Keep an eye out (1/5/23)

Good morning. CES, the world’s flagship gadget and gizmo palooza that kicked off today, has its own dedicated space technology track. While space tech isn’t exactly something you can touch and feel, Payload, for one, applauds its increased prominence at shows like CES and SXSW.

In today's newsletter:👀 NorthStar Series C🚀 Payload Top 10📝 The contract report

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NorthStar Closes $35M Series C

NorthStar Earth and Space, a Canadian startup building a constellation for in-situ space situational awareness (SSA), announced this morning it has closed a $35M Series C. New York-based PE shop Cartesian led the round.

The round also included participation from Telesystem Space Inc., the Luxembourg Future Fund, the government of Quebec, and the Luxembourg Space Sector Development Fund. Cartesian’s investment is the company’s first from a US entity, helping to accelerate its push into US markets as it prepares to deploy its constellation of Skylark electro-optical satellites.

In-situ SSA?

Most of the tracking data we have now about objects in the space domain comes from ground-based sensors. As potentially tens of thousands of satellites enter Earth orbit in the coming decade, accurate SSA data and space traffic management (STM) tools will be essential for keeping the orbital environment clean and operable.

NorthStar is confident that its space-based sensors will add to the body of current tracking data by increasing the accuracy of trajectory estimates and augmenting the catalog of known objects from a closer vantage point.

“We are actively moving through space, scanning the sky, to pick up objects as they orbit,” NorthStar CEO Stewart Bain told Payload. “And that gives us an advantage to give better coverage, higher precision, and earlier warnings about what objects are doing and what objects can pose threats.” The combination of this data with ground-based systems, he said, gives a more complete picture of the space domain environment.

NorthStar’s space-based Skylarks are designed to track objects from LEO to GEO. The satellites themselves will reside in LEO, and keep an eye out for objects smaller than what’s visible from the ground.

The target visibility by orbital regime, per Bain:

• >1cm objects in LEO

• >7cm objects in MEO

• >40-50cm objects in GEO

Bain also said that “there's not a limit to the number” of objects each satellite can track at once. “If you have to process more data, you just stack on more processors and more computing.”

Gearing up for launch: NorthStar signed an agreement with Virgin Orbit in October to launch the first three satellites in its planned constellation of 24. That launch is slated for sometime in mid-2023, and Bain said that everything is currently on track. The company hopes to begin service as soon as possible after commissioning the trio of Skylarks.

What’s next?

In short, hiring and scaling. Right now, NorthStar employs 62 people, mostly in Canada with a few in the US and one in Luxembourg.

• Over the next few months, the company is aiming to hire more than 25 people across the three offices to scale up its operations and sales and prepare for the beginning of service.

• Beth Michelson and Paul Pizzani from Cartesian will also join the NorthStar board of directors and help scale the company’s US sales efforts.

The view from the top

“We need to get to a better spot when it comes to space situational awareness and space traffic management,” Jim Bridenstine told us in a recent Pathfinder taping. The former NASA Administrator believes that SSA is one of the space community’s top jobs to be done in 2023.

“We have got to get smarter about how we regulate how much stuff we're putting into space, and it's gonna require an international effort,” Bridenstine said. Forging an international path forward requires more comprehensive characterization of the space domain. SSA providers that are able to improve upon our current baseline understanding are poised to see high demand for their services in the coming years.

Share this story with a space environmentalist:

Presenting: Payload’s Top 10 Stories of 2022

Payload analytics guru Peter Gilson crunched the numbers on the 480 articles—and 52,387 words—that Payload published online last year. Without further ado, here were are top ten articles of 2022 (measured by pageviews and unique users):

1. FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule (Sept. 30)

2. An S-1 for the Space Economy (Aug. 22)

3. A Q+A with Albedo's Topher Haddad (Sept. 8)

4. Microsoft Launches First Product with SpaceX (Sept. 19)

5. A Q+A with Relativity Boss Tim Ellis on First Launch, Terran R, and More (Oct. 26)

6. Albedo (YC W21) Raises $48 Million (Sept. 7)

7. Space Markets: The Year in Review (Dec. 23)

8. The National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA): An Explainer (Dec. 5)

9. SpaceX’s ’22 Revenues: A Reformed Wall Street Analyst’s Best Guess (Oct. 20)

10. Regulating Orbital Debris, Part One (May 16)...though when factoring in Parts Two and Three, this series jumps up into the Top 5.

What types of interviews and longer series would you like the Payload team to sink their teeth into this year? Reply and let us know.

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In Other News

• Bill Nelson is sounding the alarm on Beijing’s lunar ambitions.

• Here are the odds you’ll be hit by a piece of space junk falling from the skies.

• Virgin Orbit’s next UK launch window may take place on Jan. 9 (with a backup on Jan. 18).

• China’s CASC says it has 60+ orbital launches planned for 2023. (SpaceX, meanwhile, is shooting for 100.)

• SES-20 arrived at its 103° West orbital slot. The in-orbit spare is part of SES’s US-mandated, C band spectrum-clearing campaign.

The View from Space