Technology
Stories about the tech that’s driving the new space age.
Astrobotic Tests Lunar Wireless Charging System
If your phone dies on the Moon, Astrobotic has you covered. Yesterday, the Pittsburgh-based company announced it has completed testing on a wireless charging system that can prep a variety of lunar surface infrastructure for the two-week lunar night. The lunar colony: Big plans are in the works for a lunar and cislunar economy in…
QuadSAT Banks Additional €500,000
QuadSAT said today that it’s received €500,000 ($520,000) in additional ESA funding under the ARTES program. The European funds are earmarked for satcom companies looking to productize and commercialize core technology they’ve developed. QuadSAT’s core technology The Danish startup has paired specialized radiofrequency (RF) payloads with quadcopter drones. The company’s engineers have also written code…
SFL Performs Passive Deorbiting with Drag Sails
Yesterday, the Toronto-based Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) announced that it has achieved a major milestone in debris removal: successfully deorbiting a spacecraft without the use of propulsion. The 24-year-old laboratory used a drag sail to deorbit a nanosatellite within five years from a ~688km altitude, ~178 years more quickly than it would have without the…
Cloud to Street Partners to Launch Parametric Flood Insurance Product in Colombia
Last week, NYC-based Cloud to Street announced a partnership with Raincoat, a parametric insurance provider, and Munich Re Group, a major international reinsurer. The three are launching a flood insurance product in Colombia. The national program will make flood insurance policies available to 100,000+ Colombian farmers for the first time. In effect, that means that…
ION-X raises €3.8 million for disruptive smallsat thruster solution
French startup ION-X has raised €3.8M ($4.1M) to fund further R&D and field a demo mission of its scalable small satellite propulsion system. Joining the round: Bpifrance, the French public investment bank. TF Participations, the investment arm of deeptech startup studio TechnoFounders. Geodesic, an investment vehicle that will make way for the future Expansion fund,…
Stratolaunch Unveils Talon-A
Image: Domenic Moen/Stratolaunch Stratolaunch has debuted its structurally complete Talon-A test vehicle. Stratolaunch will use the vehicle, dubbed TA-0, to test the release system of Roc and “characterize” Talon’s separation dynamics. Roc is a really massive twin-fuselage carrier craft, boasting six Boeing 747 engines and a payload capacity of 500,000+ lbs. At 385 feet (~117m)…
A Partnership Built to Combat Space Trash
OneWeb, Astroscale, the UK Space Agency, and ESA have partnered to launch a space junk servicer by 2024. The partnership comes with a €14.8 million ($15.8 million) investment that will allow Astrocale to advance its ELSA-M debris removal spacecraft from design through manufacturing and up to the satellite’s pre-integration phase. Once launched, ELSA-M will complete…
Lockheed and Filecoin Foundation Partner to Deploy IPFS
Lockheed Martin has partnered with the Filecoin Foundation, a decentralized database developer, to deploy the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) for future use in lunar communications. IPFS: The two companies are working to enable faster internet connection from the Moon. Usually when you try to access a piece of information on the internet, your computer has…
Benchmark Expands to Europe, Inks Propulsion Deal with UK’s Space Forge
Burlington, VT-based Benchmark Space Systems has formally expanded across the pond. The propulsion provider has pond-hopped across the Atlantic, not Lake Champlain, just to be clear. Driving the news…Benchmark has opened a new UK facility to serve the British and European markets. The Vermont startup has also signed a deal with Space Forge, a British…
Starliner Plans its Return to Earth
Beset by software glitches and leaky valves, Boeing’s commercial crew capsule has had a rocky road to orbit. But on Friday, the OFT-2 mission finally delivered Starliner safely to the ISS. ICYMI: The Starliner capsule is meant to provide NASA with a second way to get astronauts to the ISS (along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon…
Exclusive: Phase Four Inks Deal to Scale Production
Image: Phase Four El Segundo-based Phase Four today finalized a lease to build a second factory and scale production of its Maxwell engine product line. The new Hawthorne facility will be over 3X larger than Phase Four’s current plant, and capable of cranking out 100 engines a year. Phase Four’s founding vision was to create…
AST SpaceMobile Reports Q1 Results
Midland, TX-based AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) is looking ahead to the expected summer launch of BlueWalker 3 (BW3) with SpaceX. BW3, a 1.5-ton, 693-square-foot phased array beast, will be a testbed for the company’s space-based cellular broadband network technology. Bet the farm moment? In May, the FCC granted AST SpaceMobile an experimental license to test space-to-ground…
Launcher Names Customers for First Orbiter Mission
Orbiter’s inaugural SN1 mission is nearly ready to fly. The satellite transfer vehicle and payload-hosting platform will launch on a Transporter-6 rideshare this October. Hawthorne, CA-based Launcher announced customers this morning: Orbiter will deploy craft for Skyline Celestial, Innova Space, NPC Spacemind, Bronco Space/Cal Poly Pomona, a Stanford student-run organization, and an undisclosed customer… …and host payloads for CesiumAstro,…
