September 14, 2021

New DoD Program Helps Dual-Use Hardware Startups Accelerate Product Development (Source: DoD)
To stimulate and access hardware technology innovation in the private sector, the Defense Department launched a program called National Security Innovation Capital. Located in Mountain View, California, NSIC addresses the shortfall of trusted funding from private venture capital sources for the development of new hardware technologies that have both commercial and national security applications, said Tex Schenkkan, NSIC director. Since NSIC began in February, it has received $15 million from Congress. It is on track to obligate all of those funds by the end of September. It has awarded prototype development contracts to companies in multiple technology areas.

Editor's Note: Among the recipients of NSIC funding is Space Coast-based Advanced Magnet Lab (AML). AML is a small company creating a manufacturing process that will result in a domestic source of novel, high-performance magnets. (9/14)

Innovative Solar Farms (Source: World Economic Forum)
Solar power generation grew 22% in 2019 and is now the cheapest source of electricity in history, according to the International Energy Agency. As adoption gathers pace, innovative projects are coming to the fore. A reservoir in the Swiss Alps is home to the world’s highest floating solar farm. In Canada, a solar farm is being built in a remote community above the Arctic Circle. And canals in India are being turned into solar farms to save land for living and farming. (9/14)

Orbit Fab Secures Investment from Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to Commercialize On-Orbit Refueling (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Orbit Fab closed over $10 Million in its most recent financing, bringing its total funding to $17 Million. Alongside Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures led the round. Existing investor SpaceFund is joined by new investors, Marubeni Ventures and Audacious Venture Partners. On-orbit refueling is a paradigm shift for the industry, pioneering reusable spacecraft and new flexible mission operations will allow for new business models. (9/14)

Capella Space Opens its SAR Data to the Public (Source: Parabolic Arc)
2021 has been a momentous year for Capella Space and all-weather Earth observation with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology. Since officially starting our commercial operations in January, we have served government and commercial customers alike with very high-resolution, ultra-low latency, 24/7 all-weather data to support better decisions. 

Our cloud-native approach makes SAR data accessible in an easy and intuitive web application for the first time in history, populated by customer-driven tasking missions with 5 satellites collecting SAR imagery. As our archive rapidly grows, we are beginning to see economic, environmental and geopolitical changes. (9/14)

Former Blue Origin Senior VP Stephen Bennett Joins Kepler Communications as COO (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Kepler Communications announced that Stephen Bennett will be joining the Kepler Team as Chief Operating Officer effective Sep. 20, to contribute his expertise to accelerating Kepler’s next phase of growth. Steve Bennett is an aerospace industry veteran whose most recent role as SVP with Blue Origin saw him leading the team working on the New Shepherd program. (9/14)

Spaceflight Announces Rideshare Mission to the Moon (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Spaceflight Inc. plans a cislunar rideshare mission: “GEO Pathfinder.” As a secondary payload onboard Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 South Pole Mission, Spaceflight will execute rideshare deployments in trans-lunar orbit, low-lunar orbit and beyond to geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO). Spaceflight will use a lunar flyby with its new propulsive transfer vehicle, Sherpa EScape (Sherpa-ES), to deliver a payload from GeoJump, a new company dedicated to providing smallsat rideshare opportunities to GEO, that will also contain an Orbit Fab in-space fueling payload. The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 no earlier than Q4 2022. (9/14)

Spire Global to Acquire exactEarth (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Spire Global and exactEarth Ltd. have entered into an agreement under which Spire will acquire exactEarth for approximately $161.2 million in cash and stock. Once completed, exactEarth will become a fully owned subsidiary of Spire and continue to operate from Cambridge, Ontario, Canada under the leadership of exactEarth’s CEO Peter Mabson, reporting directly to Spire CEO Peter Platzer. (9/14)

BAE Acquiring UK's In-Space Missions (Source: Space News)
BAE Systems is acquiring British smallsat company In-Space Missions. The deal, announced Tuesday, will turn In-Space Missions into a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAE Applied Intelligence. The companies did not disclose the value of the deal. In-Space Missions placed its first smallsat into orbit in June and won a contract from the British military in August to build an experimental smallsat to test optical communications. (9/14)

SpaceX Launches 51 Starlink Satellites From California Spaceport (Source: Space News)
SpaceX launched a set of Starlink satellites into polar orbit late Monday night. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:55 p.m. Eastern and released its payload of 51 Starlink satellites 15 minutes later. The rocket's first stage, making its tenth flight, landed on a droneship in the Pacific. The launch is the first dedicated Starlink mission since May, and the first devoted to placing Starlink satellites into polar orbit. The satellites are equipped with laser inter-satellite links, and the company says all future Starlink satellites will have such links to enable service in the polar regions and over the ocean. (9/14)

Advanced Subsystems are Transforming Smallsats and Enabling Military Role (Source: Space News)
Smallsats equipped with advanced electronics and propulsion are a transformative trend in the space industry that will benefit national security, the head of the Space Force said Monday. Gen. John Raymond, speaking at a New America event, called the combination of small satellites and computing power one of the most exciting developments seen in space technology. Raymond cautioned that the accelerating pace of commercial space innovation is creating congestion and increasingly going to make it difficult to distinguish benign activities from illegal or hostile acts. (9/14)

