Catch and release (3/30/23)

Good morning and happy Opening Day, baseball fans! We’d like to see MLB players go head-to-head against astronaut Jessica Meir and her 17,500 mph fastball.

In today's edition...⭐ Starfish DIU contract💲 $PL ’22 results🛩️ Dawn spaceplane📝 The contract report

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Exclusive: Starfish Nets $3M from the DIU

Starfish Space, the Seattle-based startup building vehicles to support a future on-orbit servicing economy, has snagged a $3M contract from National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC), a technology development arm of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).

The funds will help Starfish push its Nautilus electrostatic adhesive docking and capture mechanism through the next phases of development.

“We believe RPOD [Rendezvous, Proximity Operations, and Docking] and ISAM capabilities are becoming increasingly important to the DoD as it looks to increase the defensibility and maneuverability of US assets on-orbit,” Ari Juster, Starfish strategy and ops lead, told Payload via email.

Building Nautilus: Starfish is building a fleet of servicing vehicles called Otters, which will be able to dock with any satellite in orbit for refueling and other servicing operations. Its Nautilus capture mechanism is an important piece of the puzzle—the electrostatic adhesive docking technique is meant to be able to grab onto any common satellite material as long as there’s a palm-sized flat surface available.

• The company has already built and tested a version of Nautilus on the ground.

• This contract will push Nautilus forward by “advancing the design of our prototypes and exploring complementary adhesive/capture technologies, using increasingly rigorous testing regimes to push Nautilus to the limit,” Juster said.

You otter be ready: Otter Pup, the company’s first on-orbit capture demo mission, is slated for launch this summer. Starfish will test a version of Nautilus on this mission, performing at least one capture and undocking with a client craft. If that maneuver is successful, then the company will assess other potential test cases.

The pup grows up: Starfish closed a $14M Series A earlier this month to speed up development of the first commercial Otter vehicles. Since then, Juster said the company has brought on five additional employees, bringing headcount to 31, and continued its conversations with potential customers.

Planet Reports Record Q4 and FY2023 Earnings

Planet ($PL) saw $191.3M in full year revenue, a 46% jump from last year, the company revealed Wednesday. This comes in at the top end of its previous projection of $188M to $192M.

Planet’s Q4, by the numbers:

• Revenue of $53M, up 43% YoY

• Net loss of $37.8M, an annual improvement of ~18%

• Cash of $408.8M

• % ACV of 94%

• End-of-period customer count of 882, up 15% YoY

The company expects revenue to grow 35% this year, in the range of $248M to $268M.

An acquisition announcement: Planet also announced its plans to acquire Sinergise, a Slovenian satellite data analysis platform that it has partnered with since 2016. This is Planet’s sixth acquisition and is intended to expand the company’s presence in the European market. Sinergise’s tech powers ESA-backed Sentinel Hub. The deal is expected to close in Q2.

In the news: In Q4, a number of climate and political-related responses relied on Planet’s data, including rescue efforts after the Turkey earthquakes, drought risk protection in Kenya, and tracking the Chinese spy balloon from Hainan Island.

Planet’s Q4, by the contracts:

• $10M+ per year in a new multi-year contract from an international defense customer

• Multi-year, seven-figure contract from Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)

• NRO contract to explore how hyperspectral capabilities align with the agency’s security architecture

• Extension of Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative’s Satellite Data Program

• UKSA’s NI Public Sector EO Portal pilot project

+ Market reaction: As of market close Wednesday, $PL traded up 3.8%.

Dawn Aerospace’s Spaceplane Aims for April Test Flight

Dawn Aerospace’s rocket-powered Mk-II Aurora suborbital vehicle is expected to make its maiden flight in April after getting regulatory approval from New Zealand to fly last week.

Mk-II Aurora spaceplane: Dawn Aerospace has already completed 48 test flights using traditional jet engines. The upcoming launch marks the first time a remotely piloted, rocket-powered vehicle has been flight certified for a civil airport, according to the company.

• The Mk-II is a suborbital plane capable of reaching heights of over 100 km.

• Applications include earth monitoring, microgravity research, and disaster management.

• The plane is fully reusable and will be able to fly twice a day.

Dawn is betting that horizontal take-off and landing rockets can significantly reduce the cost of space travel while increasing the frequency of flights.

Looking ahead: Late last year, Dawn Aerospace raised $13M to continue developing Mk-III, a two-stage orbital spaceplane, and its in-space propulsion technologies.

Sponsored 

CesiumAstro's SATCOM Terminal is Here

CesiumAstro has introduced a Ka-band SATCOM terminal that scales for airborne, commercial, and defense missions across all domains. Multi-beam active electronically steerable array (AESA) technology supports multiple constellations in multiple orbits simultaneously.

Flat-panel AESA enables reliable, high-speed connectivity with no moving parts, reducing downtime due to maintenance. All at a compelling price point because of the terminal’s components and mass manufacturing processes.

Key Features

• Make-Before-Break Handover: Maximize quality of service and eliminate disruptions with seamless satellite-to-satellite handover between orbits and networks

• Multi-Constellation Connectivity: Broad Ka-band frequency coverage with software-defined functions enables seamless simultaneous connectivity to multiple constellations

• Scalable Platform: Tile-based architecture allows the antenna to scale to support many platforms, both large and small, spanning aircraft, boats, vehicles, drones, and spacecraft

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with offices in Broomfield, Colorado, El Segundo, California, and the UK, CesiumAstro builds high-throughput, software-defined phased array communications payloads for airborne and space platforms, including satellites, missiles, UAVs, and more.

In Other News

• SES confirmed it is exploring a merger with Intelsat that would allow it to better compete with SpaceX.

• Ariane 5 is being transported to the final assembly building ahead of the upcoming JUICE Jupiter exploration mission.

• UKSA announced the UK space sector brought in £17.5M ($19.0M) of income in 2021, and employed 1,800 people.

• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said China’s lack of transparency in orbit has put people in danger.

• Starliner’s first crewed flight will slip to no earlier than July 21, NASA announced.

• Middle Eastern nations want to establish their own military space force.

• Vulcan Centaur experienced a hardware anomaly during structural load testing.

The View from Space

We’re capping off today’s edition in the same place we started, with a nod to America’s favorite pastime. Here’s a view of some of America’s ballparks from space, provided by SkyFi.