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Precious Payload helps teams ship satellites to space.

2x3U and 2x6U slots on the SpaceX Transporter 6 in October that you don’t want to miss

Precious Payload Weekly Smallsat News: April 18 – April 24

 

Are you thinking about launching a small satellite, but don’t know where to start? Precious Payload has you covered. We’re the only newsletter that gives you one weekly email with everything you need to know so you can focus on building your business.

 

Last-Minute Space Deal!

 

Check it out — SpaceX Transporter 6 rideshare mission in October 2022, hot deal for 3U and 6U cubesats ready for integration at L-1.5. 

These slots will sell out fast, so check your schedule and contact our sales at info@preciouspayload.com

What are you waiting for? Get your reservations in before the deadline.

 

Highlights

The news of the week: The private space firm HawkEye 360, based in Virginia, announced that it had chosen the nearby launch site (and Rocket Lab) to launch the 15 radio frequency monitoring satellites. The flight of the first cluster will be the first-ever launch of the Electron rocket from RocketLab’s Launch Complex 2 in Virginia. The thing is that the private space launch provider will become the major tenant at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and it is a shift in paradigm for East Coast launches.

 

US-based Planet is planning to launch a constellation of 32 satellites called Pelican in early 2023. Pelican will use Ka-band inter-satellite data links to deliver image data more quickly. Images delivered by Pelican will have an Earth imagery resolution of 30 cm per pixel, which means that Planet will be directly competing with Maxar.

 

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Headlines

UK-based OneWeb signs a contract with Indian-based NewSpace India Limited for launching its LEO constellation in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota which will add to OneWeb’s total on-orbit constellation of 428 satellites. [Source]

 

Starlink signs its first inflight Wi-Fi contract with US air carrier JSX and is expecting the connectivity service by Q4 of 2022. [Source]

 

Luxembourg-based Kleos Space plans to offer to the customers Mission-as-a-Service model access for in-orbit radiofrequency reconnaissance satellite clusters for a certain time and capacity periods according to customer requirements. [Source]

 

Finnish startup Kuva Space will launch a hyperspectral constellation of 100 nanosats in early 2023. [Source]

 

US-based Iridium announces more launches with SpaceX via rideshare missions later this year. SpaceX had launched all 75 satellites for its next second-generation constellation with the latest batch of 10 satellites in early 2019 from California. [Source]

 

Japanese company Synspective got a contract from the Japanese government to test the small SAR satellite constellations and assess their efficiency and feasibility which will help identify the best approaches for full-scale use. [Source]

 

US-based ABL Space Systems and AFRL are working together to demonstrate systems that can ready a new orbital launch site from any flat concrete pad in under 24 hours with small personnel for the launch of ABL’s deployable ground system GSo and small launch vehicle RS1. [Source]

 

South Korea plans to invest $619 million in its national space programs seeing the growth opportunity in the domestic space industry as well as counterbalancing the absence of Russian rocket hardware. The funds allocated for 2022 is 19% more than that of 2021 levels. [Source]

 

China-based Deep Blue Aerospace secures new funding round to develop the reusable Nebula-1 kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket and the “Thunder” engine series for its first orbital launch in 2024. [Source]

 

NASA’s Communications Services Project (CSP) award was won by six companies to explore how commercial satellites in LEO and GEO can support operations that employ the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite constellation: 

 

  • Amazon’s Kuiper Government Solutions ($67 million) and SpaceX ($69.95 million) to demonstrate how their LEO constellations can provide connectivity for satellites and launches utilizing optical connections.
  • UK-based Inmarsat Government Inc. ($28.6 million) and US-based Viasat ($53.3 million) to demonstrate services using GEO satellite.
  • Luxembourg-based SES ($28.96 million) and Canada-based Telesat ($30.65 million) to demonstrate services using a mix of GEO satellites and constellations in LEO and MEO. [Source]

 

The Royal Canadian Air Force looks at setting up a new space division later this year to develop its capabilities and skills for space operations along with the generation of space capabilities for force employment missions. [Source]

 

Check out Precious Payload Weekly Smallsat News: April 11 – April 17

 

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