Portfolio Company News
Crew Dragon splashes down to end Ax-1 private astronaut mission
Axiom’s first private astronaut mission concluded Monday, April 25th after a 17-day mission to the ISS. Ax-1’s return was delayed by a week due to persistent bad weather in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The delay also allowed the private astronauts to complete experiments that had been previously deferred as well as allowing for additional outreach events in orbit. In late-breaking news, Axiom and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have signed an agreement to fly a UAE professional crew member to the ISS on NASA’s SpaceX Crew 6, expected to occur in 2023.
Starbridge has made recent investments in Lucid Circuit and GeoOptics. Lucid Circuit is designing and building a unique microprocessor that is inherently low power, rad resistant, and highly secure for various AI/ML edge applications. GeoOptics develops instruments to observe the Earth’s atmosphere, surface and subsurface. GeoOptics is one of two companies providing radio occultation data to NOAA and is developing new water and atmospheric data products.
General Space News
Falcon 9 launches Crew-4 mission to space station
Following the splashdown of the Ax-1 mission on April 25th, the Crew-4 mission launched less than 2 days later on April 27th. NASA and SpaceX officials stated that “It's been a clean flight overall. No major issues.” despite the short turnaround between the 2 missions. Crew-3 will return from the ISS in early May.
Nobody wants your fancy algorithm - Joe Morrison
This article by Umbra’s VP of Commercial Products Joe Morrison digs more deeply into Joe’s continuing analysis of how the Earth observation market is structured. Joe’s primary point is that, like the lessons learned by “Big Data” startups in the last decade, generating, storing, and analyzing data is easy and something that data scientists and engineers love to do. But it has no inherent value to any customer.
Customers are after actionable intelligence about their business and their market that they can’t answer for themselves. Primarily those are the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. The value that customers are willing to pay for is figuring out what questions can be asked, which ones are valuable to their business, and then how to efficiently operationalize answering those questions. That is not a technical process. It is, at its core, a consultative process involving a lot of time learning about the customer’s business.
In Starbridge’s case, we are running a bit of an experiment. Umbra is following Joe’s model and is purely a data provider. Orbital Sidekick (OSK), on the other hand, works with its customers to actually do the analytics as well. The company has done quite well in the oil and gas industry by spending years in deep consultative discussions with customers. OSK does not currently sell its hyperspectral data so it does not have the inherent conflict that Joe discusses. Starbridge thinks that the industry has a lot to learn from both companies.
Starlink secures first major airline Wi-Fi deal with Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines announced its plan to offer free Starlink services on transpacific flights next year. This is the first major airline to offer Space-X’s high-speed broadband Starlink service inflight and the first time Hawaiian Airlines will offer internet access aboard their flights.
NASA selects six companies to demonstrate commercial successors to TDRS
NASA awarded Space Act Agreements worth a total of $278.5M divided among 6 traditional satellite operators and constellation developers to demonstrate services to eventually replace NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) network. Amazon’s Kuiper and SpaceX will demonstrate their optical constellations in LEO; Inmarsat and Viasat will demonstrate their services in GEO; and SES and Telesat will demonstrate their services using a mix of LEO, MEO, and GEO.
Over the years Starbridge has seen several startups looking to augment/replace TDRS and the Deep Space Network (DSN) with commercial services. The award above demonstrates how current providers use their understanding of the customer and the trust they have built providing other services to win contracts like this. A startup can build new services that don’t require that level of trust and experience since the offering is new. But it is rare for a truly new company to be allowed to replace existing infrastructure.
DalBello to lead Office of Space Commerce
The Office of Space Commerce (OSC) hired Richard DalBello to be their next director effective May 9th. The OSC is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is responsible for a range of commercial space policy activities, from the licensing of commercial remote sensing systems to the development of civil space traffic management capabilities. DalBello was most recently VP of Global Engagement at Virgin Galactic and previously worked for Intelsat General and ICO Global. He also worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), including as director for space and aeronautics, during the Obama administration.
India's space agency has offered a first look at its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), showed off their 3rd lunar spacecraft in the documentary ‘Space on Wheels’. Chandrayaan-3 is expected to launch in August and will be India’s 2nd attempt at landing on the Moon.
China to build a lunar communications and navigation constellation
China plans to set up a constellation around the moon to provide communication and navigation services for future operations on the lunar surface beginning in 2023/2024. This will help with China’s Chang’e-6 and 7 missions to the lunar south pole in 2024/2025.
GEOINT 2022 Conference News
Vice Adm. Sharp: Commercial satellites a key counterforce to Russian disinformation
Vice Adm Robert Sharp, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency praised commercial satellite operators for providing satellite imagery that has been critical to understanding what’s going on in Ukraine and surrounding areas.
Orbital Insight brings Satellogic data into its platform
Satellogic will begin providing Orbital Insight customers access to their high-resolution satellite imagery and full-motion video through Orbital Insight’s platform. Orbital Insight hopes that Satellogic’s imagery will improve revisit rates, lower analytics costs, and open the market to new customers who aren’t able to spend millions of dollars monitoring their assets.
Over 90 satellite operators, companies, organizations, and associations say Ligado’s L-band spectrum could cause “harmful interference” with GPS technology and are trying to overturn the FCC regulatory approval Ligado received in 2020 to use L-band spectrum terrestrially. Nokia and Rakuten Mobile have been working with Ligado to set up various 5G base stations and private wireless networks.
Government trying to streamline procurement of commercial space data
The Deputy Director of Commercial and Business Operations at the National Geospatial-intelligence Agency (NGA), Frank Avila, says they have increased their demand for commercial geospatial data and analytics. He also expects US intelligence agencies to start buying data analytics from commercial companies in order to monitor climate change; specifically methane gas emissions and carbon dioxide. NGA is already using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from commercial SAR companies.
Other Space News
This week's picks of space sector news compiled from Jeff Foust's FIRST UP newsletter are:
Four private astronauts safely returned to Earth Monday after two and a half weeks in space.
The return of Ax-1 allows NASA to proceed with the launch of the Crew-4 mission to the ISS.
Richard DalBello is the new director of the Office of Space Commerce within NOAA.
A flat budget for NASA's space technology programs is creating challenges for the agency.
India plans to conduct a landing test of a reusable spaceplane soon.