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FOSSA Systems is working with Microsoft Research and is leveraging this collective expertise to explore the vast potential of low-power and low-data rate satellite IoT.

Both companies have demonstrated efficient satellite networking IoT communications using LoRa technology, aiming to enhance the efficiency and reach of satellite based IoT solutions for industrial applications.

The heart of this research lies in the exploration of the scalability and diverse applications of satellite IoT for global connectivity. Microsoft Research and FOSSA Systems are focused on advancing the boundaries of innovation in this domain, envisioning a future where satellite IoT can seamlessly integrate with applications in the fields of precision agriculture, livestock monitoring or connected industry.

As part of this research, FOSSA launched MSRSAT-1 in May of 2022 as real-world platform for satellite IoT.

Microsoft Research will present a comprehensive research paper entitled “Spectrum-efficient Satellite Networks for the Internet of Things” at the upcoming USENIX NSDI conference in April of 2024. This paper encapsulates the invaluable insights gained through this project, highlighting the development of efficient, scalable, and robust satellite IoT networks.

“MSRSat-1 has been a unique opportunity to test satellite IoT connectivity with Microsoft on a real-world testbed,” said Julián Fernández, CEO and Co-Founder of FOSSA Systems.

“Space communication is a promising technology to bring the benefits of Generative AI to more people and industries. However, to enable space communication and space compute at scale, we need to invent new communication and spectrum sharing protocols, and test new constellations. Our combined efforts using programmable satellites have enabled researchers at Microsoft to experiment with cutting edge capabilities and to push the state of the art in spectrum sharing and space compute,” said Ranveer Chandra, Managing Director, Research for Industry, Microsoft Research

HawkEye 360 has secured $40 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, to further its mission of delivering advanced geospatial capabilities. Over the past 12 months, HawkEye 360 has raised $108 million across its Series D-1 round and this debt financing, which has underscored the support and confidence from investors and lenders regarding its business and financial momentum.

The debt financing will play a crucial role in furthering HawkEye 360’s efforts to enhance its technological infrastructure and continue the buildout of its satellite constellation. These strategic developments are pivotal in maintaining HawkEye 360’s commitment to providing actionable, multi-dimensional geospatial insights and facilitating informed decision-making for the company’s valued clients worldwide.

“Raising over $400 million in capital in under five years is a landmark achievement for HawkEye 360,” said John Serafini, CEO of HawkEye 360. “This remarkable level of funding not only underscores the strength and validity of our strategic vision but also significantly enhances our ability to pioneer and lead in the provision of vital geospatial solutions. It’s a powerful testament to our team’s ability and the trust in our path forward.”

“HawkEye 360’s innovative space-based technology and RF data and analytics is paving the way for better spectrum mapping and monitoring,” said Sean Stone, SVB Senior Market Manager. “SVB is thrilled to continue our relationship with HawkEye 360 and provide them with the financing to help them execute their growth strategy.”

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has set the launch window for the company’s next Electron launch.

The ‘Beginning Of The Swarm’ mission is scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, during a 14-day launch window that opens on April 24^th. Electron will carry two satellites for two separate customers: NEONSAT-1, an Earth Observation (EO) satellite for the Satellite Technology Research Center (SaTReC) at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3).

The primary payload for this mission, NEONSAT-1, is an EO satellite with a high-resolution optical camera designed to monitor for natural disasters along the Korean Peninsula by pairing its images with artificial intelligence. NEONSAT-1 is the first satellite developed under the NEONSAT program by SaTReC and KAIST, Korea’s leading university in science and technology, which developed and operated Korea’s very first satellite KITSAT-1 more than 30 years ago. Other NEONSAT satellites are planned to be launched in 2026 and 2027 to build out the NEONSAT constellation.

The program is a collaboration across multiple Korean academic, industry, and research institutions including SaTReC in KAIST, which is leading the program’s system design and engineering; the SaTReC Initiative, a Korean satellite manufacturer that has successfully developed seven previous remote sensing satellites for LEO; and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which is managing the mission’s ground segments and technology supervision for the NEONSAT program. NEONSAT is funded by the Koren government’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT).

NASA’s ACS3 is a technology demonstration of new materials and deployable structures for solar sail propulsion systems that use sunlight to propel the spacecraft. Much like a sailboat is powered by wind pushing against a sail, solar sails employ the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, eliminating the need for conventional rocket propellant.