Equity Firm Buys Majority Stake in Marlink (Source: Space News)
Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has agreed to buy a majority stake in Marlink, valuing the maritime satellite connectivity specialist at $1.4 billion. Providence is acquiring the stake from French private equity firm Apax Partners, which said it will retain a significant minority shareholding. Marlink has tripled revenues and grown its earnings by a factor of 10 since Apax first invested in the company 15 years ago. The sale is expected to close the transaction in the first half of next year, following regulatory and other customary approvals. (9/14)

UK Developing UN Resolution on Space Norms (Source: Breaking Defense)
The British government is drafting a United Nations resolution on norms of behavior in space. The resolution would create an "Open Ended Working Group" that would meet twice in 2022 and 2023 to attempt to reach consensus on norms of responsible behavior in space. The hope is that the process can create deconfliction mechanisms like those for maritime operations. The British proposal has the support of the U.S. government. (9/14)

India to Revise Policies to Enable Foreign Investment in Space Industry (Sources: IANS, The Hindu)
The Indian government is planning to revise policies to enable more foreign investment in the country's space industry. Speaking at a conference Monday, K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian space agency ISRO, said the policy change is driven by growing interest in companies outside India partnering with and investing in Indian companies, and fits into a broader space commercialization push by the Indian government. Sivan did not disclose details of the proposed policy changes. ISRO, meanwhile, plans to pause hiring of scientific and technical personnel at its centers as the government evaluates workforce needs given the new commercialization activities. (9/14)

Now That it’s Gone Public, BlackSky Will Boldly Go Into New Markets (Source: GeekWire)
As a private venture, BlackSky made a name for itself providing satellite imagery and data analysis primarily for military and government customers. But now that it’s an independent, publicly traded company, the satellite subsidiary that got its start in Seattle is setting its sights higher. “This is a thrilling outcome for the company,” said BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole. “This is going to gross over $280 million in capital to fund our growth plan. We’re in the early stages here of an exciting new space sector.” (9/13)

DoD To Update Satellite Cyber Rules For Megaconstellations (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force hopes to soon wrap up a new cybersecurity certification process for commercial communications megaconstellations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) — while allowing industry as much leeway as possible to come up with innovative solutions. "Internally with our office, there’s a desire to be more agnostic, so when we go out with acquisitions we really want to let industry be creative in their proposals,” said Jared Reece, program analyst at the service’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO).

CSCO is currently working to finalize an update to its 2019-created Infrastructure Asset Pre-Assessment (IA-Pre) program for commercial communications satellites to cover what are called proliferated LEO constellations. IA-Pre allows commercial satellite communications firms to use third-party audits to show that they have met the relevant cybersecurity standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

In doing so, Reece said, CSCO will focus any new requirements narrowly on the differences between these types of networks and the smaller constellations of more traditional comsats that operate in higher orbits. Until recently, most communications satellites were placed primarily in Geostationary Orbits, some 36,000 kilometers above the Earth where a space object seems to hover above a fixed location on the ground. (9/12)

Like a Cell Phone Plan: Army Tees Up SATCOM Services Pilot (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Army hopes to kick off a pilot program next year for buying satellite communications services provided by commercial firms in the same way that civilians subscribe to a mobile phone plan. The service is “shooting for” issuance of a request for proposals to industry to launch the pilot program early in 2022.

Taylor works for the Program Executive Office (PEO) Command, Control, & Communications – Tactical (C3T) headed by Brig. Gen. Rob Collins, which is responsible for the “SATCOM as a Managed Service (SaaMS)” program. Eventually, the Army could buy services from industry that “include everything from a piece of hardware to the operations center to the bandwidth,” Collins told a panel on military uses of commercial SATCOM networks. (9/8)

Orbital Space Tourism, What's On Offer? (Source: Times of India)
After Inspiration4, there are three other relatively near-term orbital space tourism missions coming. In January 2022, three businessmen will visit the ISS, alongside an experienced NASA astronaut. The "AX-1" mission is organized by Axiom Space and will last 10 days. Axiom has signed up for three more future flights with SpaceX.

SpaceX also has plans for an orbital voyage organized by Space Adventures for four paying clients. This was the company that organized trips fo seven tourists to the ISS between 2001 and 2009 aboard Russian rockets. Next up would be DeerMoon, another SpaceX launch (using the huge Starship rocket) in 2023. This trip would carry Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and multiple guests on a trip around the Moon. (9/13)

The Great Space Company Sale (Source: Space Review)
Several space startups have gone public this year thanks to mergers with SPACs. Jeff Foust reports this may trigger a new round of acquisitions as those companies look to acquire suppliers and other firms that can help them grow. Click here. (9/13)
 
Space Policies of China and India: Priorities, Long-Term Focuses, and Differences (Source: Space Review)
China and India are two rising space powers, each taking distinct approaches to developing their space capabilities. Namrata Goswami examines the similarities and differences in the two countries’ approaches to long-term space development. Click here. (9/13)
 
The Problem with Space Cowboys (Source: Space Review)
The race between billionaires to go to space captured headlines and public interest, but also criticism. Layla Martin argues that while competition in general is good, this particular space race wasn’t helpful for the space community. Click here. (9/13)
 
Thor the Lifesaver? (Source: Space Review)
Some space advocates have pushed for development of space-based solar power as a solution to Earth’s energy and climate problems. Ajay Kothari makes the case for an alternative technology that could also have space applications. Click here. (9/13)