Superhighway (12/14/22)

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Today’s newsletter: 🌐 Quantum raise🚀 Ariane 5 liftoff💸 The term sheet

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Quantum Space Raises $15M

Quantum Space, a startup focused on building an information “superhighway” in cislunar space, announced yesterday that it has raised $15M from Prime Movers Lab, and that it intends to close a Series A by year’s end. 

QS 101: The Rockville, MD-based startup has set its sights on building a network of satellites to form the infrastructure for a cislunar economy. Quantum was cofounded by Kam Ghaffarian, who also founded IBX, Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, and X-energy.

The company will deploy this network, QuantumNet, over the next decade until it operates 40+ space vehicles, called Scouts, by the Moon. According to Quantum, each Scout will deliver space domain awareness, weather forecasting, PNT, comms, and edge computing services. 

“Once completely built out over the next decade, QuantumNet is destined to transform the way spacecraft travel between the Earth and the Moon,” Steve Jurczyk, president and CEO of Quantum Space, said in a statement.

QS-1: Quantum’s first mission will launch in October, sending the first Scout to cislunar space. QS-1’s mission objectives are to: 

1. Reach cislunar space—specifically, the Earth-Moon Lagrange points 1 and 2

2. Produce space situational awareness (SSA) information using a payload provided by GEOST

3. Host customer payloads and establish commercial operations

4. Perform cislunar navigation and autonomous station keeping maneuvers

What’s next? Quantum is using this investment to complete the development of its QS-1 mission and get started on the next batch of satellites. Once the first mission has launched, the company hopes to continue sending Scouts to cislunar space at a regular cadence. The startup also says it will soon announce mission partners for QS-1. 

Ariane 5 Blasts Off

Arianespace successfully launched its third and final Ariane 5 flight of 2022 yesterday from French Guiana. The nearly 11-ton customer payload was the second heaviest lift for an Ariane 5, topped only by an Oct. 2021 launch that carried the Syracuse A4 and SES-17 into orbit.

There were three primary payloads onboard:

• MTG-I1: A new generation of meteorological satellites manufactured by Thales Alenia Space and developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) for EUMETSAT. The satellite has a wide range of uses that include enabling aircraft to avoid storms, earlier alerts of flooding, and more precise monitoring of fires and fog.

• Galaxy 35 and 36: The latest additions to Intelsat’s Galaxy fleet refresh plan. The two new communications satellites will provide dedicated broadcasting capabilities to North American customers.

All three satellites were successfully deployed from the Ariane 5 upper stage 34 minutes and 37 seconds after liftoff.

The end of an era

Tuesday’s mission was the third-to-last launch for the Ariane 5. Once the final two flights are completed, 117 Ariane 5 missions will have been launched over nearly three decades.

The final two launches will carry the Syracuse 4B communications satellite for the French armed forces and the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) probe for ESA. Once that final flight has been flown in April 2023, the baton will be passed on to the not-yet-operational Ariane 6.

ArianeGroup is currently targeting late 2023 for the maiden flight of Ariane 6. This will mean that operational flights of the vehicle will likely not begin until the first quarter of 2024 at the earliest, and that Europe will be without a heavy-lift launch capability for at least eight months.

Sponsored

Join The Kepler Network

Kepler is simplifying access to space generated data by developing a next-generation constellation of satellites to act as a data relay in space, positioned to support the exponential growth of space communications.

Kepler’s constellation will provide the infrastructure to support the industry's current and future communication needs with a unique combination of RF, optical, and ground antennas to cover a wide scope of mission requirements.

The Kepler Network will provide a turnkey solution for space operators, increasing access to space-generated data by enabling inter-satellite communications and providing highspeed data rates to rapidly downlink on-orbit data. 

The network will expand your mission potential and provide smarter solutions to global gaps in space communications.

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In Other News

• Nigeria and Rwanda became the first two African nations to sign the Artemis Accords, and the 22nd and 23rd signatories overall.

• Hakuto-R phoned home with its first pictures from space. 

• SpaceX launched two FIFA World Cup balls on a Falcon 9 booster 

• Jay Leno is a hard no on space travel, the comedian tells the WSJ. 

• Sierra ran a second burst pressure test of its LIFE Habitat by pumping the inflatable module full of nitrogen gas until it exploded.

The View from Space

Today marks the 60th anniversary of Mariner 2 reaching Venus. Inez, our intern, wrote her first Payload story about the life of Mariner 2. Read it here.