Spaceport America has celebrated the ground-breaking of SpinLaunch’s future test facility — attending the groundbreaking ceremony was Dan Hicks, CEO, Spaceport America, Alicia Keyes, Cabinet Secretary for Economic Development for the State of New Mexico, and Jonathan Yaney, founder and CEO of SpinLaunch, among New Mexico government and business leaders, and students from area universities.

SpinLaunch, which was founded in 2014 and last year announced a $40 million Series A financing round funded by Airbus Ventures, Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, is developing disruptive launch technology with an environmentally responsible, kinetic energy-based, launch system that will provide the low cost orbital launch services for the rapidly growing smallsat industry. The responsive launch system will allow for on-demand launches of small satellites in virtually any weather at an order of magnitude lower cost and higher frequency than any existing or proposed launch system.

In January of this year, Spaceport America announced a new lease agreement that will facilitate testing for the new launch company. The new agreement enables SpinLaunch to develop a $7 million construction project, adding 20 new jobs in New Mexico at the Spaceport.

SpinLaunch is re-imagining space launch by revisiting fundamental physics and leveraging proven industrial technologies to create a system that accelerates the launch vehicle to hypersonic speeds using ground-based energy. Applying the initial performance boost from a terrestrial-based launch platform will enable the company to provide a substantially lower cost launch to orbit, multiple times per day.

Spaceport America is the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in the world. The FAA-licensed launch complex, situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, has a rocket friendly environment of 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace, low population density, a 12,000-foot spaceway, and 340 days of sunshine and low humidity. Some of the most respected companies in the commercial space industry are customers at Spaceport America: Virgin Galactic, Boeing, UP Aerospace, HyperSciences, EXOS Aerospace, and SpinLaunch.

Jonathan Yaney, CEO, SpinLaunch, said the firm is excited to be developing the company’s first flight test site at Spaceport America. The state of New Mexico historically has been the genesis of innovation in aerospace going back to the early days of rocketry and the company is proud to continue this tradition. The commercial space market is expected to grow to a trillion dollar industry within the decade and this new agreement with Spaceport America will expedite the company’s ability to service that emerging market.

Governor Lujan Grisham said aerospace has tremendous potential as an economic driver, and any step the state takes that encourages the growth of an industry that can put New Mexicans to work and catalyze local communities is a very positive development.

Dan Hicks, CEO, Spaceport America added that the citizens of New Mexico have supported Spaceport America to enable a new revolution in space systems. SpinLaunch, with its new configuration to employ kinetic energy, is truly one of the most exciting new ventures to enter the space industry and Spaceport America is excited to be part of their growth and, in turn, enable the growth of the smallsat market.
 
New Mexico’s Cabinet Secretary Alicia J. Keyes of the Economic Development Department noted that in New Mexico, space is not the final frontier, it’s the next frontier. The state has the facility, the talent and the air space to grow the aerospace industry and be a permanent home to SpinLaunch and other companies.
 

n~Ask Inc. has been awarded a $7,816,490 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (H92401-19-C-0014) for demonstration of a prototype, modular intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) smallsat in support of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).

Fiscal 2019 research and development funds in the amount of $2,000,000 were obligated at time of award.

The work will be performed primarily at the n~Ask Colorado facility. The period of performance is scheduled to run through September 2020.

USSOCOM headquarters, Tampa, Florida, is the contracting activity.

LeoSat Enterprises has signed more than $2 billion in commercial agreements ahead of launching the constellation of LEO satellites. These pre-launch agreements signal strong demand for LeoSat’s business backbone in space across a wide range of fast-growing data and mobility sectors that include Enterprise, Telecoms, Government, Maritime, Healthcare and Finance.

With data volumes exploding, the increasing demand to move large quantities of data quickly and securely around the world is fast outpacing the infrastructure needed to carry it. LeoSat has developed a unique system architecture — a space-based MPLS network — providing Gigabits of secure connectivity with lower latencies than fiber, opening-up new possibilities for companies looking for scalable, flexible solutions for their expanding networks.

The firm’s most recent customer agreements include X2nSat (see information below), which selected LeoSat’s laser-enabled data network to support the ever-expanding needs of the healthcare industry, and FMC GlobalSat, which provides seamless onshore and offshore network access that will enable enormous productivity and efficiency improvements over legacy satellite infrastructures.  

