News

Photo of Rwanda’s RWASat-1 smallsat.

In a posting by David Oni at the Space in Africa infosite, he reports that the African space industry has recorded another milestone as the nations of Rwanda and Egypt have launched their 1st and 8th satellites (NARSScube-1 and RWASat-1), respectively.

The satellites were carried aboard Japan’s Kounotori-8, (aka HTV-8), a robotic cargo spacecraft carrying a payload of supplies, experimental materials and new replacement batteries to help power the International Space Station (ISS).

The HTV-8 which was launched by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) from one of the company’s H-IIB rockets, which was designed to carry both a pressurized and unpressurized cargo compartments.

The rocket, which was commissioned by Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), took off from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center at its scheduled instantaneous launch window of 12:05 PM EDT (1:05 AM JST) on Tuesday, September 24, and arrived the International Space Station on Saturday,  September 28.

NARSScube-1 is a single-unit cubesat built by Egypt’s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS).

Photo is courtesy of NARSS.

Among the cargo carried onboard the HTV-8 rocket were three smallsats (AQT-D, NARSScube-1 and RWASat-1) for deployment from the International Space Station via the JEM Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (J-SSOD).

NARSScube-1 and RWASat-1 were built to the cubesat standard, and are scheduled to be released from Kibo module’s airlock later this year.

Journalist David Oni.

To read the entire article,
please access this direct Space in Africa infosite link…

ST Engineering Geo-Insights, and ICEYE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as well as a commercial reseller agreement to serve the commercial and government markets in South East Asia.

As a part of the agreement, the two companies will provide mutual support to develop the regional and global market for rapid revisit, high resolution SAR imagery and SAR based geospatial analytics.

The MoU signing between ST Engineering Geo-Insights & ICEYE in September of 2019.

ICEYE recently announced their three SAR satellite constellation is now available for commercial access, receiving significant attention in the global Earth Observation (EO) market. ICEYE is creating a growing SAR satellite constellation for frequent and reliable satellite-based information about any location on Earth, regardless of the time of day and even through cloud cover.

ICEYE is providing commercial data services to government and industry users. The company is actively increasing the size of their SAR satellite constellation, with two more satellites planned for launch by the end of  2019. ICEYE’s SAR smallsats can be manufactured and launched cost-effectively, providing up to 1 meter resolution SAR images.

ST Engineering Geo-Insights is a joint venture company formed between DSO National Laboratories and ST Engineering Electronics.  Leveraging on the strengths of the parent companies, Geo-Insights offers geospatial analytics and value-added services based on satellite imagery data to address growing global demands for timely insights.

For all involved in the satellite and space industry and the various market segments that add value to these dynamic environments, the 2020 SmallSat Symposium is truly worth your consideration for attendance.

The 2020 SmallSat Symposium starts on February 3, 2020, with workshops, then the Conference runs February 4 to 6 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The SmallSat Symposium is hosted by Satnews Publishers which, since 1983, has been a provider of a satellite news, media and events. This information packed forum was created to enable you and your company to secure a larger portion of market share as well as to take part in the next stages of your company’s or organization’s growth.

The personal connections at the SmallSat Symposium enable attendees to network with established organizations, subject-matter experts as well as ‘New Space’ entrants.

The SmallSat Symposium will focus on new technologies and the business environment that is shaping the implementation of smallsat constellations, smallsat launchers, the challenges facing the smallsat developer and actors as well as the enormous benefits of these advanced technologies that will benefit our world.

This event assembles more than 100 diverse speakers, all of whom possess deep industry experience. Additionally, numerous opportunities exist to mingle and network with peers while enjoying exceptional, complimentary meals and refreshment breakfast.

Learn more at this direct link…

Orbit Fab,  one of the companies competing in this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in San Francisco this week, has closed a seed round of $3 million. The funding comes from Type 1 Ventures, TechStars and others, and will help Orbit Fab continue to build on the great momentum it has already bootstrapped with its space-based robotic refueling technology.

You might remember the name Orbit Fab from a milestone accomplishment the young company achieved earlier this year: Becoming the first startup to supply water to the International Space Station, itself an achievement but also a key demonstration of the viability of its technology for use in orbital satellite refueling. Refueling satellites could have tremendous impact on the commercial satellite business, extending the operating life of expensive satellites considerably, which translates to better margins and more profitable businesses.

Orbit Fab’s first space payload, the ISS water resupply robot.

Thanks to co-founders Daniel Faber and Jeremy Schiel’s connections in the space industry, from more than 15 years working in space technology businesses in a leadership capacity, the company was able to demonstrate its technology working in space less than a year after Orbit Fab was actually founded. Faber, Orbit Fab’s CEO, and Schiel, the startup’s CMO, met when both were working at Deep Space Industries — Faber as CEO and Schiel as a contractor.

“We ended up reconnecting later on and really looking at a few different business models on how to push the industry forward,” Schiel said in an interview. “The one that really landed with customers, and the one that resonated with the industry was refueling satellites. Elon [Musk] has been making rockets reusable — we thought it’s time that we make satellites reusable as well.”

Starting from this realization, the pair founded the company in January 2018. They then secured their first round of pre-seed investment from Bolt in San Francisco in June that year, and also landed two contracts —  including one with NASA, and one with the International Space Station National Laboratory.

“Basically in four-and-a-half months, we got flight-qualified and human-rated from NASA our two tanker test beds that we flew to the International Space Station in December 2018, and March of 2019,” Shield said.

How did they do it with that speed? Faber credits their rapid progress largely to lead engineer James Bultitude, an accomplished space engineer with five payloads on the International Space Station already.

“He took [the project] from a napkin through to flight hardware in four-and-a-half months,” Faber said. “All qualified to NASA human-rated safety standards, which was quite the feat. We really had to push hard on NASA.”

Faber said that the company’s ability to spur the U.S. space agency into action has been a key driver of its success. In fact, he relayed a story in which their National Lab demonstration payload was actually left off of its intended flight, but the team was able to get its cargo approved by top NASA decision-makers over the course of a weekend and just barely made the cut as a result.

As for working with NASA as a startup, Faber said that it’s become a very different affair, with the agency eager and adapting to working more with younger companies and startups bringing a different pace of innovation to the field.

“The change is almost palpable on the phone with NASA – you can almost hear them changing,” he said.

At Disrupt, Orbit Fab demonstrated their robotic connector for refueling on stage for the first time. The idea is that satellite makers will build their standard nozzles into their designs, and then a robotic refueler will be able to seek out the nozzle, open and then close on to the coupler, forming a solid connection to allow propellant transfer.

Already, Orbit Fab is talking to partners, including Northrop Grumman, and it’s a member of the Consortium for Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations (CONFERS), an industry group that aims to make robotic service and maintenance of satellites a viable reality.

By Darrell Etherington, TechCrunch