocean, converting what is currently a predominantly coastal system into a global maritime system.

The satellite will carry a VDES payload from Saab for two-way communication between satellite and ground. ORBCOMM will integrate the data in its distribution centre for maritime communications.

The EPIC 3U demonstration satellite will be assembled at AAC Clyde Space’s new integration facility in Uppsala, Sweden. After demonstrating its VDES capabilities, the EPIC 3U satellite will also deliver AIS data to ORBCOMM, which will then be distributed to its government and commercial customers for ship tracking and other maritime navigational and safety efforts.

AAC Clyde Space, ORBCOMM Inc. and Saab have received a grant from the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) to build, launch and commission a smallsat with global coverage. The Swedish space project is expected to start in October of 2020, with the launch of the demonstration satellite in mid-2022, followed by on-orbit demonstration and testing, which will end in the first quarter of 2023.

PredaSAR Corporation has successfully completed its Critical Design Review (CDR) to initiate the fabrication, testing and the launch of the company’s Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) spacecraft, in partnership with Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc.

PredaSAR is building and will operate the world’s largest and most advanced constellation of SAR satellites. The successful CDR completion marks another major milestone in PredaSAR’s journey and follows its recent announcement of a rideshare partnership with SpaceX to launch its first satellite aboard the Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

PredaSAR spacecraft employ an advanced, proprietary radar payload to create 2D Synthetic Aperture Radar images, 3D reconstructions of objects and the Earth’s surface, and customer-tailored data products. SAR satellites provide high-resolution images at any time of day and in any weather condition, overcoming natural limitations of traditional optical satellites.

PredaSAR spacecraft possess the latest in space-proven, high quality satellite systems to support scalable and fully capable operations in any low earth orbit. Leveraging its advanced technologies, PredaSAR will deliver critical insights and data products to military and commercial decision makers at the speed of need.

Executive Comments

“The collaborative work between PredaSAR and sister company Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems has met or surpassed objectives for this advanced radar satellite design. We look forward to building on the momentum of the successful CDR and accelerate toward production and testing,” said PredaSAR COO Colonel Mike Moran, USAF (Ret).”

“We are very pleased with the successful completion of PredaSAR’s Critical Design Review and the cooperative efforts of all who contributed to this important achievement in our journey. We continue to mature this game-changing technology and look forward to building upon this successful partnership with Tyvak to achieve our mission to deliver compelling radar solutions for our government and commercial customers at the speed of need.” said Eric Truitt, PredaSAR’s Chief Solutions Officer.

Kepler has signed a launch agreement with Exolaunch for two of the company’s 6U XL satellites.

Under the contract, Exolaunch will provide launch, mission management, integration and deployment services to Kepler’s satellites on a Soyuz rideshare mission, targeted for launch in September, 2020. With Exolaunch providing a quick turnaround for launch and deployment, Kepler now continues its rapid constellation development ahead of its 2020 launch plans.

Kepler’s two new satellites are important installments of the company’s development and demonstration platforms, and both carry a high-capacity Ku-band communications system and a prototype IoT payload. The satellites will deliver additional capacity for Kepler’s Global Data Service and a technology demonstration platform for Kepler’s narrowband connectivity solution for Internet of Things devices.

The satellites will be deployed into orbit with the EXOpod, Exolaunch’s advanced cubesat deployer, that has delivered 80 cubesats into orbit to date. Exolaunch produced a custom-tailored 16U EXOpod to accommodate Kepler’s 6U XL satellites.

Because of the EXOpod’s ease of operation and flexible design, Kepler’s engineers were able to successfully integrate both satellites at the company’s facilities in Toronto with virtual support from the Exolaunch team. Kepler and Exolaunch worked effectively together on this integration in a remote setting due to the current travel restrictions.

The satellites will be delivered to the launch site in Russia, where Exolaunch will conduct a launch campaign and integrate the satellites on a Soyuz launch vehicle.

