Capella Space has raised a $97M Series C, led by NightDragon and joined by existing investors DCVC and Cota Capital. Founded in 2016, the SF-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) startup has raised $190M total to date and currently operates a constellation of seven small satellites. Those satellites are fitted with Capella’s SAR sensors, which can […]
ARK Space Exploration & Innovation (ARKX) is an ETF managed by the eponymous, iconoclastic, and currently down-bad NYC fund manager ARK Invest. The space ETF launched at the end of last March, so it just recently celebrated its first bday. Time for a check in… At the end of Q1, ARKX’s assets under management stood […]
JSX, a short-haul “hop-on jet service,” announced Thursday that it’s inked a deal with SpaceX to become the first air carrier to adopt Starlink for in-flight connectivity services. JSX flies between Austin, Burbank, Concord/Napa, Dallas-Love Field, Houston-Hobby, Las Vegas, LA, Monterey/Carmel, Oakland/SF, Orange County, Phoenix, Reno/Tahoe, and San Diego. Its fleet spans 77 Embraer 135s […]
On Friday, Payload CEO Mo Islam took the stage at Miami Tech Week to moderate “Earth’s Future With Space.” Bright and early at 9:30, Mo kicked off the 45-min space industry panel with: John Gedmark, CEO of Astranis Chris Power, CEO of Hadrian Delian Asparouhov, cofounder of Varda Kevin Weil, president of Planet (NYSE:PL) At […]
Yesterday, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and Iridium (NASDAQ:IRDM) reported Q1 2022 financial results. To set the scene, Lockheed has a $122.6B market cap and is up 29.4% this year. Iridium is at a $5.4B market cap and up 3.3% YTD. $LMT LM Space recorded $2.6B in Q1 revenue, a 15% annual drop. The defense contractor attributed […]
Two states that are among the biggest movers and shakers in the US space economy are fighting back against federal decision-making, albeit in very different ways. Colorado Senators Michael Bennet (D) and John Hickenlooper (D) and Reps Doug Lamborn (R) and Jason Crow (D) released a joint statement Monday: “We have said before that the […]
On Tuesday, the Defense Intelligence Agency published “Challenges to Security in Space,” an updated edition of a report it first released in 2019. The findings aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, but they’re aimed at communicating the rapidly evolving threat landscape in space to the general public: The DIA says that US efforts to ensure the space domain “remains […]
Planet (NYSE:PL) yesterday announced Planetary Variables, a new analytics product that spans three preprocessed data feeds: Soil Water Content: daily observations of the amount of water in soil at 5cm depth at 100m resolution Land surface Temperature: “Accurate, continuous insight” into surface temps at 100m resolution Vegetation Biomass Proxy: Daily crop biomass data at 10m […]
World View is a Tucson, AZ-based remote-sensing and space tourism stratospheric balloon developer. The startup is on a publicity blitz, making waves recently at SXSW in Austin, appearing on The Today Show, and naming actor Adrian Grenier as “chief earth advocate.” We caught up with CEO Ryan Hartman to hear more about World View’s roadmap. […]
Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) will attempt to pluck a booster from the skies via helicopter later this month. The effort, if successful, would represent the first time that a small launch vehicle’s booster is recovered. “It’s actually, by far, the hardest thing to do,” Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck told Payload Friday. The company […]
BlackSky (NYSE:BKSY) is a geospatial intelligence and continuous monitoring company. The Herndon, VA-based space company has been in the news at fairly regular intervals in recent months, due to its role in supplying open-source imagery and intelligence related to Ukraine. Payload sat down with BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole at Space Symposium earlier this week to […]
Doug and Bob. Image: Netflix Netflix is now streaming Return to Space. Directed by Oscar-winning duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. The feature-length film chronicles the SpaceX and NASA Demo-2 mission, which restored the US’s capability to domestically send its own astronauts to orbit. Since you’re a space-savvy bunch and Return to Space is nonfiction, […]
