Building a satellite constellation? Ascending Node Technologies (ANT) says you shouldn’t need a PhD and a month of meetings to get started.
The startup has added a constellation design tool inside its Spaceline 3D mission visualization platform, said John Kidd, chief aerospace engineer at ANT. Teams can input mission specs and instantly generate orbit architectures—all in a shared, browser-based workspace, he said.
First steps: The new tool streamlines constellation design, helping teams quickly create investor-ready plans that demonstrate mission viability, Kidd told Payload.
“Before Spaceline, teams operated in isolation, which slowed them down and increased risk,” said Kidd. “We built it so no one has to work at a Herculean level just to plan a mission.”
Priced at $40,000 per year, Spaceline—which includes other services such as data management, mission tracking, and visualizations—reduces costs during the early design stages of multi-million-dollar satellite missions, Kidd said.
The tool handles everything from LEO-GEO hybrids to interplanetary constellations, and can model delays, anomalies, and contingency ops in real time, Kidd said. For example, NASA’s already using the tool to develop its upcoming $20M Aspera mission to study how galaxies are formed, ANT said in a release shared with Payload.
What’s next: Looking ahead, ANT intends to add services to Spaceline, including support for in-orbit servicing and RPO, Kidd said.
