Six months of space (6/30/22)

It's Asteroid Day 2022! Back in 2016, the UN adopted a global awareness campaign event about the impacts and hazards of big space rocks. Asteroid Day falls each year on June 30, which is the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia in 1908.

Not only is it Asteroid Day, but as of tomorrow, we're halfway through 2022.* To mark the occasion, Rachael turned back the clock and recapped the first half of the year in space. 

• *Technically, July 2 is the halfway point of the typical calendar year. But that's this weekend, we like round numbers, and finally, we got a newsletter to send. 

In today's edition...🗓️ Recapping H1 2022💸 A European raise/rebrand🤝🏽 The contract report👀 Bold strategy, Cotton 

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The Halfway Point

We’ve made it halfway through 2022. The year has flown by, but it’s been filled with big news and firsts for the space industry. Here’s our recap of the off-Earth goings-on during these last six months.

Q1

• The year started off with a bang as JWST unfolded successfully, reached its new home a million miles away from Earth, and began prepping its instruments for science ops. 

• Jared Isaacman and SpaceX announced the ambitious Polaris Program.

• Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February (and the war has been raging on for 126 days).

• Commercial satellite operators stepped up to the plate, bringing satellite imagery to the forefront of OSINT and meeting the Ukrainian government’s needs for space-based intelligence.

• On the broadband front, SpaceX and Iridium sent terminals and satphones/push-to-talk devices into Ukraine.  

• Pres. Biden finally signed the FY22 federal appropriations bill into law. 'And that’s not all, folks—for more of the details, check out our Q1 2022 news roundup.

Payload’s 💸 coverage: Radian emerged from stealth, announcing its spaceplane plans and $27.5M seed. E-Space raised a $50M seed round, Aerospacelab raised a ~$42M Series B, CesiumAstro raised a $60M Series B, and Slingshot Aerospace raised a $25M Series A-1.

Moving right along to Q2 and April

With Space Symposium falling in the middle of the month, we bore witness to a flurry of blockbuster announcements. Chief among them was Amazon’s block buy of the most commercial launches ever, with Project Kuiper reserving up to 83 flights from ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin.

• New rocket engines made it to testing, with SpaceRyde and Launcher each announcing major milestones.

• Ursa Major production units came off the line and the Colorado startup inked a huge engine deal with Phantom Space. 

• The White House announced a unilateral ban on direct-ascent, destructive ASAT testing, leading the way for other countries to announce similar bans. 

• On the war front, the loss of Antonov airplanes in Ukraine impacted GEO component shipping as satellite operators looked for other ways to transport flight units. ESA also withdrew from Roscosmos lunar missions. HawkEye360 and NSSA launched a Ukraine aid initiative for the space industry.

Payload’s 💸 coverage: ConstellR acquired hyperspectral imaging company ScanWorld, Capella raised a $97M round of funding, and RFA won $11M in a German microlauncher competition.

May

Rocket Lab attempted its first helicopter capture of the first stage of Electron in the first days of May, ending up dropping the stage before fully securing it. Boeing’s Starliner capsule also finally made it to the ISS. ESA had to maneuver a satellite around a piece of debris created in the Russian ASAT test last November. The NRO announced its largest-ever satellite imagery procurement contracts. Finally, Transporter-5 put a bunch of your satellites, spacecraft, and tugs into orbit. 

Payload’s 💸 coverage: Three propulsion startups—Firehawk, Adranos, and X-Bow Systems—raised Series A rounds. AstroForge raised a $13M seed round.

Payload spotlight: We published Part 1 of our first online, in-depth feature series. And on May 31, we launched Pathfinder, a podcast hosted by Payload Managing Editor Ryan Duffy, with Axiom’s Michael “Suff” Suffredini as our first guest. 

June

NASA awarded its commercial EVA spacesuit contracts to Axiom and Collins Aerospace. Sony opened the doors to a new laser comms business. Ursa Major unveiled its new Arroway engine design. The FAA, at long last, released its finding of no significant environmental impact on Starship, clearing the biggest hurdle separating the giant Mars rocket from launch. SFL performed passive debris deorbiting for the first time using drag sails. Sierra Space announced its very own astronaut training program. And NASA and Rocket Lab launched CAPSTONE, a pathfinding mission to a unique lunar orbit.

Payload’s fundraising coverage: Ion-X raised a $4M funding round, while QuadSAT received  $520,000 in ESA funding.

Payload spotlight: We published part 2 of our Regulating Orbital Debris series, debuted our space-themed playlist, began regular Payload audience newsletter polls, and held our first all-hands offsite. Across Q1 and Q2, Payload’s team attended dozens of events in-person and were able to meet many of you face-to-face for the first time. We kept Pathfinder coming weekly, with #0002 featuring Rob Meyerson, 0003 with Lauren Lyons, 0004 with Kat Boyle, and this week, 0005 with Lori Garver. 

*Deep breath*...Whew, that was a lot. Here’s to many more launches, exciting firsts, and positive space vibes for the back half of 2022!

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VOS (ahem, Latitude) Raises Series A

French launch startup Venture Orbital Systems (VOS) has closed a €10M ($10.4M) Series A, led by Crédit Mutuel Innovation and Expansion, with participation from BPI, Comat, Nicomatic, and ADF.

The product: VOS is developing a two-stage Zephyr launch vehicle capable of deploying 100+ kg payloads to LEO. The company is currently targeting 2024 for a maiden flight.

The Series A funding will be utilized to continue the development of the company’s Navier engine. This will include the construction of a test bench, which is currently underway, and a hot fire test at ArianeGroup’s facilities in Vernon towards the end of the year. The funding will also be used to progress the development of Zephyr’s tanks, structure, fairing, and onboard electronics and software. 

New vibe: With new money comes a new name—VOS has decided to call itself Latitude. CEO Stanislas Maximin told Payload that the rebranding will ensure the company isn’t constrained by its image to only offering launch services. “We want to make our company not only a launch provider, but also a space mobility and a general space technology company,” said Maximin.

When selecting the new name, the team had two main criteria:

• A simple one-word name

• A French word that is also pronounceable and understandable in English

And thus, Latitude was selected. The name, according to Maximin, “can also be interpreted as representing all the latitudes that we can reach with our services.” 

Share this with someone who likes hard-to-pronounce French words: 

In Other News

• JWST’s first images will include the deepest image of the universe ever taken and the observatory’s first exoplanet spectrum, NASA leadership announced. Keep the 2022 space firsts coming! 

• SpaceX launched SES-22, a TV broadcast satellite that will help SES clear a certain region of C-band by the December deadline set by the FCC.

• Virgin Orbit ($VORB) postponed the Straight Up mission, initially targeted for 1am Eastern, after the launcher noticed that “propellant temperature was slightly out of bounds.”

The View from Augsburg

Courtesy of Payload Contributor Andrew Parsonson...This friendly Isar recruitment billboard strayed a little far from Munich and found itself in RFA territory in Augsburg. Are they using Apple Maps or is this a sneaky recruitment drive aimed at pinching RFA engineers?