Moog Inc. (NYSE: MOG.A and MOG.B) has developed a compact and lightweight thruster gimbal assembly — this device has been specifically designed to meet the increasing demands of small payload and satellite market.

The Model S Thruster Gimbal Assembly (Model-S TGA) is a game-changer for smallsats. It builds on decades of proven performance and successfully addresses key design requirements within a small volume and low weight package. The Model-S TGA allows for close integration and support of electric propulsion thrusters (EP), propellant lines, and electrical power lines in a minimal envelope. It is almost a 1:1 ratio between the gimbal and mass of the payload that it is designed to support, which is critical for the small satellite market where space is at a premium.

In addition to the low size and weight, the Model-S TGA has integrated launch lock and vibration isolators. This launch lock mechanism is capable of supporting the payload and protects the gimbal and critical components from launch vibration and shock. This extra layer of protection is novel in a mechanism developed for the smallsat market.

“Our team is excited to announce this latest technological advancement, which exemplifies our commitment to innovation in precision motion control. It not only enhances performance and reliability, but also impacts the way our customers approach their engineering challenges. Providing them with unparalleled tools and solutions for the small satellite market,” said Armond Asadurian, Moog Senior Engineer.

Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP) has received the certificate of occupancy for the firm’s previously announced, new assembly facility, located in Irvine, California.

The facility spans 94,000 square feet and is situated on a five-acre site. Upon final interior completion of construction and outfitting, it will significantly increase Terran Orbital’s space vehicle assembly, integration, and testing capabilities by over three times the Company’s current capacity.

All of the Company’s space vehicle assembly will be transitioned to this new facility enabling the dedication of Terran Orbital’s existing facilities to the manufacturing of components and modules. This optimization will increase the overall efficiency and capacity of Terran Orbital’s entire production system and further facilitate the Company’s vertical integration efforts.

With the certificate of occupancy secured on the building construction, Terran Orbital will now commence the construction of cleanrooms, targeting occupancy in Q1 2025.

“We are thrilled to be advancing toward the opening of our new facility. It will truly be state-of-the-art, featuring advanced robotics that will boost our capacity and accelerate our production speed, giving us the ability to facilitate existing and new contract awards,” said Marc Bell, Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer.

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has announced the launch window for the company’s 51^st Electron launch, a mission that will launch the latest satellite in a constellation that is being built by long-standing customer — Synspective.

The “Owl for One, One for Owl” mission is scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, during a 14-day launch window that opens on July 31st NZST / July 30^th UTC. In addition to deploying a single StriX satellite to LEO for this mission, Rocket Lab will perform an advanced, mid-mission maneuver with Electron’s Kick Stage to shield the satellite from the sun and reduce radiation exposure.

The mission will be the fifth launch of a total of 16 launches on Electron for Synspective, a Japanese EO company deploying a constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites designed to deliver imagery that can detect millimeter-level changes to the Earth’s surface from space. Rocket Lab has been the sole launch provider for Synspective’s constellation to date, and this latest mission continues a lasting and trusted partnership to deploy their StriX constellation to low Earth orbit. Most recently that partnership was further cemented by a new multi-launch contract of ten dedicated Electron launches for Synspective announced in June 2024, with the launches in that new deal set to take place across 2025-2027.

“Owl for One, One for Owl” will be Rocket Lab’s 51^st Electron mission and ninth launch this year. As well as an additional launch for Synspective scheduled to take place before the end of this year, other launches for multi-launch contract customers include space-based intelligence company BlackSky and French IoT company, Kinéis.

Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Sir Peter Beck, said, “Synspective’s long-standing trust in the team to build out their constellation is recognition of Electron’s continued dominance as the ultimate small launch vehicle for the industry. Schedule flexibility, a reliable rocket launching more and more frequently, and our unique in-space capabilities that support mission needs are all critical functions at play in the multi-launch contracts being signed by our domestic and international launch customers. It’s an honor to continue launching for Synspective through our ongoing partnership.”

Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL has signed a seven-figure contract expansion with a U.S.-allied International Government Agency for SkySat high resolution satellite data.

Planet’s SkySat fleet offers multiple revisits per day of any location on the globe with up to 50 centimeter resolution imagery. Over time, SkySats will be replenished with Planet’s next-generation, high-resolution fleet, Pelican, which is designed to further increase revisit rates and image resolution, while also reducing latency and speeding customer time to insights. The first Pelican tech demo, launched in November of 2023, continues to perform well.

Additionally, last month Planet announced that it is collaborating with NVIDIA on its onboard processing capabilities for its high-resolution Pelican-2 satellite. Through this collaboration, Planet will leverage the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform for its next-generation high-resolution mission and fly the technology on its Pelican-2 satellite, set to launch later this year. Leveraging recent advances in AI, Planet expects this collaboration to support shorter time to value for customers across government and commercial markets.

“Global customer demand for high resolution satellite data continues to grow, fueled by heightened security needs and increased climate disaster risk,” said Will Marshall, Planet’s Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. “Our SkySat fleet provides organizations with a powerful combination of high frequency, low latency, high resolution data, enabling greater understanding of critical events around the world. The ability to enable considerably faster alerting of various types of events around the world has the potential to unlock entirely new use cases for customers.“

Astra Space, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASTRA) has successfully closed the firm’s move to take the company to private ownership.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement for the transaction (the “Merger Agreement”) that was previously announced on March 7, 2024, Apogee Parent, Inc., (“Parent”), an entity formed by Chris Kemp, Astra’s co-founder, chief executive officer and chairman, and Dr. Adam London, Astra’s co-founder, chief technology officer and director, will acquire all of the outstanding shares of the Company’s Class A common stock, par value $0.0001 per share (the “Class A Shares”) not already owned by it for the right to receive $0.50 per share in cash, as more fully described in the Merger Agreement.

