Big 'ol round (9/7/22)

Good morning, especially to Madison J., who just recently signed up for Payload. In response to the standard question we pose to new readers—"What's one item you'd take with you on your first trip to space?"—Madison wrote: "I’d definitely take a snack, preferably Sour Patch Kids, because…priorities."

Great choice, Madison. For everyone else, reply and let us know what snack you’d take to space. We’ll get a list going.

In today's newsletter:📸 Albedo’s Series A 🎧 Pathfinder #0015🔁 On the move

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Albedo Raises $48M

Albedo has announced a $48M Series A raise, in a round co-led by Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Silicon Valley-based Shield Capital. The Austin- and Denver-HQ’d satellite startup has now raised $58M, less than two years since its founding. Complementing Albedo’s big ol’ round is a padded out cap table. 

• The startup is a Y Combinator alum, graduating from the accelerator’s Winter 2021 (W21) batch.

• New backers announced today include Republic Capital, Giant Step Capital, and C16 Ventures.

• Existing investors Initialized Capital, Liquid 2, Kevin Mahaffey, and other unnamed investors also participated in the latest round. Fun fact: Liquid 2 is a seed-stage fund founded by NFL hall-of-famer Joe Montana.

About that cap table: “Having Breakthrough and Shield co-lead our round is a great reflection of the breadth of applications our imagery will enable,” Albedo CEO Topher Haddad told Payload. “The company-building experience and industry knowledge that both teams bring will be invaluable in supporting Albedo's growth.”

Haddad cited precision agriculture, forestry management, power line wildfire prevention, and defense & intelligence as core verticals that: 

• need high-res optical and thermal imagery

• fit within both funds’ investment theses 

The sweet spot: Albedo aims to collect high-fidelity 10 cm resolution optical imagery while co-collecting 2-m thermal infrared imagery from a small constellation of satellites. 

• In need of a quick satellite imagery classification refresher? We got you…10 cm resolution means that one pixel in every image represents a 10 cm by 10 cm square on the ground. 

• Industry comps: Maxar and Airbus currently sell 15 cm imagery, which they’re able to generate by algorithmically processing and upscaling resolution from 30 cm imagery. 

How does Albedo plan to deliver the goods: The company started with the simple question “what if you could fly satellites really, really low?” and is reverse-engineering its way to an answer. Albedo plans to fly its birds in VLEO—or very low-Earth orbit—at an altitude ~half the distance above Earth than the competition (450–650 km above Earth). 

Albedo’s technical strategy has its drawbacks, such as atmospheric drag and shorter spacecraft lifespans. But the theoretical benefits of being closer to Earth could help the startup tackle industry pain points associated with resolution, latency, and pricing. 

Did someone say pricing? Albedo is a card-carrying member of the transparent, upfront pricing club and already has its rates posted online: $35 per sq. km, with a minimum order size of 25 sq. km. 

If all goes to plan, Albedo believes its six-satellite constellation will unlock high-res imagery for sectors that have yet to tap it at all. In fact, if Albedo can deliver, its offering may be cost-competitive with sub-Kármán line optical operations and eat market share away from camera-equipped Cessnas, enterprise DJI drones, and the like. 

It's time to build: Albedo has a warchest, a lean team of 21, and a speedy operational tempo. What’s more, its business strategy is relatively derisked on the regulatory front. Albedo secured a key, first-of-its-kind license in December to sell 10 cm imagery. 

What’s left? Building, launching, and proving the first satellite. Albedo is fully funded through its first satellite launch, Haddad said, but still has a couple more years of hard work to prove its technology in orbit. 

+ Payload meta takeaway: Broadly speaking, it’s been a quiet summer for capital deployment. But a handful of space startups have recently proven to be powerful exceptions to the rule. Beyond Albedo, just in the last two weeks, Atlas Space Operations raised a $26M Series B, Outpost raised a $7.1M seed, and Skyroot Aerospace raised a $51M B round. 

Stay tuned for our recent Q+A with Haddad, which we’ll publish tomorrow. In the meantime, share this story with anyone who agrees space startups still got it 🔥🔥🔥

Pathfinder #0015, featuring Kelly Larson 

We have a rare Wednesday release of the Pathfinder podcast, but we promise the wait was worth it. 

Joining us today is Kelly Larson, who’s the CEO of Aquarian Space. The Boulder, Colorado startup is building “internet for the solar system.” Or, to get a bit more technical, Aquarian is developing a communications network for interplanetary exploration.

In March, Aquarian announced it had raised $650,000 in seed funding to get to work on its solar system internet. Draper Associates led the seed round, which is especially notable because Draper was an early investor in SpaceX. 

What we cover in today’s episode

For starters, we get a status report on what Aquarian’s been up to over the last six months. But there’s plenty more on tap, such as: 

• How Kelly landed at Aquarian, with a serial entrepreneur background and non-space resume 

• NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) and new opportunities with today’s technology 

• Going to market with CLPS rovers and landers

• What a lunar Wi-Fi network will look like and its first applications

• The capital required for the initial network buildout

• Is Kelly worried about aliens free-loading on Aquarian’s Wi-Fi?

…and more! Come for the above topics, stay for ever-so-brief discussions of yoga and astrology (Ryan’s totally unbiased opinion: Aquarians rule). 

Where to get Pathfinder #0015 

📲 Watch on YouTube🎧 Listen on Spotify 🍎 Tune in on Apple

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In Other News

• The DoD publicly released its newest space policy directive, effective August 30. The new document formally outlines the roles of the Pentagon’s newest space orgs, including the US Space Force and US Space Command, for the first time.

• NASA will attempt to fix the hydrogen leak that stopped the last Artemis I launch attempt at the launch pad before it decides whether to roll SLS back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.

• South Korea’s lunar orbiter successfully made a correction maneuver and is currently en route to the Moon.

• The Aerospace Corporation unveiled its new “space warfighting center” in Colorado Springs.

• China announced that it successfully hot-fired the engine it plans to use for the heavy lift Long March 9 rocket.

• Arianespace scrubbed the Eutelsat KONNECT VHTS broadband satellite launch that was scheduled for yesterday due to weather. The next launch window opens tonight.

The View from Space

\JWST has captured an image of 30 Doradus, aka the Tarantula Nebula. The dramatic swirls pictured here reveal new areas of star birth.