Open up (2/15/23)

Good morning, Payload readers. Hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day. We’re capping the Payload February bday trifecta. Last Thursday was Mo, our cofounder; Sunday was Carol, our copyeditor; and today is managing editor Ryan’s bday.

In today’s edition…
👁️ Umbra opens up
🌊 Astranis x USSF
💸 The term sheet

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Umbra Opens Up

Yesterday, Umbra dropped a triple whammy.

The Santa Barbara, CA-based startup 1) rebranded, 2) published licensing and pricing details for its SAR imagery, along with sharing some of that imagery for the first time, and 3) announced a key partnership with Maxar. We’ll take this whammy by whammy.

#1: The rebrand

Umbra’s logo, website, and brand have undergone a ~vibe shift~. Simple as that.

Rolled up in that rebrand, though, is new information on how Umbra will operate and do business, which leads us to our next point…

#2: The license and the prices

Umbra will provide data to its customers under a Creative Commons license. The startup calls its ToS—or terms of service—“the most permissive satellite data license ever offered.” It won’t impose any reseller or sharing restrictions, nor will Umbra require customers to disclose their customer base in order to buy data.

Beyond the open license, the startup is laser-focused on eliminating a key pain point from the satellite imagery sales process: the sales process itself. Umbra says it won’t layer in hidden fees, and that it will be transparent and upfront with prices. To that end, Umbra published its price for an image on Tuesday: Tasking an Umbra satellite will start at $500 for 1m imagery. $750 for 50cm, and $3,000 for 25cm resolution.

#3: The partnership

Umbra struck a deal to provide Maxar with dedicated capacity from its fleet of synthetic aperture radar satellites. The partnership will see Maxar offer customers Umbra’s radar shots alongside its own high-res optical imagery.

• The optical-SAR alliance could unlock powerful data fusion possibilities and additional analytics/insights capabilities for Maxar’s corporate, government, and US-allied customers.

• Multiple forms of intelligence are “a valuable end product,” Umbra cofounder Gabe Dominocielo noted via LinkedIn. “Maxar can blend RF/SAR/optical together with Maxar analytics tools and services to produce an exceptional and useful product.”

• Umbra’s strategy is merely to sell data. Not going vertical into analytics/insights, unlike other imagery purveyors, is part of the startup’s schtick.

Umbra launched its latest two satellites in January on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 rideshare mission in January. An initial optical-SAR product will be available in Q2, with full integration expected by next year.

“Maxar is a world-renowned Earth intelligence provider, so for Umbra to be chosen as their first ever SAR dedicated access partner is a huge vote of confidence,” Umbra CEO David Langan said, “both for Umbra and for the overall value that SAR data brings to customers.”

PS…If you haven’t already read about the value of the 24/7, all-weather potential of SAR, here’s a succinct summary from Umbra’s COO himself:

Astranis Snags Space Force Award

Yesterday, SF-based Astranis announced that it won a Space Force contract worth up to $10.5M to build resilient and jam-resistant waveform technology into its MicroGEO broadband birds.

The Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award includes $4.5M for Astranis to incorporate Protected Tactical Waveform technology into its software-defined radio payloads, along with a $6M option for an on-orbit demonstration.

“If you go look at what we have today, we're basically dependent on a pretty small number of these very large GEO satellites for military communications,” Astranis CEO John Gedmark told Payload. “What we thought that we could add to the mix is a much larger number of smaller satellites that then would add a lot of resiliency to the overall architecture.”

Distributed and software-defined

Each of Astranis’ MicroGEO satellites are 1/20 the size and 1/10 the cost of a traditional GEO satellite. These smaller, distributed satellites are more difficult for adversaries to target.

Each Astranis satellite is equipped with a software-defined radio payload, which Gedmark says increases both performance, increasing the number of bits that can be processed per satellite, as well as flexibility, allowing operators to pick and choose between frequency bands.

“Because we have designed such high performance software-defined radio into the satellites from day one, we can do this on the hardware that we're already building out of the box,” Gedmark said. “It's just a software update. And that's a huge improvement over what the US military has gotten before out of commercial satellite providers.”