LeoSat was recently granted a license by the FCC to operate its network in the U.S. and also announced last year the first details in the development of its ground system through an agreement with Phasor Solutions, the developer of leading, enterprise-grade electronically-steered antenna (ESA) systems.

Mark Rigolle, CEO of LeoSat Enterprises, said that while the list of companies launching “build it and they will come” mega satellite constellations continues to grow, the company believes that these commercial agreements valued at more than $2 billion clearly demonstrate LeoSat’s unique solution is more than a vision. LeoSat is solving an essential business need that resonates with customers as well as attracted the firm backing of two leading satellite companies — SKY Perfect JSAT and Hispasat.

Additionally, X2nSat has selected LeoSat to support new infrastructure solutions for the ever-expanding needs of the healthcare industry.

X2nSat currently offers SatBlue, a proprietary line of voice and data communications solutions tailored for the healthcare industry (including data and internet redundancy, emergency response trailers and telemedicine capabilities), which allows hospitals and medical office buildings to customize communications solutions based on their existing infrastructure, and to expand when the need for additional capabilities arises.

Whether via telemedicine, video conferencing or transferring medical records via broadband, hospitals and medical facilities have unique needs when it comes to communications.  Network reliability and scalability are key for both service continuity and disaster recovery plans. With healthcare, a back-up communications system not only keeps the business running, it can help save lives.

With data volumes exploding, the increasing demand to move large quantities of data quickly and securely around the world is fast outpacing the infrastructure needed to carry it. LeoSat has developed a unique system architecture — a space-based MPLS network — providing Gigabits of secure connectivity with lower latencies than fiber, opening-up new possibilities for Healthcare providers looking for scalable, flexible solutions for their expanding networks.

Garrett Hill, the CEO of X2nSat, said that technology is crucial to Healthcare.  With cloud computing and Big Data becoming more and more prominent, healthcare providers are seeking a reliable, disaster-resistant backbone for effective healthcare IT management.  Satellite is the missing puzzle piece for the delivery of reliable communication and data connectivity. LeoSat’s unique high throughput, low latency and highly secure data communications network will enable the company to offer new data and voice connectivity solutions and work closely with healthcare providers to create effective disaster preparedness plans. X2nSat’s Las Cruces, New Mexico, Satellite Gateway has been designed and optimized for high-throughput satellites and X2nSat is looking forward to collaborating with LeoSat on how best to deliver the latest generation of solutions to enterprise customers

As part of the agreement, Hill receives a designated seat on LeoSat’s Customer Technical Advisory Committee, an institution created to structure collaboration and exchange information surrounding the design, configuration, production, and launch of the LeoSat satellite constellation.

Michael Abad-Santos, SVP Americas, LeoSat added that satellite is often seen as a last resort for enterprise data communications. However, with capabilities beyond existing satellite and fiber, including transmission speeds of 5.2 gigabits per second and latency of 20 milliseconds, LeoSat’s infrastructure is what data communications has been waiting for — a game-changing service which realizes the synergies of both worlds to re-define connectivity in terms of capacity, latency, security, efficiency and coverage.  Using the company’s unique backbone in space, LeoSat will be able to provide fast and ultra-secure point-to-point data connections to and from anywhere on Earth without the need for any terrestrial landings.

LeoSat is backed by leading satellite operators SKY Perfect JSAT and Hispasat, and the system is being developed in conjunction with Thales Alenia Space, a company with unmatched expertise in designing and manufacturing low earth orbit constellations.  The HTS in the constellation will form a mesh network interconnected through laser links, creating an optical backbone in space which is about 1.5 times faster than terrestrial fiber backbones, thus creating a paradigm shift in the use of satellites for data connectivity — rather than a gap filler or last resort where no terrestrial alternative is available. 

FMC GlobalSat has entered into an agreement with LeoSat for their 4G/LSAT customers to gain access to LeoSat’s secure and highly-efficient satellite connectivity for maritime, energy, and in-transit use cases.