Kepler’s satellites are a part of a September Soyuz rideshare mission that is fully manifested by Exolaunch to realize the launch plans of its international small satellite customers. The mission is named Wanderlust, Desire To Travel, which symbolizes both: the ever-increasing importance of sustainable access to space for small satellites and longing for travelling which was recently restricted.

Exolaunch has excellent heritage flying international customers on Soyuz; in summer 2019, it launched its largest smallsat cluster to date: 29 satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. On this mission, Exolaunch will deploy a cluster of 15 smallsats into a sun-synchronous orbit for its customers from Europe, the UK, the UAE, Canada and the USA. The company is set to provide its market-leading separation systems – EXOpod for cubesats and CarboNIX for microsats – as well as its EXObox sequencers, to ensure timely deployment of small satellites into their target orbit.

Executive Comments

Jared Bottoms, Head of Launch & Satellite Programs at Kepler, said of the launch partnership, “Exolaunch continues to show growth and innovation in launch solutions and is accommodating to the rapid shifts and changes that often accompany our work as a new space company. Flight heritage is important when we consider launching our assets, and the combination of both deployment and launcher integration brought in by Exolaunch is something we can trust. We look forward to a successful partnership with Exolaunch, and a successful deployment of Kepler’s satellites.”

Jeanne Medvedeva, Commercial Director at Exolaunch, commented further on the upcoming launch plans and added, “Exolaunch looks forward to working with Kepler to support its mission to eliminate global gaps in connectivity. With the launch of two more satellites, Kepler’s Global Data Service capabilities will expand significantly and improve the economics of movement of data. Our team is ready to utilize our launch expertise and deployment solutions to ensure smooth deployment of Kepler’s satellites into orbit. In light of recent global challenges, we are especially proud of this opportunity to continue our mission to provide our customers with regular access to space.”

The University of Georgia‘s Small Satellite Research Laboratory (SSRL), located in the basement of the Physics building, is developing two satellites that will be sent into orbit to map and image oceanic and coastal ecosystems.

SSRL was created, thanks to funding from two grants for the design, integration, and testing of cubesats. These smallsats are comprised of units(U), each one under 1.33 kg and measuring 10x10x11 cm in size. Both projects, one funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) University Nanosatellite Program (UNP), and the other funded by NASA’s Undergraduate Student Instrument Project (USIP), are for building two, 3U cubesats.

The projects are supervised by Dr. David L. Cotten with physics faculty members Dr. Susanne Ullrich and Dr. William Dennis, along with 12 other faculty across five departments at UGA, creating a truly interdisciplinary group. As a result of these funding opportunities, SSRL established an official Space Act Agreement with the NASA Ames Research Center for testing of satellite components and sharing of information.

The primary scientific goals of these cubesat missions are to develop and operate the first moderate resolution coastal ecosystem and ocean color CubeSats in Georgia.

The AFRL mission, the Mapping and Ocean Color Imager (MOCI) will use an onboard RGB camera to take images from multiple perspectives to create a 3D point cloud of land features.

The NASA mission, the SPectral and Ocean Color Satellite (SPOC Sat), will generate hyperspectral moderate resolution imaging products to monitor coastal wetlands status, estuarine water quality, and near-coastal ocean productivity in compliance with some of the NASA’s strategic objectives. The designing and building of the hyperspectral imager for SPOC is being done in house and will have 60 bands to acquire image data between 400 and 850 nm. In addition, the SPOC mission has been chosen as a candidate of NASA’s eight CubeSat Launch Initiative, meaning that SPOC will be launched to the International Space Station for deployment between 2018 and 2020.

