Trashed (9/9/22)

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In today's newsletter:🔨 Deorbit rules🛰️ Albedo Q+A 📝 Contract report📚 Weekend recs

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Less Debris, Says the FCC

The FCC is cracking down on spent satellites left in LEO. In a draft report and order released yesterday, the commission revealed plans to cut the post-mission disposal time from the currently recommended 25 years to five years.

The growing debris problem: The DoD’s Space Surveillance Network currently tracks ~27,000 pieces of debris larger than 5 cm in LEO. NASA estimates that there are more than 100M total pieces of debris floating around up there. And the number of active satellites is increasing.

Over the next decade, if government licenses and financial statements are anything to go off of, tens of thousands of satellites are destined for high-demand tracks in LEO. Mitigating the possibility of collisions between objects in space is critical for protecting those operational satellites—and getting spent satellites out of the way in a timely manner is a step towards preventing unnecessary collisions.

Taking out the trash: The FCC’s draft rule would require satellite operators to deorbit their spacecraft within five years post-mission.

• This requirement would extend to any spacecraft that transmits data to the US.

• Waivers will be available, particularly for small experimental missions that don’t have the resources for onboard propulsion.

• The regulation will kick into full force after a two-year grandfathering period once/if the rule is passed.

If adopted, the rule would require more satellite operators to adopt onboard propulsion systems. Until now, a satellite circling the Earth at 500 km wouldn’t necessarily need its own propulsion, since it would naturally deorbit due to atmospheric drag after ~10 years. That won’t always fly anymore with a 5-year deorbit requirement.

Looking for more on orbital debris? Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our deep dive, and keep your eyes peeled for Part 3 coming next week.

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Talking Shop with Topher

As we reported earlier this week, Albedo recently closed a $48M Series A. Albedo currently has a headcount of 21, but they expect that number to grow in the coming months. Around half of the startup’s team is based in one of its hubs, which are located in Austin and Denver, while the rest work in the cloud (aka distributed).

Payload caught up with Albedo cofounder and CEO Topher Haddad to discuss the company’s progress. You should read the full Q+A, but here are some teasers anyways.

Supply & demand: “It will take time—for us to get up to four, six, eight satellites—before we can really serve a lot of customers. As long as we’re supply-limited, you know, that will help us accelerate deployment.”

Pricing strategy: “Given the unique pointing and collection capabilities of our system, we plan to announce additional pricing options in the future to enable more affordable tasking of very small image areas, different from the traditional $/sq. km pricing models.”

The competition: Haddad thinks Albedo’s main category of competition is aerial. “You can fly a drone tens of feet above a roof and get that really detailed 3D inspection. We’ll never be able to do that from space.”

User error: “But, you know, we’ve talked to customers who say: ‘10 cm is fine. We just keep crashing our own drones. We don’t want to train drone pilots.’”

Wen launch? Mum’s the word for now.

Read the full interview online.

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In Other News

• Queen Elizabeth II passed away yesterday at the age of 96. As NASA noted, her “reign spanned all of spaceflight, predating both Sputnik and Explorer 1.”

• ESA chief Josef Aschbacher told Ars he doesn’t see any future in which Europe returns to Russian spaceports.

• AIAA, Iridium, OneWeb, and SpaceX published an orbital safety guide.

• Near Space Labs will offer free 10 cm, balloon-collected imagery to nonprofits, researchers, and universities.

• 32 people flew to space in the first eight months of 2022, per Parabolic Arc.

• SpaceX static-fired six engines on Ship 24 yesterday in Boca Chica.

The Contract Report

• NASA awarded Axiom $228.5M to develop spacesuits for the Artemis 3 lunar landing mission.

• The agency also awarded Teledyne Brown Engineering a contract to support ground operations at the Marshall Space Flight Center worth $596.5M in potential mission services value.

• Rocket Lab ($RKLB) and the US Transportation Command signed a CRADA to explore using Electron and Neutron for point-to-point transportation. Nothing like flying your cargo from Point A to B on rockets.

• Kall Morris received three Orbital Prime contract awards worth a total of $750,000 from USSF.

• Ramon.Space partnered with Lulav Space to develop a navigation system for the Israeli space agency’s Beresheet 2 lunar mission.

• Lynk and BICS, a connectivity-enabling company, signed an agreement that would allow mobile network operators to extend coverage in rural areas.

• USSF awarded Saber Astronautics a $540,000 TACFI contract extension to deliver space domain awareness.

• Inmarsat signed an agreement with Gilmour Space Technologies to provide telemetry for launches from Australia.

Memetic Payload