The LeoSat constellation is planned to comprise up to 108 HTS communications satellites interconnected in a mesh network through laser links. The resulting optical backbone in space will be about 1.5 times faster than terrestrial fiber networks and without the need for any terrestrial touchpoints. In addition, satellites in LEO will have much less transmission delay compared to today’s geostationary HTS systems. When placed in service, the LeoSat network will provide the fastest, most secure, and widest international and intercontinental data coverage in the world.

FMC GlobalSat’s 4G/LTSAT solution leverages 4G wireless network connectivity together with HTS connections accessed via the Kymeta software-steered flat-panel very small aperture terminal (VSAT) antenna. This converged service platform constantly monitors signal strength and network throughput, and automatically switches traffic to the path with the strongest signal without any intervention. This seamless connectivity facilitates real-time applications and monitoring regardless of location, and the service is particularly well-suited for offshore, maritime, in-transit, and remote geographic installation use cases.

Emmanuel Cotrel, CEO of FMC GlobalSat, said the partnership with LeoSat will deliver faster and more reliable connectivity anyplace in the world. The firm’s customers will be among the first users of these solutions, which will present enormous productivity and efficiency improvements over legacy satellite infrastructures.

Michael Abad-Santos, SVP, Americas, at LeoSat, added that LeoSat’s system is completely driven by customer requirements and the company is delighted to work with an innovative company such as FMC GlobalSat, which is serving customers with a unique converged 4G wireless and HTS solution. FMC GlobalSat has identified a market requirement for seamless onshore and offshore network access, and LeoSat is looking forward to collaborating with them to deliver a solution that will ramp up performance, improve security, and increase customer efficiency.

For more information about FMC GlobalSat please visit www.FMCGlobalSat.com

OneWeb  has announced a partnership with Intellian to build user terminals designed specifically for remote enterprise networks, cellular backhaul expansion and remote connectivity needs.

The user terminals will be the units provided to customers to enable the high-speed, low latency service that our global satellite constellation will deliver. These user terminals will be perfect for a range of use cases including connecting businesses in rural areas, schools, hospitals, farms and community centers.

This partnership represents a significant step-forward in the development of OneWeb’s system following the launch of its first satellites and its first customer announcements in February 2019. With six satellites now on-orbit and a range of antennas now in place, OneWeb is ready to advance the development of its portfolio of user terminals, ranging from compact flat panels to highly-efficient dual parabolics. All our user terminals will be designed to serve a range of customer needs, market verticals and use cases.

Artistic rendition of the OneWeb constellation.

With many remote and unconnected areas around the world still lacking access to broadband, these user terminals will help to close to gaps and connect remote enterprises, as well as, expand cellular backhaul capacity which is essential for extending connectivity. The terminals will utilize dual-parabolic antennas to deliver cost-effective and efficient throughput making high-speed and low-latency services available in hard-to-reach areas and helping bridge the digital divide. OneWeb expects these terminals to be available for Commercial use in 2020.

Adrian Steckel, CEO of OneWeb, said this is an exciting moment for OneWeb as the company expands and develops the firm’s own user terminals with an extremely important partner. The company’s user terminals will always be designed with customer needs in-mind, ensuring a service is delivered they can trust.

Eric Sung, CEO of Intellian, noted that the company is thrilled that the firm’s design and manufacturing capabilities will help connect people in remote locations to this new satellite ecosystem.

The United States Air Force (USAF) has awarded Analytical Space Inc. (ASI) a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract through the AFWERX program.

Providing a high-speed data connection in space, these smallsats will dramatically expand the utility of the space-based remote sensing industry. Satellite operators who offload their data to the network will have access to more of their data in less time, without needing to update the hardware on their satellites. ​

The U.S. Government purchases data from commercial remote sensing satellite service providers to monitor conditions around the world for civil and defense purposes. These satellites typically can only offload their data when they are overhead a ground station, which are limited in their placement by geographical and geopolitical constraints.

This results in a delay between data acquisition and downlink. ASI’s data relay network will reduce this delay by routing data between satellites, which provides opportunities for much more timely access to cost-efficient commercial imagery for the Air Force and other government customers.