This contract came about quickly. Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein visited Astranis’ facility in SF and had the company on contract less than six weeks later.

On the manifest: Astranis has five satellites slated to launch this year. The first, Arcturus, is riding as a secondary payload on the Viasat-3 Falcon Heavy mission, which is tracking to launch in early- to mid-April. The other four birds will fly on a dedicated Falcon 9 mission this summer.

Up next: Looking ahead to 2024, Astranis is ramping up its manufacturing capabilities and continuing to hammer out details with potential customers. “We're spooling up our satellite manufacturing facility to be capable of doing two satellites per month, or 24 satellites per year,” said Gedmark. “So the launch rate is only going to increase as we go along, and we're targeting 100 of our satellites in orbit by 2030.”

Sponsored

Meet The Company Behind Canadarm

As the world accelerates the next wave of spaceflight and space exploration, MDA is ready to meet the needs of the growing commercial space economy. With decades of flight heritage and world-leading space missions, the company is at the forefront of the global space economy.

While MDA is getting ready to deliver Canadarm3 to the Artemis program, the Canadian company – with global reach – is developing a suite of commercial space robotics enabled by Canadarm3 technology, paving the way for a range of new business models and commercial use cases on orbit.

Its first commercial sale of Canadarm3 technology was to Axiom Space for Axiom Station – which aims to be the world’s first commercial space station in orbit. MDA has also joined forces with Lockheed Martin and General Motors to develop a next-generation lunar rover, which will integrate MDA’s robotic arm technology.

MDA is a trusted international space mission partner and a pioneer in space robotics, in-orbit operations, satellite systems and Earth observation with a 50+ year story of firsts on and above the Earth. With over 2,700 employees across Canada, the US and the UK, MDA is helping lead the charge towards viable Moon colonies, enhanced Earth insight, and communication in a hyper-connected world.

In Other News…

• The EC—or European Commission—has opened an “in-depth investigation” into the proposed merger of Viasat ($VSAT) and London-based Inmarsat.

• NASA is looking to fund innovative orbital debris mitigation strategies through a new solicitation from the science mission directorate.

• Virgin Orbit ($VORB) issued an update into its failed UK mission.

• Inmarsat is set to launch its I-6 F2 satellite, which hopscotched across the Atlantic in an Airbus Beluga, on a Falcon 9 this Friday at 10:59 pm ET.

• Japan pushed back the maiden launch of its H3 rocket due to uncooperative weather.

• The US says that three recently downed objects were likely commercial vehicles, rather than vessels for espionage.

• Hugh Harris, known as “the voice of NASA,” passed away at the age of 90.

• Clarification from yesterday: the ESCAPADE spacecraft that New Glenn will launch in 2024 will be operated and managed by UC Berkeley’s Space Science Lab (or SSL).

The Term Sheet

• Intuitive Machines completed its SPAC merger with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. and began trading on the Nasdaq on Valentine’s Day under the $LUNR ticker. The lunar exploration company finished its first day of trading down 3.26%.

• Earth & Beyond Ventures, an Israeli early-stage venture fund, launched with commitments of $125M.

• Jiga raised $4.1M from Symbol to fund the expansion of its manufacturing procurement platform. (Via Payload.)

• SatSure, a Bengaluru-based, space-focused intelligence startup, raised a INR 120 crores (~$14.5M) Series A and announced ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and HDFC Ltd. as strategic investors.

• Orbit Logic, a developer of mission planning and scheduling software for satellite ground systems, was acquired by Colorado A&D contractor Boecore.

• Frontgrade Technologies, formerly CAES Space Systems, was purchased by PE shop Veritas Capital for an undisclosed amount.

• Fortuna Investments, a Canadian VC firm, announced its US expansion and an investment into FL-based Starfighters Space.

• SpaceRyde, a Canadian balloon launch startup, filed for bankruptcy. (Via Payload.)

The View from Mars

Perseverance is struttin’ its stuff. Here, you can see a panorama of the Martian rover’s recently completed sample depot.