Last Wednesday, in the lead-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we wrote about how commercial satellite imagery laid bare the open secret of Moscow’s military mobilization. Satellite imagery has contributed to a growing corpus of open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis, a vital asset helping to pierce through the fog of war. Newsrooms, analysts, and amateur […]
Launcher has relocated most of its Ukrainian-based staff to Sofia, Bulgaria, the Hawthorne, CA-based company just announced. “I’m distraught by the unprovoked Russian aggression in Ukraine,” Launcher CEO Max Haot wrote in a note. “We are providing all of the necessary support we can think of to our team, partners, and their families and communities […]
Intelligence agencies have their own tactics and techniques to follow the latest military developments near Ukraine. But spies aren’t inclined to share all that classified information with the rest of us. Satellite imagery, along with other sources like social media posts and video geolocation/metadata, enable open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysis from publicly available data. Coupled with […]
This morning, Seattle-based BlackSky (NYSE:BKSY) reported Q4 and full-year 2021 results. Q4 financial highlights: BlackSky recorded $11.5M in revenue, up 79% year-over-year Operating loss stood at $31.9M; Adj. EBITDA loss was $14.4M (more on that below). Going into 2022, BlackSky had $168M in cash. In Q4, BlackSky recorded $14.4M in capex spend. Financial highlights for […]
Graph: Promus Ventures. Snapshot taken Feb. 17, 2022 before market open. As we’ve written before, investing in space is not for the faint of heart. In a recent op-ed for the FT, Sinéad O’Sullivan, a space economist, HBS senior researcher, and friend of Payload, digs a bit deeper into the dynamics of space investing. The good: In 2021, […]
On Wednesday, the Department of Defense released a report on the state of competition in the defense industrial base (DIB). So, how is the state of competition? Not great, per the report. Synopsis: Since the 1990s, consolidation has hit the aerospace and defense sectors harder than most. There were 51 prime contractors in the ’90s. Now, there […]
Today, Hawthorne-based Launcher announced the appointment of Tim Berry as head of manufacturing. Berry spent over eight years across town at SpaceX, most recently serving as manager of additive manufacturing. Before that, he led teams integrating SpaceX Dragon Crew and Cargo spacecraft. And from 2013 to 2019, Berry oversaw the production of 90 flight-rated Falcon 9 […]
ICYMI…and you probably didn’t…Elon Musk provided a public update on Starship. Since Starship is poised to become the largest, most powerful rocket ever, it’s safe to say we were watching with notepads in hand. Musk gave the presentation in front of Starship and Super Heavy fully stacked, which is a tough backdrop to beat. No virtual Zoom […]
After a couple scrubs, Astra (NASDAQ:ASTR) launched Thursday for the first time from the Space Coast. LV0008 flew smoothly and nominally for roughly three minutes, but ended up failing mid-flight. What happened? Something went awry upon stage separation. The rocket’s upper stage began spinning shortly after engine ignition (based on the live feed). The payloads: Four NASA-sponsored […]
Taking a page from e-commerce’s playbook, Ursa Space has added one-click ordering to its SAR imagery platform. Processing Ursa’s business, piece by piece: SAR, or synthetic aperture radar, has 24-hour, all-weather, cloud cover-piercing persistent sensing capabilities. The technique can be especially useful for object and change detection. But in its natural and raw form, SAR data is […]
On Monday, E-Space came right out of the gate with ambitious mega-constellation aspirations. The startup has raised a $50M seed from Prime Movers Lab, which it says will fully fund two “beta” satellite test batches, launching in March and then the end of 2022. E-Space also claims that mass production is set to begin in […]
Wyvern has received a CAD $4M (~$3.2M) investment from STDC, just weeks after the Canadian satellite imaging startup announced a $4.5M seed round and its inclusion in Y Combinator’s Winter 22 (W22) batch. STDC, or Sustainable Development Technology Canada, is an “arm’s-length” foundation funded by the Canadian government. STDC’s grant is non-dilutive and tied to […]