Analytical Space launched their first satellite, Radix, in July of 2018. Radix is a 6U technology demonstration cubesat designed to receive data from client satellites as if it were a ground station on-orbit, before using a laser to transfer the data to the ground at high speeds. It has a fully booked test campaign with a cohort of 12 partner satellites operated by a combination of government, research, and commercial entities.

Dan Nevius, CEO and Co-Founder of Analytical Space, said the U.S. Air Force has a long history of coming up with innovative solutions to complex problems. The company is proud to have their support in bringing more remote sensing data down from space, keeping the country safer while fostering growth in the private sector.

Established in 2017, AFWERX is a catalyst for agile Air Force engagement across industry, academia and non-traditional contributors to create transformative opportunities and foster an Air Force culture of innovation. The core mission of AFWERX is to improve Air Force capabilities by connecting innovators, simplifying technology transfer and accelerating results. For more information on AFWERX, visithttps://afwerxdc.org

At 06:00 UTC (18:00 NZST), on Sunday, May 5, 2019, Rocket Lab successfully launched their STP-27RD mission on their Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

The mission successfully deployed three experimental U.S. Air Force satellites. 

The launch webcast can be viewed by selecting this direct video link…

View the launch video.

Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace AS (KONGSBERG) will supply communications equipment (TC&R) to Astranis Space Technologies Corporation.

Kongsberg Ka-Band Flex Freq. Com. Receiver.

The delivery consists of the functional interface between the satellite and the ground and includes all the equipment needed to transmit data in the form of telemetry.

The telecom company Astranis builds the next generation satellite as part of providing the world internet access. Astranis has signed an agreement with the Alaska-based internet provider Pacific Dataport Inc. The satellite will triple satellite capacity available to Alaska’s inhabitants, where the highly advanced equipment of KONGSBERG is an important part of the satellite.

The quality and reliability of KONGSBERG`s TC&R systems has been important in the choice of supplier and enables Astranis to achieve its goal of delivering low-cost reliable bandwidth. This delivery strengthens KONGSBERG’s portfolio of communication equipment for satellites.

Ingelin Drøpping, EVP Space & Surveillance at Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS, said the company closely monitors developments in the satellite industry, including what is referred to as New Space, where we have products and services within a large part of the value chain.

Ellen Tuset, Program Director Space Electronics at Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace AS, added that since 2009, KONGSBERG has provided communication equipment (TC&R) to a number of satellite operators and platforms. For a total of 25 programs, more than 100 units are sold, and the firm’s solutions have been very well received in the market.

Small enough to be an aircraft carry-on, the ESA’s Juventas spacecraft nevertheless has big mission goals.

Once in orbit around its target body, Juventas will unfurl an antenna larger than itself, to perform the very first subsurface radar survey of an asteroid.

ESA’s proposed Hera mission for planetary defence will explore the twin Didymos asteroids, but it will not go there alone: it will also serve as mothership for Europe’s first two cubesats to travel into deep space.

Top: The Juventas CubeSat, to be delivered to the Didymos binary asteroid system by ESA’s proposed Hera mission, will carry a low-frequency radar for subsurface sounding as well as a gravimeter to measure both asteroids’ gravity fields. It will also perform radio science measurements and measure the forces involved in its concluding landing on the smaller of the two asteroids, at the end of its month-long mission. Image is courtesy of ESA/GomSpace.

Bottom: ESA’s Hera mission concept, currently under study, would be humanity’s first mission to a binary asteroid: the 780 m-diameter Didymos is accompanied by a 160 m-diameter secondary body. Hera will study the aftermath of the impact caused by the NASA spacecraft DART on the smaller body. Image is courtesy of ESA–ScienceOffice.org.

Cubesats are smallsat missions based on standardized 10 cm. boxes, making maximum use of commercial off the shelf systems. Juventas will be a ‘6-unit’ cubesat, selected to fly aboard Hera along with the similarly-sized APEX Asteroid Prospection Explorer, built by a Swedish-Finnish-German-Czech consortium.

Juventas — the Roman name for the daughter of Hera — is being developed for ESA by the GomSpace company and GMV in Romania, together with consortia of additional partners developing the spacecraft instruments.

Juventas will deploy a meter and a half long radar antenna, which will unfurl like a tape measure, and was developed by Astronika in Poland. This instrument is based on the heritage of the CONSERT radar that flew on ESA’s Rosetta comet chaser, overseen by Alain Herique of the Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG).

