Whale logistics (1/19/23)

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Breaking: Whale, Bird to Skip Across Pond

This week, Inmarsat and Airbus announced the kind of complicated logistical operation that you can only see in the space sector. But for this specific mission, neither company is launching anything into space yet. Instead, they’re shipping a next-gen GEO satellite across the Atlantic.

Unpacking the announcement: Airbus Defense and Space will use its parent company’s A300-600ST Super Transporter aircraft—aka, the Beluga—to fly Inmarsat’s second I-6 satellite from a test facility in Toulouse, France, to Cape Canaveral. Beluga and I-6 will have multiple layovers en route to Florida to allow for refueling. Upon reaching the Cape, the I-6 will be processed and prepared for launch aboard a Falcon 9 in February.

Airbus Defense and Space built the I-6 twins in the UK and assembled them in Toulouse. It shipped the first I-6 to Japan last year using an Antonov air freighter. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries launched I-6 F1 from Japan in December 2021.

Precious cargo: Inmarsat awarded Airbus nearly $600M to build the two satellites back in 2015. The communication satellites have an expected 15-year lifetime and they’re beasts, weighing 5,470 kg apiece.

Bells and whistles: Inmarsat fitted its sixth-gen satellites with dual payloads, and the I-6 satellites will be able to transmit data over the L- and Ka-bands. Each satellite will have 20 Ka-band spot beams that the maritime/aviation connectivity provider can steer to users on a “second-by-second” basis.

The bigger picture: Pending regulatory approval, American operator Viasat will acquire Inmarsat, based in London, for $7.3B. And we’ll hear soon on that first piece. EU antitrust regulators say they’ll decide by Feb. 13 whether to let the deal move forward.

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In Other News

• ABL issued an L+7 update on the RS1 launch failure last week. The startup also says that its second and third rockets are in production.

• SpaceX and the Space Force launched “Amelia Earhart,” the sixth next-generation GPS satellite that will augment the US’s navigation constellation.

• China released footage from its Zhurong rover. The six-wheeled robot landed on Mars last May.

• But…Zhurong is in hibernation mode for far longer than expected. The rover was supposed to awaken in December but still hasn’t phoned home.

• Rocket Lab ($RKLB) appears to be making progress on Neutron hardware—and is also building Varda’s first manufacturing satellite and reentry vehicle.

• Narrative violation: Planet CFO Ashley Johnson told the WSJ that the company’s SPAC was key to its recent growth.

• SXSW selected Fortius Metals as one of the startups that will present at its 2023 Pitch event.

The View from French Guiana

As we mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, Canopée has completed its maiden voyage across the Atlantic and reached Pariacabo harbor in French Guiana. The ship, engineered to launch Ariane 6 hardware to Europe’s Kourou spaceport, is a hybrid: It will sport sails by summer, and rely on a combination of those sails and engines for propulsion.