Rachael Zisk
Astranis Snags USSF Award
Yesterday, SF-based Astranis announced that it won a Space Force contract worth up to $10.5M to build resilient and jam-resistant waveform technology into its MicroGEO broadband birds. The Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award includes $4.5M for Astranis to incorporate Protected Tactical Waveform technology into its software-defined radio payloads, along with a $6M…
Blue Origin Plans Interplanetary Initiatives
Blue Origin is opening up about some of its latest interplanetary work. Last week, the Washington company announced two science initiatives supporting humanity’s efforts to push outward into the cosmos. On Thursday, NASA awarded Blue Origin a contract to provide launch services for the ESCAPADE mission to study the magnetosphere of Mars. And on Friday,…
Jiga Raises $4.1M for Manufacturing Procurement Platform
Jiga, a Y Combinator W21 alum operating a manufacturing procurement platform, closed a $4.1M funding round led by Symbol. “The aerospace industry is facing a growing demand for new and innovative products, and it’s crucial that companies have quick access to the right parts and materials to meet this demand,” Jiga CEO Adar Hay told…
SpaceRyde Files for Bankruptcy
SpaceRyde appears to be shutting its doors. The Canadian launch company building an inexpensive small-lift rocket with a balloon first stage filed for bankruptcy on Friday. The story so far: Over the last few years, SpaceRyde has been building a system that would use a stratospheric balloon to lift the vacuum-optimized Ryder rocket above 99% of…
FCC Approves Kuiper Debris Mitigation Plan
Another megaconstellation has cleared a key step toward LEO deployment. On Wednesday, the FCC approved Kuiper’s orbital debris mitigation plan, a significant regulatory hurdle that has been keeping Amazon’s broadband constellation out of the sky. The story so far: Amazon has taken a long, winding road with Kuiper. In 2020, the FCC approved the constellation,…
BardAI Incorrectly Answers JWST Question
The brave new world of large language models (LLMs) has finally dealt us a space angle. This week, accompanying a Paris event to preview its new Bard chatbot, Google released an ad about the ChatGPT competitor. The issue? Bard confidently shared an incorrect answer about JWST. The incorrect answer, first shared Monday but widely circulated…
Maxar Wins National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Contract
This morning, Maxar ($MAXR) announced that it has won a contract worth $192M over five years to supply American allies with high-res optical, SAR and 3D imagery. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) award falls under the Foreign Commercial Imagery Program. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract will see the US and its allies tap data…
Busek Increases Thruster Production for OneWeb
Busek has its sights set on ramping up production. The propulsion company announced yesterday that it has fully commissioned its thrusters on 80 OneWeb satellites that launched in December and January. “The space community often talks about rapid response and the need for speed, and this is a great example of preparedness, and fast, high-quality…
Seraphim Releases 2023 Space Ecosystem Map
Seraphim, a leading space VC, has published its 2023 market map, detailing the state of innovation in the in-space economy with an eye on the year ahead. “As the in-space economy takes off, major players in the industry are positioning themselves to capture a slice of the burgeoning market,” Seraphim VP Maureen Laverty said in…
IBM and NASA Partner on Earth Science AI Research
IBM’s AI foundation model tech is turning its focus to a new research target: Earth science. This morning, NASA and IBM announced a partnership that leverages the agency’s suite of geospatial data and historical imagery to generate insights on how the Earth and its climate has changed over time. IBM’s AI will analyze petabytes—that’s thousands…
LeoLabs Unveils Western Australia Space Radar
This afternoon in Western Australia, LeoLabs pulled the curtain off a new project that’s been in the making for the last nine months: the Western Australia Space Radar (WASR), built along with local partners to augment the company’s satellite and debris tracking capabilities. WASR is now fully commissioned and includes two S-band phased array radars…
US Places Sanctions on Spacety
On Friday, the US Treasury Department placed sanctions on Spacety, a Chinese smallsat developer and SAR provider, due its ties to Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group. Backing up: The Wagner Group is Russia’s private military firm and is credited with major crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, the Central African Republic, and Mali. The…
Floodbase Renames and Closes $12M Series A
Floodbase, a Brooklyn, NY-based startup that operates an intelligence engine to help assess and insure flood risk, announced a major rebrand along with a $12M Series A. Lowercarbon Capital led the funding round, with participation from Collaborative Fund, Floating Point and Vidavo. Who’s Floodbase? The artist formerly known as Cloud to Street is working to…