Both 3U cubesats will contain all relevant flight systems such as: S-band and UHF/VHF communications, Electrical Power Systems, an On Board Computer (OBC), Attitude Determination and Control Systems (ADCS) with reaction wheels and sun sensors, and data storage. The two missions and the establishment of the lab have the primary goals of teaching and developing students for STEM careers by training undergraduates in a broad range of fields through hands-on, experiential learning and creating a pipeline for high school students to attend UGA through the Physics and Astronomy Department. While the majority of members in the lab are undergraduates, there are graduate students that serve as mentors. The team currently consists of 45 students from around campus.

The student groups have already been through multiple reviews with the Air Force and NASA regarding communications, engineering, orbital parameters, power specifications, data management, temperature regulation, attitude control, project management, and budgeting. The team is divided into 5 subteams: Mechanical, Electrical, Mission Operations, Research, Testing, and Lab Operations in order to address the many aspects of the missions.

The undergraduate students have also been very active in outreach activities: giving a three day workshop in SSRL with NSF-funded LISEL-B teachers to help communicate science to middle and high school students, serving as guest lecturers at Cedar Shoals High School presenting on orbital mechanics, giving four guest lectures around campus, and will be giving a series of workshops related to empowering women in STEM with Chick Tech Atlanta.

These and future projects in the lab will provide a unique opportunity to enhance the growth of UGA educational programs by exposing undergraduates to the challenges of space exploration, creating more experiential learning opportunities for classes, helping students transition into the STEM related workforce, and attracting new students to the University. More information about these projects can be found at this direct infolink…

The lab is currently equipped with a 140 sq ft clean room rated ISO 7, a 200-liter vacuum chamber capable of reaching 10-6 torr and multiple Electrostatic Discharge workstations, all of which are suitable for the integrations and testing of flight ready equipment. The lab is leading the way in developing a Small Satellite Course that will form the foundation of an aerospace-based curriculum at UGA. This program will have all levels of students from undergraduate to doctoral, with faculty based in numerous departments.

SSRL aims to teach, to develop, and to discover through undergraduate involvement. For years to come, the lab hopes to continue: teaching students how to build and use space ready equipment, developing the local community by getting local K-12 students interested in both space exploration and the University, and discovering, by using space based equipment to observe phenomenon on Earth from an orbital perspective through national funding opportunities, creating new technologies that can be used on future missions, and demonstrating how small satellite systems can make large scientific discoveries.

Article source: Department of Physics and Astronomy,
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences,
University of Georgia.

Exolaunch has signed a wide-ranging MOU with Germany-based launch service provider, Rocket Factory Augsburg AG (RFA), to provide end-to-end launch services for smallsats, with Exolaunch procuring launch capacities from RFA.

Exolaunch provides launch services, mission management, and smallsat deployment systems, whose customers include startups, universities, scientific institutions, and space agencies from around the world. Since 2017, Exolaunch has helped launch nearly 100 smallsats into orbit, with 50 additional smallsats to be launched before the end of 2020.

Rocket Factory, a start-up backed by the German satellite maker OHB as a strategic investor and Venture Capital firm Apollo Capital Partners, currently is developing a launcher system called RFA One for small satellites with a payload performance of up to 300kg to low earth orbit (LEO). The first launch is scheduled for 2022. The company recently qualified the upper stage tank system during cryogenic tests and currently is preparing hot-fire tests of the main engine in Esrange, Sweden.

RFA is engaged in global, new-space, launch vehicle development, with their state-of-the-art staged-combustion engine technology. This high-performance engine technology, coupled to lowest-possible-cost production techniques, is essentially new to Europe, and through the support of OHB, RFA managed to acquire key technologies and key talent that will propel the business case of the RFA One launch vehicle to allow it to compete on a global scale.

Recently, RFA won the first round of the German micro-launcher competition of the German Space Agency DLR, which granted RFA with a letter of support to receive 500.000 € of funding within ESA’s C-STS program. In the next round of the competition, DLR and ESA will award a launch contract worth 11,000,000 euros for institutional payloads.

