Dialed up (8/22/22)

Good morning, happy Monday, and welcome back to the workweek. If we seem unusually chipper for a Monday morning, well, there’s a reason for that. Two reasons, actually:

1. Payload passed 10,000 subscribers yesterday. We’re excited about the milestone, even if it’s just an arbitrary round number. And we’re just getting started.

2. The countdown continues and we’re inside a week!!!

Have you not been reading your Payloads recently? OK, we’ll get you caught up: NASA’s super-heavy SLS is vertical on the launchpad and we’re T-minus one week from launch of the Artemis I mission. We’ve missed you, Moon, and we’ll see you soon.

In today's newsletter:🚨 Space-BACN📊 Not Boring S-1 🗓️ The week ahead

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Lasers for DARPA

DARPA, the Pentagon’s high-risk, high-reward R&D arm, has its mind on laser links. The agency is specifically working to develop an interconnected network of links for speedy and secure communications between military, civilian, and commercial space assets.

The DARPA program, known as the Space-Based Adaptive Communications Node (Space-BACN), recently announced 11 Phase 1 awardees.

Space-BACN: The Phase 1 Space-BACN awards fall into three technical areas:

1. Developing a flexible, low-cost optical aperture that meets DARPA’s technical requirements. Mynaric, MBRYONICS, and CACI, Inc. received this award.

2. Developing a reconfigurable optical modem that can support 100 Gbps on one wavelength. II-VI Aerospace and Defense, Arizona State University, and Intel Federal, LLC won this award.

3. Identifying the command and control elements that will enable Space-BACN to talk with commercial satellite operators and other constellations. SpaceX, Telesat, SpaceLink, Viasat, and Amazon’s Kuiper received this award.

This morning, SpaceLink, an awardee from the third category, shared a bit of extra color on its role in the program.The McLean, VA-based company is working on a constellation of four MEO optical (aka laser) data relay satellites that will be able to facilitate faster communication with LEO satellites.

“We’ve been living in a dial-up world,” SpaceLink CEO Dave Bettinger told Payload. “We’re at the base of a huge adoption curve.”

SpaceLink's planned constellation is designed so that it can connect with any satellite in LEO and downlink directly to a ground station. Laser comms are also more secure, since they use a much narrower beam than radio communications and are more difficult to intercept.

• This is a “natural defense against adversaries being able to jam or listen in” on your signals, Bettinger said.

• Today, the time between the moment when an operator recognizes they need data and the time it gets to them can be hours, or even days. “With our system, we can bring that down to minutes,” SpaceLink chief strategy and commercial officer Tony Colucci told Payload.

SpaceLink’s system is compatible with the optical comms systems being built by both DARPA and the SDA, aligning the technology with government and military needs.

The upshot: Optical communications are having a moment, as multiple government programs as well as commercial space companies look to increase communication speed and security from orbit.

Space Is Not Boring

Last week, Payload’s Ryan and Mo penned a guest essay in Not Boring, a hyperpopular tech + strategy newsletter authored by Packy McCormick. The topic? The space economy. We structured the essay like an S-1 filing (key IPO paperwork).

But why are we telling you all this?

Well, we wrote our ~11,000-word beast of an article for a general audience, rather than the Payload community of industry insiders, policy wonks, and space shot-callers. That said, we still think this primer could be useful for y’all for two reasons:

1. If you’re new(er) here and maybe need to brush up on some part of space, be it history, business models, or market data, then this guide will get you up to speed.

2. If you have family or friends who are space-curious and want to dive head-first down the cosmic rabbit hole, look no further than this guide. It’s written precisely for the uninitiated.

The post was a hit with the Not Boring community, crossing 100,000 pageviews within a couple days of publication. We’ve now cross-posted the commercial space primer on our website–check it out here, if you’re so inclined.

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It's Time For Another Marketing Webinar with Ari

The Payload team is excited to be hosting a webinar on "Picking a PR Agency for Space Companies." In this conversation, we will be talking about how to choose and best interact with a PR agency for optimal success.

Topics will include:

• PR overview in the space industry

• How to shop around for and choose the best PR agency for your strategic needs

• How to work with the agency to maximize your ROI

• Best practices on releasing press releases and working with journalists

In Other News

• Firefly is targeting Sept. 11 for the Alpha Flight 2 mission.

• NASA issued an RFI for ISS deorbit capabilities, suggesting the agency may be developing contingency plans for ISS decommissioning before 2030.

• Deorbit capabilities could serve a redundant function if NASA and partners are unable to tap Russia’s Progress spacecraft to deorbit the station as planned.

• VCs’ dry powder levels have crept up to $562.4B, an all-time high, per a new PitchBook report. Venture is the exception, though: PE funds have dipped to $1.2T in dry powder, down from from 2020 highs of $1.5T).

• Intelsat lost control of Galaxy 15, SpaceNews reports, likely because the broadcast satellite was hit by a geomagnetic storm.

• Starship has its first customer: Japanese satellite operator Sky Perfect JSAT.

• VP Kamala Harris tweeted about Artemis I over the weekend:

The View from Space

JWST just dropped its first image of Jupiter. The photo, taken with the telescope's near-infrared camera (NIRCam) and assembled by citizen scientist Judy Schmidt, clearly shows the planet's auroras glowing at the north and south poles.