Get connected (10/7/22)

Good morning. Quick programming note before we dive in: We’re off Monday, so we’ll see you back in the inbox on Tuesday.

In today's newsletter:🎙️ Sateliot Q+A 🚀 Ariane 6 update📚 Weekend recs

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The Latest AWS Satellite Partner

There are going to be a lot of cell towers in space. Last week, Sateliot said it was working with Amazon to build a cloud-native narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) 5G connectivity service using its planned LEO constellation on AWS. Now, we’ll run that last sentence through Payload’s jargon translator:

• Cloud-native: a go-to for newer, more nimble satellite operators.

• NB-IoT: a low-cost, high-capacity, and power-efficient way for millions of machines to communicate with one another on Internet of Things networks.

• 5G: the next generation of wireless communication networks.

• LEO: We’ve lost count of how many planned LEO constellations there are.

• AWS: Amazon Web Services, the world’s leading cloud computing provider and more or less the backbone of today’s internet.

The San Diego/Barcelona-based startup hopes to be the first satellite operator to provide global IoT coverage using 5G.

What are the broader implications of narrowband? 

The technology has the potential to unlock significant IoT adoption around the world. Think cell towers in the sky for lower latency and more coverage.

Not too long ago, NB-IoT was synonymous with slow and inefficient service. In July 2020, though, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) officially accepted 5G-based NB-IoT.

• Customers can continue to use the same SIM that they currently use without any additional hardware or device modifications.

• In fact, Sateliot has been contributing to the latest 5G standards release for the last three years.

On the business side. Sateliot primarily partners with mobile network operators (MNOs), rather than selling its own IoT services to end users. The company partnered with Spanish MNO Telefonica in July to test Sateliot’s technology. It plans to conduct its first pre-commercial customer pilots at the end of this year. Sateliot will start deploying its constellation in Q1 2023 and launch commercially in the second half of the year.

$$$: Sateliot banked a €10M Series A in February and tells Payload that it’s in the midst of a €100M Series B.

A word from leadership: Payload caught up with Jaume Sanpera, Sateliot’s CEO, to chat about the above and what’s next. A telco engineer by trade, Sanpera’s resume brings new meaning to the phrase “serial entrepreneur.” Sateliot is his ninth venture in the telecom sector.

You should read the Q+A, but here are some highlights:

• On business model… “Our channel will always be the mobile operators and IoT operators. We do not go directly to the final user because a LEO constellation has lower coverage. Lower coverage means it's all about sales.”

• On the future…”The next six months will be amazing because, as you know, after the SpaceX and T-Mobile announcement, 5G direct from satellite became a hot topic. When you look at the market, there are some claiming different things, but there are very few saying they are going to be commercial next year.”

• On advantage through standards…”We have been the #1 operator in the world in contributions to the new release of the standard, Release 17. While everybody is talking, we have been working there for the last three years. This has given us a huge advantage in technology development.”

Read the full convo here.

Ariane 6 Second Stage Breathes Fire

Europe’s next-gen Ariane 6 launch vehicle has taken a major step towards the launchpad with the first successful hot fire test of a complete second stage.

The test was conducted by DLR and prime contractor ArianeGroup on October 5 with the Vinci-powered Ariane 6 second stage on its dedicated P5.2 test bench in Lampoldshausen, Germany.

This firing start is the first in a series of hot fire tests that are required to qualify the Ariane 6 upper stage. A minimum of three additional tests will need to be performed before the stage is rated fit for flight.

Once the hot fire test series has been completed, the stage will be shipped off to ESA’s ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Center) in the Netherlands for stage separation and acoustic tests.

Made for flight: All of the major components of the first Ariane 6 to take flight are, according to ArianeGroup, currently being integrated and completed at the company’s production sites in Bremen and Les Mureaux.

Delays and a sad-looking launch manifest

ESA had hoped to debut Ariane 6 in late 2022. However, during a BBC HardTalk interview in June, ESA DG Josef Aschbacher revealed that Ariane 6 would not be launched until "sometime next year."

This latest delay piled onto ESA’s space access worries that started with the agency electing to indefinitely suspend the use of Soyuz launch vehicles in early 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Europe’s Ariane 5 launch vehicle is also on the cusp of retirement with just three missions left to be launched.

ESA has, as a result, been forced to make the unprecedented move of looking elsewhere for launch vehicles. In August it was revealed that ESA had begun preliminary talks with SpaceX to fill the gap between the retirement of Ariane 5 and the operational readiness of Ariane 6.

The talks with SpaceX are, however, still only in the early stages and are doing very little to diminish fears that Europe could be forced to endure a period without a ride to space.

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In Other News

• Crew-5 docked with the ISS at 5:01pm Eastern on Thursday. Just a minute after quittin’ time!

• South Korea’s lunar orbiter successfully performed a critical trajectory correction maneuver.

• SpaceX aborted at T-30 seconds due to a helium leak and stood down. The company will launch Intelsat’s Galaxy 33 and 34 satellites from Cape Canaveral at 7:06pm Eastern tonight.

• AT&T's CEO told Bloomberg he believes the telco has an 18-month lead over SpaceX and T-Mobile in the broadband-to-unmodified phone game. AT&T is partnered with AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS).

🌌 Parallax: Hundreds of happy subscribers yesterday received Rachael's briefing on a Mars orbiter that far outlived its projected lifespan, and a whole lot of asteroid dust kicked up by DART. Sign up for Parallax now if you haven't already:

🎙️ Pathfinder: We had Chris Kemp on the pod this week to get a much-needed company update from the Astra CEO. Listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple.

💸 DCF Refresher: Read Case Closed’s rundown of space equities’ performance in September (spoiler alert…📉). The writeup also features a helpful walkthrough of valuation, interest rates, and discounting future cash flows.

The View from Space