Fire birds (6/28/23)

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, so it’s time to recognize Mikes of the space community!

Today’s Space Mike is Michael Vestel, the CTO and VP at Flawless Photonics, who was nominated by his colleague, Kendyle Woodard. From Kendyle: “Mike is working to manufacture ZBLAN fiber optic cable in LEO and hopes to use the cable to replace the subsea internet cables, so we can have faster internet speeds to download all those cat videos.”

Making cat videos more accessible is a crucial endeavor we can all get behind. 😸 

Today’s newsletter:
💰 Ramon.Space closes $26M round
🔥 Spire, OroraTech plan wildfire constellation
📄 Space opportunities
💸 The term sheet

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Ramon.Space Raises $26M

Space computing company Ramon.Space closed a $26M strategic financing round, just on the heels of finalizing a key manufacturing partnership with Foxconn subsidiary Ingrasys, the company announced this morning.

Ingrasys and the UAE Strategic Development Fund provided the bulk of the financing, with some participation from existing investors. Ramon.Space has raised more than $45M so far to support its in-space computing tech business.

CEO Avi Shabtai told Payload that the infrastructure base Ramon.Space provides is key to transforming the next generation of the space economy. “What you need is computing infrastructure for the space economy to grow,” he said.

Ramon 101: Since sending its first payloads to space in 2014, the Israeli-founded company has been supplying commercial customers and space agencies the technology to crunch numbers and process data from space. The company’s space computing payloads pepper the solar system, from LEO and GEO to interplanetary deep space missions.

Ramon.Space’s computing infrastructure essentially makes your average bird into a “smart” satellite, granting it the “autonomy of performing tasks in orbit without the need to rely on the connectivity to Earth,” Shabtai said. This helps satellite operators maximize the output of their assets on orbit.

Ramon.Space’s existing customers fall into three main market segments, he said:

1. Communication

2. Earth observation

3. Data centers

With this round…Ramon.Space is deepening its relationship with Ingrasys, an important server and storage platform manufacturer under Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, known for its greatest hits including the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Google Pixel devices.

• “If you would ask me, I think for Foxconn to move into the space industry is probably one of the biggest [events] of the space market in 2023,” Shabtai said. “It would have a huge impact on the space market. Huge.”

The UAE Strategic Development Fund’s investment, Shabtai said, points to the company’s potential to deeply influence the coming generation of space technology.

What’s next? With the closing of this strategic financing round, Ramon.Space is expanding its global operations, investing heavily in operations and R&D, and pushing its product offering into more regions and market segments.

Sponsored

BlackSky Dynamic Monitoring

BlackSky Dynamic Monitoring is a unique service that provides real-time, high-resolution satellite imagery of strategic locations on Earth. This imagery can be used to monitor events as they unfold, track the movement of assets, and identify potential threats.

With BlackSky Dynamic Monitoring, you get:

• Dawn-to-dusk imagery: BlackSky's satellites image the Earth up to 15 times a day, so you can always see the latest information.

• AI-driven analytics: Spot changes by automatically detecting vessels, aircraft on the ground, and buildings in the areas you care about.

• Fast collection & delivery: Low-latency, high-frequency capabilities mean BlackSky can return satellite imagery within 90 minutes of a request.

BlackSky is the perfect solution for organizations that need to stay ahead of the curve. With BlackSky, you can be the first to know and ahead of the competition.

World’s First Constellation for Wildfire Monitoring

Canada is experiencing its most severe wildfire season on record, with emissions from the fires at their highest levels since satellite monitoring began in 2003.

In a bid to help responders better control the spread of wildfires in the future, OroraTech, a startup founded in 2018 as a Technical University of Munich spin-off, aims to have the world’s first and largest satellite constellation dedicated to wildfire detection up and running by mid-2024.

This timeline will be made possible by tapping into the existing infrastructure and suite of services offered by Spire Global. In a stellar case study for the company’s ‘space-as-a-service’ business model, Spire will build, launch, and operate an eight-satellite constellation for OroraTech—all for a flat monthly fee.

BYOP: Spire’s plug-and-play model means customers can bring their own payload, develop a custom one with Spire, or upload their software to one of Spire’s existing satellites. In this case, OroraTech’s thermal-infrared optical payload and data processing unit will be hosted on Spire’s 6U satellite buses. Data will be downlinked via Spire’s ground station network and delivered to OroraTech through an API.

Comparable to AWS in the cloud computing industry, Spire’s on-demand subscription platform lowers the barrier of entry for new space market entrants by enabling them to bypass the complexities of establishing a constellation and ground station network, and provides “an easy-to-use service that allows customers such as OroraTech to focus on their applications and end users,” said Frank Frulio, Spire’s GM of Space Services.

For OroraTech, those end users may include firefighters, forestry officials, and utility companies who can benefit from real-time detection capability, continuous situational awareness, and predictive insights to maintain control of wildfires.

With our powers combined: This isn’t the first time this dynamic duo has teamed up in the fight against wildfires:

• Quebec’s fire agency currently relies on data from OroraTech’s fire monitoring instrument aboard a Spire satellite launched last year.

• Last month, the two companies were awarded a contract to assist Canada’s space agency with its WildFireSat mission, a satellite for wildfire management.

• And a Spire satellite carrying two of OroraTech’s instruments for wildfire detection launched on SpaceX Transporter-8 earlier this month.

3-Minute Detection: OroraTech’s ultimate goal is to be able to alert customers within three minutes of detecting a fire event anywhere on Earth.

Space Opportunities

Here are the top government opportunities for space companies this week, as compiled by our partner TZero.

🛰️ SDA released a draft solicitation for the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer, which focuses on global missile threats and builds on Tranche 0 and 1. Responses are due July 20.

🌦️ NASA HQ released an AO for the 2023 Heliophysics Space Weather Vigil mission of opportunity. Responses are due Sept. 27.

🌙 AFRL/RVB released an RFI for technologies in space and environmental impacts. The RFI identifies several space environment technology interest areas, including the cis-lunar environment. Responses are due July 21.

Additional opportunities and details can be found in the TZero Space Tracker.

In Other News

• NASA is developing an AI assistant for astronauts.

• PLD Space, a Spanish launch startup, has pushed its maiden launch until September.

• Four researchers have begun their 378-day stay in a simulated Mars habitat in Houston.

• Space Pioneer, a Chinese commercial launch startup, plans to launch its Tianlong-3 rocket in 2024. The launch vehicle bears similarities to the Falcon 9.

• NASA plans large-scale lunar regolith mining by 2032.

The View from Texas

Touchdown has a different meaning for Houston Texans football players, who visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center last week, than it does for the staff tracking missions to other planets at the center’s mission control.