With the completion of the take-private acquisition, the Class A Shares ceased trading prior to the opening of trading on July 18, 2024 and will no longer be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market (“Nasdaq”). The Company also intends to make the applicable filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) to suspend its periodic reporting obligations and to terminate the registration of the Class A Shares underlying the Company’s active registration statements.

As previously disclosed, (i) on April 17, 2024, the Company received a deficiency notice from Nasdaq that the Company is not in compliance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(a)(1) because the per share closing bid price of the Class A Shares had been below $1.00 for thirty consecutive business days prior to such deficiency notice; and (ii) on April 23, 2024, the Company received a deficiency notice from Nasdaq that the Company is not in compliance with the minimum stockholders’ equity listing requirement set forth in Nasdaq Listing Rule 5550(b)(1) because the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2023, reported stockholders’ equity below $2.5 million.

Advanced Television is reporting that a formal notice from AST SpaceMobile stated the company is still targeting an August launch of a batch of their massive ‘Block 1’ BlueBird 5G satellites.

News also emerged that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has requested the ITU in Geneva, which regulates satellite frequencies globally, to recognize AST’s satellites (under its USASAT-NGSO-20 filing). The news helped propel the company’s share price up by almost 4 per cent.

July 21st saw reports from Japan where AST’s local telco Rakuten confirm that test signals from AST’s sole satellite currently in orbit were “very strong” as the craft passed over Japan.

AST is launching the five BlueBird satellites to connect the non-covered ‘not-spots’ of terrestrial cellular operators, such as AT&T and Verizon. The five craft are reported to have arrived at Cape Canaveral ready for launch, although this has not been officially confirmed.

To read the entire Advanced Television story, please access this direct infolink…

HawkEye 360 has been selected by AFWERX for an SBIR Phase II contract, focused on the delivery of RFGeo® and RFIQ data to address the most pressing challenges in the Department of the Air Force (DAF).

The Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) process by accelerating the small business experience through faster proposal to award timelines, changing the pool of potential applicants by expanding opportunities to small business and eliminating bureaucratic overhead by continually implementing process improvement changes in contract execution. The DAF began offering the Open Topic SBIR/STTR program in 2018, which expanded the range of innovations the DAF funded.

As of June 25, 2024, HawkEye 360 will continue its efforts to create and provide innovative capabilities that will strengthen the national defense of the United States of America.

“Receiving the SBIR Phase II contract from AFWERX is a significant milestone for HawkEye 360,” said Alex Fox, Chief Growth Officer at HawkEye 360. “This opportunity allows us to leverage our cutting-edge RFGeo and RFIQ data solutions to support the Department of the Air Force in addressing critical mission challenges and ultimately strengthening the United States’ national defense. We are excited to collaborate with AFWERX and contribute to the innovative advancements that will enhance our nation’s security.”

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) has set the launch window for the company’s 51^st Electron launch, a dedicated mission for American space tech company Capella Space (“Capella”).

The ‘A Sky Full Of SARs’ mission is scheduled to launch during a 14-day window that opens on July 21 NZST / July 20 UTC from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. The mission will deploy Capella’s Acadia-3 SAR satellite, a synthetic aperture radar satellite for Earth imagery and observation, to a mid-inclination 615km circular orbit to add to Capella’s existing SAR satellite constellation in low Earth orbit. 

The mission will be Rocket Lab’s fifth launch for Capella to build out the company’s Earth-imaging constellation. In addition to the launch service, Rocket Lab is providing Capella Space with a custom extended fairing for the Acadia-3 satellite on Electron and a separation system produced by Rocket Lab.

Providing a tailored launch option along with the component for the safe and reliable deployment of Capella’s satellites on orbit, Rocket Lab’s dedicated launch service helps to streamline operations for Capella Space and enable them to focus more closely on their satellite’s capabilities and building out their constellation.

Capella is an American space tech company with data and satellite solutions for government and commercial applications. Capella’s high-quality, high-resolution SAR imagery penetrates all weather conditions and captures clear imagery 24/7, day and night, anywhere on Earth, delivered through a fully-automated ordering and delivery platform.

Capella’s existing SAR capabilities includes long-dwell imaging and extended duty-cycle – which results in more images collected per orbit than any other SAR systems. Acadia will augment Capella’s existing constellation with increased bandwidth and power, faster downlink speeds, and reduced latency.

This upcoming mission for Capella will be Rocket Lab’s ninth mission for 2024 and 51^st Electron launch overall.

“It’s great to be heading back to the pad for Capella once again,” said Rocket Lab Founder and CEO, Peter Beck. “The team is focused on and dedicated to delivering this latest SAR satellite to orbit to build out Capella’s constellation, and we’re honored by their continued trust in Rocket Lab and Electron to help support their overarching mission.”

 “We’re looking forward to working with Rocket Lab again in order to continue expanding Capella’s constellation with our industry-leading, next-generation satellite technology,” said Capella Space CEO Frank Backes. “It’s with partners like Rocket Lab that we’re able to serve the mission requirements of our customers today with high-resolution, high-quality SAR imagery, building a fully-automated and reliable constellation to meet the needs of customers for tomorrow.”