The smartest people (3/16/23)

Good morning. Payload will be in Cambridge tomorrow for the New Space Age Conference at MIT. Drop us a line if you’d like to link up.

In today's edition...👩🏼‍🚀 The Axiom Suit 🤠 Pathfinder #0039 📝 The contract report

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Axiom Lifts the Wraps on AxEMU

For the first time in decades, NASA astronauts will soon get a wardrobe revamp.

On Wednesday, Axiom unveiled the new spacesuit designs that will be worn on the Artemis III mission to the Moon. For those concerned about the colorway, the dark blue is just a fabric cover, and the final spacesuits will be all white.

How we got here: Last year, Axiom won a $228.5M NASA task order to build next-gen space fits for the Artemis era.

Axiom won the contract through NASA’s xEVAS program. xEVAS, short for Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services, was designed to enlist industry players to build next-gen spacesuits after NASA's in-house development was plagued by years of delays and cost overruns.

• Axiom built on the groundwork that NASA laid, resulting in a final suit that includes ~50% of the agency’s original IP.

“We’re carrying on NASA’s legacy by designing an advanced spacesuit that will allow astronauts to operate safely and effectively on the Moon,” said Axiom chief Michael Suffredini.

Next-Gen spacesuits

The AxEMU will enhance astronaut mobility and provide improved insulation for the volatile temperature swings at the Moon’s South Pole.

• To do that, Axiom engineered AxEMU with upgraded insulation and cooling technologies.

• To improve flexibility, the Houston company incorporated additional joints and specifically designed the suit to cater to men and women of all sizes.

NASA has been looking to move past the days of clunky spacesuits, where doing something as simple as picking a hammer off the ground was a laborious task.

• “This is a great example of what innovation can do,” said Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and Axiom’s director of human space flight.

• “The range of motion is going to improve the astronaut's ability to do all those tasks that they are going to do while they’re out exploring on the lunar surface, and eventually on Mars.”

What else? Other new bells and whistles on the spacesuit include a light band, a back hatch to climb into the spacesuit, extended suit time, and an HD helmet cam…everyone really is an influencer these days.

+ While we’re here: In December, NASA also awarded a task order to Collins Aerospace, a second company developing new, next-gen suits under xEVAS. Collins recently gave CNBC a behind-the-scenes look at its ongoing spacesuit work.

Share this with a space fashion designer:

Pathfinder #0039, Live from SXSW

Today, we’re bringing you a live podcast from South by Southwest that was recorded Tuesday at the SkyFi Summit. Pathfinder #0039 is brought to you by Kepler Communications, a company bringing the internet to space—find out more here.

Bear in mind that four guests at once is a new format for us, but the convo that follows is funny, fast-moving, and definitely worth your while. On-stage and speaking alongside Ryan were:

• Luke Fischer, CEO of SkyFi

• Gabe Dominocielo, cofounder and president of Umbra

• Katie Betts, head of BD at Albedo

• Will Edwards, CEO of Firehawk Aerospace

First, some news: This week, SkyFi said it has officially onboarded Umbra and Satellogic as imagery providers on its platform.

A sneak peek

We chatted all things Earth observation: pain points, market potential, SAR, the sales process, regulation, analytics, and more. Ryan asked each exec whether the "smartest people in the room" cast aside their business idea as "impossible," and what proving them wrong looks like.

• Gabe opened up for the first time about Umbra’s bootstrapped origins and harped on the end-all, be-all in EO: unit economics.

• Luke highlighted SkyFi’s recent momentum with both imagery providers and consumers/end users of its platform, and spoke about the primacy of UX (user experience) for his company.

• Will brought 3D-printed rocket fuel as a prop, showed the audience Firehawk’s recent hot-fire test, and provided a state-of-play on rocket propulsion in the US.

• Katie shared more color on Albedo’s backstory, along with its go-to-market plan, and delivered the quote of the day: "We will be able to detect adult pigs from space, but not baby pigs.”

Pathfinder #0039 is live now…

…listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or desktop.

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In Other News

• Virgin Orbit ($VORB) has placed virtually all employees on furlough and has halted operations, CNBC reports, as the cash-strapped air launcher searches for additional funding.

• Umbra launched a SAR open data program. (And here’s why the startup hopes that open data will help positively change the EO industry.)

• SOFIA helped scientists piece together “the first detailed, wide-area map of water distribution of the Moon.”

• Impulse boss Tom Mueller says his startup’s Saiph thrusters are ready to start qualification testing.

You know how these things go. At space conferences, all the announcements hit the wire at the same time. Given the firehose coming out of Satellite 2023, we’ve decided that rather than excessively pare down the contract report, we’d break it up into buckets for your convenient perusal.

Civil (aka NASA)

• Firefly clinched a $112M NASA contract to deliver several lunar payloads using the Blue Ghost spacecraft (via Payload). The award represents the second NASA-contracted mission for Firefly and Blue Ghost.

• L3Harris ($LHX) won a $765.5M NASA contract to develop the imager for NOAA’s GeoXO satellites.

• Agmatix, an ag-tech startup, teamed up with NASA Harvest to support sustainable crop production and mitigate the impacts of climate change on agriculture.

• Sidus ($SIDU) secured a follow-on agreement with NASA to integrate ASTRA’s autonomous operational on-orbit capabilities with its LizzieSat bird.

• Axiom and NASA signed a mission order for a third private astronaut mission to the ISS (targeted for NET Nov. 2023). Axiom also unveiled AxEMU, the next-gen spacesuit that it is developing for NASA under a $228.5M task order.

EO:

• Geocento has partnered with Sinergise to provide access to its satellite imaging.

• Magellan was awarded a $15.8M contract from Canada to develop its Redwing satellite, an object-tracking and space awareness bird.

Satcom

• Aalyria signed an agreement with Rivada to integrate the former’s Spacetime network orchestrating platform on 600 planned RSN satellites.

• Eutelsat signed a seven-year deal with Intelsat to enhance connectivity over Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific.

• OneWeb signed a letter of intent with AWS to explore cloud-based connectivity.

• Dawn, a space transportation startup, signed a contract with Lynk to install its propulsion system on Lynk satellites.

• Mynaric ($MYNA) won a $5.6M contract from Germany to further flesh out three quantum tech development projects.

• AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) signed an MoU with Saudi Telecom Company.

Manufacturing: NanoAvionics signed an agreement with OQ Technology, a Luxembourg-based telco, to build three additional satellite buses. And DCUBED, a German deployable structures startup, joined forces with Atomos to develop solar arrays for two of its space tugs.

Space factories: Varda has landed a $60M STRATFI contract from the US Air Force to study its capsules’ reentry into Earth atmosphere, Bloomberg reports. The in-space manufacturing startup also says it will use its first flight, launching this year, to demonstrate its crystallization process with Ritonavir, an HIV drug.

Deep space: KSAT landed a contract with the UAE to facilitate communication between Earth and the country’s Lunar rover.

Launch: EOI signed a multi-launch extension with SpaceX to deploy its Stingray constellation in VLEO (or very low Earth orbit). Last September, the startup said it would deploy the first VLEO demonstrator on a Transporter mission this year.

Payload Insights

We thought it'd be helpful to visualize the White House's 2024 budget request for NASA, alongside the enacted total for fiscal year 2023. Bear in mind that the light blue bars indicate a request, or starting point, and are highly unlikely to exactly match what's appropriated.