Stories about the Earth Observation industry’s eyes on our planet.
BlackSky ($BKSY) is paring losses; winning key contracts; and sees a near-term path to (adjusted) profitability. Those were the key takeaways bright and early at 7:30am on Tuesday, when the Herndon, VA satellite operator reported its fourth-quarter and full-year 2022 financial results. For the full year, BlackSky pulled in $65.4M in revenue, up 92% over […]
Yesterday, Umbra dropped a triple whammy. The Santa Barbara, CA-based startup 1) rebranded, 2) published licensing and pricing details for its SAR imagery, along with sharing some of that imagery for the first time, and 3) announced a key partnership with Maxar. We’ll take this whammy by whammy. #1: The rebrand Umbra’s logo, website, and […]
This morning, Maxar ($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 […]
This week, Orbital Sidekick announced a $10M raise from a group of strategic and existing investors. Energy Innovation Capital led the round, with energy firms Williams and ONEOK participating. The University of Minnesota’s endowment fund, 11.2 Capital, Syndicate 708, and In-Q-Tel also joined the round. Six-year-old, SF-based Orbital Sidekick is preparing to launch a six-bird […]
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 […]
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 […]
Today, satellite startup Quub emerged from stealth mode with two Air Force contracts in tow. Pronounced like “cube,” the Lancaster, PA-based startup bills itself as a “data company,” placing an emphasis on the value of its eventual downstream analytics products. But don’t get it twisted—Quub is taking a verticalized approach to Earth observation (EO) and […]
For the first orbital launch of 2023, SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission launched 114 small satellites into orbit. The spacecraft on the manifest ranged from cubesats to hosted payloads to orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs). The Transporter satellite rideshare missions increasingly remind us of nesting dolls, as they launch space vehicles that in turn deploy even more space […]
The world was busy in space this year. All together, there have been 174 successful orbital launches so far in 2022, and the world’s space agencies have pulled together over the course of the year to make major strides in science, technology, and exploration. Read on for our recap of the top events from space […]
Can you believe 2022 is nearly over? It’s been a jam-packed year for the space industry, full of groundbreaking moments in science, turbulence in the markets and world order; substantive policy developments; and historic mission firsts. We’re kicking off our year-end coverage by looking at objects closest in the rear-view mirror. Payload combed through the […]
On Friday morning, the markets woke up to quite a surprise: A PE firm was taking Maxar ($MAXR) private in a mega-deal worth $6.4B. Then, we saw a monster merger confirmed Sunday evening, with L3Harris ($LHX) agreeing to buy Aerojet Rocketdyne ($AJRD). $MAXR take-private Maxar’s board voted unanimously to enter into a definitive merger agreement […]
Satellogic ($SATL) expects 2022 revenue to be in the $6M–$8M range, the EO satellite operator said in a Thursday business update. In H1 ‘22, “Satellogic took the most significant steps in our history towards realizing our mission, beginning to fully commercialize low Earth Observation,” chief executive Emiliano Kargieman said. By the numbers The highlights: Satellogic […]
