QuadSAT said this morning that it partnered with ESA’s ESOC mission control center to run a drone-based measurement campaign of 13- and 15-meter European antennas at Kiruna Earth Station. The Danish startup says that this represents the first time anyone has used a drone to measure a 15m antenna and run tracking tests on it. […]
AI startup Synthetaic has closed a $13M Series A, the Delafield, WI-based company announced this morning. Lupa Systems led the round, with TitleTown Tech, Betaworks, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Esri also participating. Synthetaic has raised $17.5M to date. AI’s “data problem” Labeled data is a must for most state-of-the-art models. In a world where scale […]
On Sunday, Payload CEO Mo Islam hosted a SXSW panel—“Space Force: More than a Meme”—with a decorated bench of panelists: Maj. Gen. Kim Crider (Ret.), head of Deloitte’s government and public services unit’s AI practice. Crider is also former CTO of USSF. Eric Fanning, CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association and 22nd secretary of the […]
Screenshot via SNL/YouTube. Last summer, Davidson played “Chad on Mars” in an SNL skit with Elon Musk. Turns out the rumors were true. SNL’s Pete Davidson will be on Blue Origin’s next crewed suborbital space trip. Davidson will be joined by Marty Allen, married duo Sharon and Marc Hagle, Jim Kitchen, and Dr. George Nield on […]
Western intelligence sources have confirmed to Reuters that a broad cyberattack disrupted Viasat broadband satellite internet services in and around Ukraine. Though sources declined to say who carried out the attack (or, at least, definitively make an attribution), the timing gives us some hints. The cyberattack began when Russian missiles started flying into Ukraine and […]
Venturi Astrolab has emerged from stealth with a lunar rover modular concept—and a prototype to boot. The rover, named FLEX (short for Flexible Logistics and Exploration), is designed to transport crew and cargo across the surface of the Moon. If it works there, the company also hopes the rover will be used on human missions to Mars. […]
Longtime plans to build a spaceport in Camden County, Georgia have been thrown into jeopardy after county voters overwhelmingly voted to reject the idea. The spaceport: Camden County lawmakers began working on plans for Spaceport Camden in 2012. The site for the vertical-launch facility borders northern Florida, a strategic location to access resources from Florida’s […]
Slingshot Aerospace, an Austin-based space situational awareness company, has raised a $25M Series A-1, co-led by Draper Associates and ATX Venture Partners. Edison Partners, Embedded Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Lockheed Martin Ventures also participated in the round. The company had raised a $9.6M Series A in October 2020, which brings the total Series A […]
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 […]
Satellogic has partnered with Astraea, a geospatial and AI analytics company, to quickly supply the Ukrainian government and allied groups with satellite imagery and change detection in the midst of the ongoing war in the country. The two companies said yesterday they’ve created a portal called Ukraine Observer where governments and humanitarian organizations can apply to […]
A month after Astra’s LV0008 mission failed, the launcher has issued a preliminary postmortem of what went wrong. ICYMI: Astra (NASDAQ:ASTR) attempted its first launch from the Space Coast on Feb. 10. After a few delays, the rocket launched and eventually failed mid-flight. The problem: In a statement issued Monday morning by Andrew Griggs, Astra’s […]
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 […]
