SkyFi believes that satellite imagery should be easily accessible and affordable for anyone to access. Today, the Austin, TX startup took a major step toward democratizing that data with the public launch of its mobile and web apps. The story so far: SkyFi built an entirely new app and interface for individuals to task satellites […]
Through 60 Minutes, Congress, and incremental declassification, American citizens have been treated to a closer look into what the US government’s “aliens(???)” desktop folder looks like. Driving the news: The intelligence community’s (IC) quest to understand elusive UFO-esque unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) sightings has borne fruit. Those fruits, though, don’t offer any conclusive evidence of […]
JWST has confirmed its first exoplanet—and it’s a good one. Using the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument aboard the orbiting telescope, scientists identified an exoplanet (i.e., a planet in a star system besides our own) in the LHS 475 star system that’s about as similar to Earth as any we’ve found. The planet, called LHS 475 […]
Yesterday, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced that it will lend €300M (~$323M) to Luxembourg-based SES to finance a trio of broadcast satellites that will serve Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It’s the largest investment the EU’s investing arm has made to date into a Luxembourg-based company. ESA head Josef Aschbacher has repeatedly […]
A lifeboat for members of the ISS crew is on the way. A Roscosmos investigation of a leak in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft found that the ship is unsafe to use for a ride home, and the agency announced this morning that it will send an uncrewed Soyuz to the station to use instead. What […]
Magnestar, a new startup based in Toronto, has raised a $1.1M pre-seed round to kickstart the development of a platform to help satellite operators predict and avoid potential radiofrequency (RF) interference. 1862 Capital, the Business Development Bank of Canada, BoxOne Ventures, and Entrepreneur First participated in the round. With its platform, Magnestar hopes to give […]
Neuraspace, Ienai Space, and EnduroSat announced this morning that they have formed a partnership to demonstrate their end-to-end space traffic management (STM) capabilities. The companies say this will be the first European mission dedicated to performing collision avoidance maneuvers. “I’m really hoping that efforts like our own will help us avoid negative approaches to sustainability […]
Coming soon, Android users practically anywhere around the globe will be able to send green texts messages from anywhere, even when out of range of any terrestrial cell tower. Iridium and Qualcomm are partnering to make it happen. Today at CES in Las Vegas, Iridium CEO Matt Desch announced that in mid-2023, several new premium […]
NorthStar Earth and Space, a Canadian startup building a constellation for in-situ space situational awareness (SSA), announced this morning it has closed a $35M Series C. New York-based PE shop Cartesian led the round. The round also included participation from Telesystem Space Inc., the Luxembourg Future Fund, the government of Quebec, and the Luxembourg Space […]
We’re doing things a little differently this week. Ryan’s taking a step back from his podcast-hosting duties so you can get to know another member of the Payload media machine. Actually, we’re doing things very differently. Today’s episode isn’t a Payload-on-Payload interview. Instead, we brought in a guest host. The interviewer: Tess Hatch is a […]
SpaceX is seeking another round of funding. According to emails seen by CNBC, the launch juggernaut is raising $750M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z), valuing the company at $137B. 2022 was a busy year of fundraising for SpaceX. Last month, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was offering insiders the opportunity to sell […]
Here we are, in the final weeks of 2022, having learned so much about the vast, mysterious universe we live in. Here’s a recap of some of the biggest moments in space science this year. Eyes on the sky Last Christmas, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope in its mission to, as the agency […]