The mission plans to test the deployment of new composite booms that will unfurl the solar sail to measure approximately 30 feet per side, or about the size of a small apartment in total. Flight data obtained during the demonstration will be used for designing future larger-scale composite solar sail systems for space weather early warning satellites, asteroid and other small body reconnaissance missions, and missions to observe the polar regions of the sun. T

The ACS3 was designed and built at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and the technology demonstration is managed and funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program at and with NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, interested in larger solar sail missions in the future, is funding an extended operations component to execute a series of maneuvers to raise and lower the spacecraft’s orbit, demonstrating the practicality of solar sailing.

The capability of Electron’s Kick Stage to perform multiple engine burns in space and deploy individual satellites to unique orbits is critical to this mission. The Kick Stage will first ignite its Curie engine to deploy NEONSAT-1 to its target 520km circular Earth orbit. After the payload’s separation, it will ignite its Curie engine again to perform an apogee raise to 1,000km. Once in this phasing orbit, the Curie will ignite a third time to circularize before deploying the solar sail demonstration spacecraft. The Kick Stage will then ignite Curie a fourth and final time to perform a deorbit burn that returns the Kick Stage closer to Earth, speeding up its eventual deorbit and removal from space to support a more sustainable space environment.

Rocket Lab has demonstrated similar orbit raises, inclination changes, and deorbit maneuvers across previous Electron missions and most recently with its successful spacecraft re-entry for Varda on February 21, 2024.

‘Beginning Of The Swarm’ will be Rocket Lab’s fifth mission of 2024 and the 47^th Electron launch overall.

‘Beginning Of The Swarm’ details…

• Launch window: opens no-earlier-than April 24, 2024.
• Customers: The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and NASA.
• Satellites: NEONSAT-1 for SaTReC/KAIST and the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) for NASA.
• Target orbits: NEONSAT-1 to 520km circular Earth orbit, ACS3 to 1,000km circular Earth orbit.
• Launch broadcast: The launch will broadcast live at www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream

Orbex, the only UK owned orbital launch services and rocket manufacturing company, has successfully patented its REFLIGHT reusable rocket technology following patent approval in several European markets as well as the United States. This protection was based on the patent grant by the European Patent Office.

The technology is uniquely suited to micro-launcher rockets such as Orbex’s Prime rocket as it enables recovery of the launch vehicle by repurposing existing structural features, while adding very little additional weight to the vehicle. It enables reusability with very limited overall performance penalty and no additional rocket propulsion emissions in the upper atmosphere during re-entry. This should be compared to other reusable launch systems using powered descent (rocket engine firings) to slow down the vehicle during re-entry and landing.

Orbex’s Prime rocket will consist of two stages, and the REFLIGHT system repurposes the interstage structure located between the stages. After Stage 1 detaches from Stage 2, the interstage on top of Stage 1 reconfigures into four ‘petals’ which fold out and create drag forces that passively reorients and slows the spent rocket stage’s descent to Earth.

In combination with a lightweight parachute the drag created by the petals will enable Stage 1’s to perform a low velocity landing at sea.

Orbex will then recover the floating Stage 1 and return it to its factory in Forres for refurbishment and/or recycling. During descent and recovery, there will be no debris left in orbit, on land or in sea, creating a ‘circular rocket economy’.

Additionally, the construction of Sutherland Spaceport continues to move forward, with two new watercourse crossing bridges transported on-site in February, the bridges will form part of the floating road connecting the launch site to the Launch Service Integration Facility (LSIF) and the Launch Pad.

The special bridges will help respect and preserve the natural conditions and ecology of the watercourse, such as the bed and banks, water levels, and wildlife habitats. The bridges also support ecosystem health through ecological design features that will prevent erosion, improve water quality, and facilitate wildlife movement.

Orbex is the only UK supplier, and only launch services provider with its own spaceport, to be selected for the European Commission and European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Ticket Initiative. The Flight Ticket Initiative will supply payload for Orbex’s Prime rocket when undergoing test phases, demonstrating the UK start-up as a trusted supplier in the orbital services sector. The support will help Orbex achieve its goal of making the UK a central hub for European space flight.

