February 19, 2021

AAC Clyde Space, Fortified by Hyperion, SpaceQuest Acquisitions, Forecasts 5X Sales Increase by 2024 (Source: Space Intel Report)
Small satellite manufacturer AAC Clyde Space AB of Sweden and Scotland, confident that acquisitions of Dutch and U.S. companies in 2020 will deliver on their promise, told investors to expect a five-fold increase in sales in the next four years. The company reported sales of 98.4 million Swedish krona ($11.8 million) in 2020, up 48% from 2019, a figure that included late-year results from Hyperion of the Netherlands, which is testing very small laser communications terminals for the smallsat market. (2/19)

Boeing-Backed Aerion Is in Talks for Altitude SPAC Listing (Source: Bloomberg)
Aerion Corp., which designs supersonic planes, is in talks to go public through a merger with Altitude Acquisition Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter. The companies are discussing a deal that would value the combined firm at up to $3 billion, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. A deal could be announced as soon as this month, the people said.

The talks could still fall apart and end without an agreement, they said. Altitude Acquisition rose 13% to $12.07 at 10:22 a.m. in New York, giving the company a market value of about $453 million. A spokesperson for Aerion declined to comment. A representative for Altitude Acquisition didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Editor's Note: Aerion is developing a major manufacuring facility on Florida's Space Coast. (2/17)

Perseverance Lands Successfully on Mars (Source: Space News)
NASA's Perseverance rover successfully landed on Mars Thursday. Signals confirming a safe touchdown of the rover in Jezero Crater, Mars, arrived at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at 3:55 p.m. Eastern, indicating that the spacecraft had aced the "seven minutes of terror" of its entry, descent and landing there. The rover is in good health, project officials said shortly after landing. The $2.7 billion mission will soon start efforts to look for evidence of past Martian life, including collecting samples for later return to Earth. The rover also carries some technology demonstrations, such as a small helicopter that will be deployed for flight tests this spring. (2/19)

Biden Congratulates NASA on Perseverance Success (Source: Space News)
The successful landing won broad political praise, including from President Biden. The president called NASA Acting Administrator Steve Jurczyk shortly after the landing to offer his congratulations, and said he wanted to personally congratulate the mission team in some way in the near future. Members of Congress also congratulated NASA on the landing. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, was at JPL for the landing, and said in a later interview that while the success will help garner support for NASA's exploration programs, the agency and its advocates will "have our work cut out for us with limited funds" available given competing priorities. (2/19)

Perseverance Used New Landing Tech, Will Travel Faster (Source: Space Daily)
New landing technology being employed by Perseverance is vital to future missions, especially if humans are ever to set foot on Mars, Steve Jurczyk, NASA's acting administrator, said. Perseverance "has hazard avoidance and precision landing capability that is going to be really important when we need to land multiple systems on the surface to prepare for human missions to Mars," Jurczyk said. After entering the atmosphere and slowing down under a parachute, the rover's sensors will scan the terrain for a safe landing site and compare those images to maps stored in its database.

Another NASA rover, Curiosity, performed most of those steps when it landed in August 2012, but Perseverance has a riskier landing spot strewn with boulders and drop-offs. That's where the new hazard avoidance technology will be vital, said Matt Wallace, the mission's deputy project manager. Perseverance will also move three times faster than Curiosity across the Mars surface. Curiosity averages about 600 feet per day, depending on tasks it performs. (2/19)

Quebec Government to Invest in Telesat Constellation (Source: Space News)
The government of Quebec will invest in Telesat's low Earth orbit broadband constellation. The provincial government will provide $315 million to Telesat for the Lightspeed constellation, and Telesat will establish a campus in Quebec to house Lightspeed technical operations. Another Canadian company, MDA, is in "advanced discussions" with Thales Alenia Space, the prime contractor for the Lightspeed satellites, to perform final assembly and testing of the satellites in Quebec. MDA is also providing the phased array antennas for those satellites. (2/19)

Space Command Looks to Future Mobility and Logistics Needs (Source: Space News)
U.S. Space Command is thinking about investments in mobility and logistics to support future space operations. Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, said this week that while there are no plans to deploy troops in space, the military needs to think about what capabilities it needs to support space operations, leveraging new technologies like space tugs and satellite servicing. As a unified combatant command, U.S. Space Command can influence what the Pentagon buys through the so-called "requirements process." (2/19)

Germany's Morpheus Opens California Office (Source: Space News)
German propulsion startup Morpheus Space has opened a U.S. office in Los Angeles. The company, which is working on electric propulsion systems for small satellites, set up the office there after participating in the first cohort of the Los Angeles-based Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator. The company also named David Kalinske, a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, as its chief revenue officer. (2/19)

Nicaragua's Space Plans Panned as Distraction (Source: The Guardian)
The government of Nicaragua is facing criticism for establishing a space agency. The country's congress approved the formation this week of a National Ministry for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. It's unclear what the new agency will do, and critics said it is a distraction from the government's human rights abuses and crackdowns on protests. (2/19)

NASA Worm Logo Designer Dies (Source: New York Times)
The designer of NASA's "worm" logo has died. Bruce Blackburn, a graphic designer and co-founder of the Danne & Blackburn design firm, created the iconic logo in the mid-1970s as part of the Federal Graphics Improvement Program. NASA used the logo from 1975 until 1992, when the agency reverted to its earlier "meatball" logo, a decision he lamented. He was surprised and pleased, though, when NASA resurrected the worm logo last year for the first commercial crew flights. "I think he was glad to know that his design was finally back in space," his daughter said. (2/19)

RUAG Restructures After Disappointing 2020 Performance (Source: Space Daily)
To respond to a changing market environment and to create the basis for the successful implementation of its growth ambition, RUAG Space is repositioning itself along a flatter organization. RUAG International's Space business is currently being reorganized as part of a project called Ambition 21. The reorganization is a response to a changing market environment and an unsatisfactory performance in 2020. The focus is on strengthening RUAG Space's position in Europe as a leading supplier to the space industry, on selectively expanding its subsystem offering and to further expand RUAG Space's business in the US and globally.

The new organization will replace RUAG Space's existing matrix organization as of Q3/2021. In response to the changing market environment, including new market players and a need for industrialized processes, the existing organization has proven to be too complex and not agile enough. Due to a drop in profitability resulting from delays in various space programs that have been further exacerbated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, RUAG Space must accelerate the development towards a leaner organization and reduce overlapping resources.

Therefore, the company will reduce up to 100 of today's approximately 1300 positions across its sites in Austria, Sweden and Switzerland as part of the reorganization until the end of 2021. Editor's Note: RUAG recently opened a facility on Florida's Space Coast, in support of satellite manufacturing operations at OneWeb. The OneWeb operations have been in flux, but this RUAG announcement does not specifically address any changes in Florida. (2/19)