Rosetta’s radar used to seek out Philae lander.
Image is courtesy of ESA/Rosetta /Philae.

The radar signals should reach one hundred metres down, giving insight into the asteroid’s internal structure. “Is it a rubble pile, or something more layered, or monolithic?” adds Hannah, who previously worked at asteroid mining company Planetary Resources before moving to GomSpace.

The technology proved itself with the Rosetta, where the CONSERT radar peered deep inside comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and helped locate the Philae lander on the comet’s surface. Juventas uses a more compact ‘monostatic’ version of the design.

As Juventas orbits, the CubeSat will also be gathering data on the asteroid’s gravity field using both a dedicated 3-axis ‘gravimeter’ – first developed by the Royal Observatory of Belgium for Japan’s proposed Martian Moons eXploration mission – as well as its radio link back to Hera, measuring any Doppler shifting of communications signals caused by its proximity to the body.

The Hera mission, including its two cubesats, will be presented to ESA’s Space19+ meeting this November, where Europe’s space ministers will take a final decision on flying the mission.

GomSpace systems engineer Hannah Goldberg stated that the company is packing a lot of complexity into the mission. One of the biggest misconceptions about cubesats is that they are simple, but we have all the same systems as a standard-sized spacecraft. Another reputation of cubesats is that they don’t do that much, but there are multiple mission goals over the course of this month-long mission around the smaller Didymos asteroid. One of the company’s cubesat units is devoted to the firm’s low-frequency radar instrument, which will be a first in asteroid science. This is the sort of information that is going to be essential for future mining missions, to estimate where the resources are, how mixed up they are, and how much effort will be required to extract them. The final phase of the mission will come with a precisely-controlled attempt to land on the asteroid. The company will have gyroscopes and accelerometers aboard, so the force of the impact will be captured, as well as any follow-on bouncing, to gain insight into the asteroid’s surface properties — unknown is how well Juventas will continue to operate once it finally touches down. If there is successful operation after the impact, local gravity field measurements from the asteroid surface will continue to be captured.

ESA radar specialist Christopher Buck has worked on the instrument design with IPAG and said the company’s radar instrument’s size and power is much lower than those of previous missions, so what the firm is doing is using a pseudo-random code sequence in the signals — think of it as a poor man’s alternative. Navigation satellites use a comparable technique, allowing receivers to make up for their very low power.

Space Flight Laboratory (SFL), celebrating 100 cumulative years of on-orbit smallsat operations, will highlight present and future microspace remote sensing missions at the 12th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation. SFL is a specialty lab building satellites professionally at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS).

On Monday, May 6, at 13:30, SFL’s Laura M. Bradbury will present, “On-Orbit Greenhouse Gas Emissions Monitoring with the GHGSat Constellation.” The paper discusses the GHGSat-D microsatellite built by SFL and launched in 2016 by GHGSat Inc. to demonstrate the detection of point sources of greenhouse gases from orbit. The successful mission resulted in SFL’s being contracted to develop GHGSat-C1 and -C2 for commercial operations.

The paper is co-authored by Michael Ligori, Robert Spina, and Robert E. Zee, all of SFL, and Stephane Germain of GHGSat Inc. in Montreal.

SFL established itself as the go-to provider of smallsats for Earth Observation (EO) applications by developing break-through attitude control technologies for smaller satellites. As a greater challenge for smaller satellites of low mass, attitude control is a necessity for precise pointing of onboard sensors at Earth.

In addition to the two commercial GHGSat smallsats, SFL is developing two atmospheric monitoring satellites and one optical remote sensing satellite at its Toronto facility. These include the DMSat-1 aerosol and greenhouse gas monitoring microsatellite contracted by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai, and Slovenia’s first Earth observation satellite, NEMO-HD which will be launched later this year. NEMO-HD is a compact microsatellite capable of 2.8m (actual) resolution, multispectral, high-definition imaging and video.

Visit the SFL booth at the 2019 IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation, hosted by the International Academy of Astronautics. This year’s conference will be held in Berlin, Germany, on May 6-10. Details at http://smallsat.iaaweb.org/.