Stories about the new players changing the space game.
Anyone in the market for an FCC satellite license? A federal judge has ordered that a financially underwater company be stripped of its most prized asset: its FCC license. The backstory: Creditors sued Theia Group to recover hundreds of millions they loaned to the six-year-old satellite developer. Per its website, Theia seeks (sought?) to develop “the only […]
Denver-based Voyager Space has a new deal in the works. Yesterday, the holding company said it intends to buy a majority stake in Space Micro, a San Diego-based satellite subsystem maker. The wheeling and dealing is becoming routine—Space Micro is Voyager’s sixth acquisition since it spun up in Oct. 2019. How’s that for flight heritage? Space Micro, started in […]
This week, Hydrosat closed a $10M seed round led by OTB Ventures. The geospatial imagery and analytics startup is using those funds to finance its first infrared imaging satellite (among other things—more on that later). Hydrosat has their sights set on water stress. After a year of worsening climate catastrophes, the case for high-quality water data is clearer […]
Turion Space has closed a $4.7M seed round of funding. The Irvine, CA-based startup is focused on satellite servicing and space debris removal. Timely raise much? “If we lose the ability to operate in LEO because we let the debris problem get out of control, the crazy growth in space technologies may end up stagnating,” […]
ICYMI: Planet Labs has agreed to acquire VanderSat, an analytics provider specializing in water and crop health data, in a transaction valued at ~$28M. The deal represents Planet’s fourth acquisition, as the satellite operator prepares to go public. Key data: In July, Planet announced a SPAC valued at $2.8B. The earth observation (EO) company has 130+ satellites currently in […]
Yesterday, Capella Space said it would install optical communication terminals (OCT) on its commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites. Capella aims to integrate new commercial craft with the SDA’s National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA) by adding inter-satellite links from a partner. More on that in a sec. Catching up: The SDA is building a network of satellites in low-earth orbit […]
Redwire has acquired Techshot, a space biotech company that got its start in 1988. The companies did not disclose terms of the space M&A deal, which was announced yesterday. The acquisition comes almost exactly two months after Redwire completed its SPAC merger. Techshot 101: The Indiana company develops space bioprinters and other biotech devices for microgravity. Techshot products, such […]
Phantom Space Corp. said today that longtime space exec Chris Thompson has joined the company as CTO. In the chief technologist role, Thompson will oversee the development of Phantom’s rockets and satellites. Thompson’s résumé, in reverse-chronological order: Chief engineer of advanced projects at Astra VP of advanced programs at Virgin Orbit 2nd “official” employee at […]
Space Capital has published its quarterly report tracking private investment in the space sector. Investors put roughly $8.7 billion to work in Q3 2021, backing a total of 112 space companies. In Q3, while the lion’s share of money went to growth- and late-stage companies, smaller startups pulled in $1.5 billion and represented 59% of all deals closed. NB: Space […]
Yesterday, Varda Space Industries said it would launch its first microgravity factory as a Falcon 9 rideshare mission in early 2023. Founded last year and incubated at Founders Fund, Varda has raised $50+ million from VCs. In selecting SpaceX, Varda “immediately went with what we were comfortable with,”cofounder and president Delian Asparouhov told Payload. “It […]
CesiumAstro has successfully launched its first two CubeSats into space, hitching a ride Monday with NASA’s Landsat-9. HQ’d just outside Austin in Bee Cave, TX, CesiumAstro’s secret sauce is its active phased array payload. Coupled with the company’s software-defined radio and digital backend, the phased array could let satellite operators electronically steer and target beams. […]
Arkisys is a space infrastructure-as-a-service startup that’s stayed relatively quiet about engineering efforts until this week. Yesterday, the Southern California startup revealed a “port module wedge,” the first tangible building block toward its goal of creating an orbital outpost. At a Pasadena, CA, event, Arkisys showed off the ~1x~1 meter component to a group of […]