Executive Comments

“Exolaunch and Rocket Factory share a common mission that places the customer at the center of every launch service experience,” said Jeanne Medvedeva, Commercial Director at Exolaunch. “The agreement between our companies not only expands access to commercial space opportunities, but also reinforces Germany’s leadership position in the space industry in Europe and beyond.”

“RFA is looking forward to launching the first RFA One vehicle, using separation and payload deployment systems supplied by Exolaunch. We are optimistic that this partnership will generate a win-win situation for all parties involved, in particular our customers,” said Dr. Stefan Brieschenk, Chief Operations Officer at RFA. “This marks the beginning of a new era, where the space domain is transformed into a commercial market in Europe.”

ATLAS Space Operations has imparted that BlackSky has selected the company to provide telemetry, commanding, and data support for its fifth and sixth satellites in that firm’s high revisit, Earth imaging, satellite constellation — ATLAS is providing support through their ground station sites in Guam and Japan, using their Freedom software.

BlackSky helps organizations observe and understand global events by integrating a diverse set of sensors and data, including satellite images, to provide sensitive monitoring and alert services. On August 7th, the company launched two additional satellites (of a planned 60) into LEO.

These newest satellites provide 1 meter resolution color imagery and increases global revisit rates — already among the best in the world. These advancements will further enhance Blacksky’s access to reliable, secure, and fast space-based data, allowing them to provide improved intelligence and analysis capabilities to their customers.

ATLAS operates a global network of ground stations, powered by their Freedom platform. Freedom allows users to seamlessly integrate with ATLAS’ robust network. Through ATLAS integration, BlackSky will gain access to mission critical data, analytics, and automated scheduling — all through a single, secure VPN. This process further enables BlackSky to provide their customers with near real-time data, revisiting a single location up to six times in one day, all while retrieving secure data efficiently, safely, and reliably through Freedom.

Executive Comments

“ATLAS Space Operations is a key partner in our promise to make our customers the first to know about areas and events important to them,” said Nick Merski, VP, Space Operations. “Our companies share similar DNA which includes great people creatively solving important problems.”

“Both ATLAS and BlackSky have worked diligently to continue their work amidst the ongoing COVID-19 health emergency,” added ATLAS CEO Sean McDaniel. “ATLAS is proud to support BlackSky and the value that they deliver to the world through their mission. It is a testament to the teamwork and resiliency of both teams that this launch has gone off successfully during a global health crisis. The seamless transition by everyone involved to continue to get critical assets into space, and to retrieve consequential data for use on Earth, says a lot about the dedication and adaptability of the people working behind the scenes on these crucial projects. ATLAS stands ready to continue to provide support in whatever way is necessary.”

BlackSky has completed initial system checkouts and has begun delivering imagery from its fifth and sixth satellites, 58 hours after launch.

Taking full advantage of the advanced analytics offered by the company’s Spectra AI platform, BlackSky is now providing customers with high velocity insights that were previously unattainable.

The addition of these satellites to the BlackSky constellation increases opportunities for intraday observation of customer targets and reduces decision-making timelines. In collaboration with satellite manufacturing partner LeoStella, BlackSky has an active assembly line delivering two satellites per month.

BlackSky’s latest two satellites were launched into an inclined orbit at 1:12 a.m. EDT on August 7 via SpaceX’s Starlink mission. The satellites provide panchromatic and color imagery with sub-meter resolution. BlackSky now has six satellites on-orbit and plans to launch six, additional satellites by the end of Q1 2021, advancing the firm’s dawn-to-dusk global monitoring capability.

Executive Comment

“The rate and volume at which our customers are consuming global monitoring information is increasing dramatically,” said Brian O’Toole, CEO of BlackSky. “To help customers immediately access critical information, BlackSky has developed GEOINT technologies combined with machine learning to rapidly deploy and seamlessly integrate satellites into our product suite. The speed with which we were able to reach first light, demonstrates our ability to move industry benchmarks forward so our customers are always the first to know.”