Stories about operations in low-Earth orbit.
Image: Phase Four El Segundo-based Phase Four today finalized a lease to build a second factory and scale production of its Maxwell engine product line. The new Hawthorne facility will be over 3X larger than Phase Four’s current plant, and capable of cranking out 100 engines a year. Phase Four’s founding vision was to create […]
When humanity was just beginning space launches 60 years ago, it seemed as if nothing could stand in the way of our inevitable push into the cosmos. Now, a booming young commercial space industry is brushing up against a consequence of this frontier mindset, and a problem of our own making: debris. Orbiting several hundred […]
Isotropic Systems has doubled in size over the last year, just recently signing its 130th hire, and expects to 2X again in the coming year, the British startup told Payload. The Reading, UK-based company has created—and successfully field-tested—a potentially revolutionary technology: multi-beam, multi-link, and all-orbit satellite terminals. Origin story In 2013, Isotropic CEO and founder […]
Image: Amazon, Arianespace, & Beyond Gravity. Compiled by Andrew Parsonson. Amazon sent shockwaves throughout the space world yesterday. The largest-ever commercial launch deal gave a kick of nitrous to the European space machine. Beyond the headlines: Arianespace won big, snagging its largest single contract ever. But that wasn’t Europe’s only winner: Amazon’s dealmaking included the largest […]
Good morning from Colorado Spring, where we’re writing this at 5:30 am local time. Amazon front-ran Day 2 of Space Symposium with what it claims is “the largest commercial procurement of space launch services in history.” Driving the news Project Kuiper, Amazon’s LEO broadband initiative, has contracted three heavy-lift vehicles for up to 83 launches. […]
Matthew Desch is the CEO of Iridium (NASDAQ:IRDM), a $5.1B satellite operator based in McLean, VA. Payload recently caught up with Desch across town at Satellite 2022. Over the course of an hour, we chatted about (shocker) satellites, constellation strategy, corporate reinvention, Iridium’s moat, “commodity broadband,” Ukraine, dual-use tech, SPACs, and more. There are three […]
In an absolute plot-twist of a partnership, OneWeb and SpaceX have let bygones be bygones and signed a launch services agreement. OneWeb had an outstanding agreement with Roscosmos through European launcher Arianespace to launch aboard Soyuz rockets. But those satellites became stranded amid sanctions and rising tensions between the West and Russia. A batch of […]
SpaceX has trucked in Starlink terminals to Ukraine to keep the country online during the ongoing war. Over 5,000 terminals are in the country, the Washington Post reported over the weekend. Tesla has complemented these efforts by supplying battery storage systems that can power Starlink dishes, per an internal company email seen by CNBC. SpaceX […]
Image: MDA MDA, a Canadian satellite developer and geospatial analytics provider, announced Tuesday that it is supplying satellite imagery to Ukraine. The move follows a similar announcement the same day from Satellogic and Astraea. In a statement, MDA said it “secured special authorization” from the Canadian government “to collect synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite imagery over […]
Pine Technology Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:PTOC) and Tomorrow.io (née ClimaCell) have called off their SPAC merger, the two said yesterday. $PTOC closed the day down ~1.4%. Announced Dec. 7, the transaction was expected to give the weather forecasting company (and nascent constellation developer) a $1.2B post-deal valuation, while providing Tomorrow.io with up to $420M in gross […]
From rocket engines to Earth-observing satellites to the ISS, seemingly no element of space has been spared from rapidly rising geopolitical and off-world tensions between Russia and the West. LEO internet megaconstellations in buildout phase are no exception to this rule. ICYMI Let’s start with OneWeb. Russia sought assurances that OneWeb internet satellites wouldn’t be used for military purposes, with […]
The ISS is the most expensive object ever built by humanity, and the largest scientific and engineering collaboration the world has ever witnessed. The space station treaty, signed Jan. 29, 1998 by the EU, the US, Russia, Canada, and Japan, represented a new era of cooperation that ushered in significant scientific and technological breakthroughs for […]