Jonas Bjarnø, CTO at Orbex, said, “At each step in the construction of Prime, we are looking at how to improve the launch system efficiency and sustainability. Our REFLIGHT technology is a critical innovation in overall efficiency of the system, and the slower return to Earth reduces risk of significant aerothermal damage, enabling refurbishment and re-use of parts. This is really critical to our vision for a more sustainable, circular rocket economy.”

Phil Chambers, CEO at Orbex, said, “Securing a spot on the ESA Flight Ticket Initiative is a significant milestone for Orbex as we continue our journey to achieving sustainable space launch solutions. We are proud to be the only UK-based company to be selected, enabling us to lead the way in carbon-neutral spaceflight operations and propel the UK to the forefront of the global space industry.“

FOSSA Systems has made the international leap with the firm’s first opening outside Spain — a subsidiary dedicated to R&D that will serve customers from its new Portugal location.

A team of highly qualified professionals will work on the development of new technologies and applications that are related to the space industry, aeronautics, telecommunications and satellite connectivity as they are applied to IoT.

With this operation, which has marked the start of of the company’s international expansion, FOSSA aims to promote new business opportunities and establish academic collaborations with Portugal where the space sector is growing. The first international office of the aerospace will be coordinated from the company’s headquarters of Madrid.

Founded in July 2020 by Vicente González, with the aim of democratizing access to space, FOSSA continues to position itself as a pioneer with disruptive technology that addresses global connectivity services IoT.

In just three years, the company ranks well in an expanding market, which currently has 10 billion connected devices that will grow to more than $25 billion by 2025 and that, according to IoT Analytics forecasts, will reach $525 billion by 2027.

The aerospace startup group is currently comprised of a team of 25 professionals, which is expected to double by 2025. FOSSA was the European company that launched the most smallsats in 2022 and has, so far, launched 17 of the firm’s own, development satellites.

With a constellation of 80 satellites, the company hopes to connect millions of devices directly to its network, offering global and real-time LPWAN coverage direct to the device. FOSSA has verticalized the process of satellite manufacturing, space operations and ground-based services and launched 17 satellites into space since 2022.

“With this first delegation outside Spain we seek to increase our international presence and attend to new markets. We have worked with several Portuguese entities, and we see this new R&D&i center as a great opportunity to take advantage of the potential offered by Portugal,” said Julián Fernández, CEO and co-founder of FOSSA Systems.

“Portugal is emerging as a key player in the new space economy. The presence of FOSSA here means a new way for innovative local solutions in the field of advances in satellites and IoT,” said Roberto Carlos Medina, R&D Engineer at FOSSA Systems Portugal.

BAE Systems has successfully completed the integration of the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory’s ultraviolet (UV) spectrometer onto the satellite bus, the next major step in completing the NASA Earth-monitoring satellite.

Carruthers is a smallsat designed around BAE Systems’ configurable spacecraft platform. Once on-orbit at Lagrange Point 1 (L1), the observatory will use an advanced UV imager to observe the exosphere — the outermost part of the atmosphere — to determine how it changes in response to space weather caused by the Sun. Carruthers is expected to be the first smallsat to operate at L1, a gravitationally stable orbit point between the Earth and Sun about 1 million miles away, and it will be the first satellite to provide continuous observations of the Earth’s exosphere.

The mission was previously called the Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere (GLIDE), but it was renamed in 2020 in honor of Dr. George R. Carruthers, the renowned scientist responsible for designing and building the moon-based telescope that took the first images of the Earth’s geocorona from space as part of the Apollo 16 mission.

The mission comes as part of a collaboration between NASA and the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, which developed the primary scientific instrument with support from Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory and the Liège Space Center. Dr. Lara Waldrop of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, serves as the principal investigator for the mission.

BAE Systems was responsible for designing and building the satellite bus for the mission, in addition to leading integration and environmental testing, which will continue through June of this year to ensure the satellite will withstand launch conditions and perform properly in space.

The satellite is currently scheduled to launch in 2025 as a rideshare component of NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission.

“This mission will allow us to better understand how our atmosphere interacts with the ever-changing conditions in space, carrying on the remarkable legacy that began with Dr. Carruthers’ work more than 50 years ago,” said Dr. Alberto Conti, VP and GM of Civil Space for BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems. “Space weather has a significant impact on Earth, from amazing phenomenon like the aurora borealis to major disruptions with satellite communications and electrical grids. This satellite will deliver a wealth of new data and better equip us to respond to whatever the Sun throws at us.”