Non-technical (8/25/22)

Good morning. Ryan speaking here...it's great to see so many of you in the flesh at the Space Frontier Foundation's New Space 2022 conference in Seattle. What's not as great is waking up at 4:45am Pacific because Payload operates on Eastern time.

In today's newsletter:💸 Atlas raise🚀 Orbex hiring📝 Contract report

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Atlas Raises $26M

Atlas Space Operations has raised a $26M Series B led by Mitsui. The ground-software-as-a-service provider is turning its attention to growth.

Atlas 101: Though the Michigan-based startup provides service from a network of 13 ground stations across the globe, its key value lies in its software, CEO Sean McDaniel told Payload. “We solve the hard problems of connecting satellites in orbit to networks of ground stations…with a cloud hosted, machine learning-based platform that really is designed to abstract all of those complexities.”

With most platforms, satellite operators need to manually decide when and where to communicate with ground stations. That requires a lot of humans in the loop and a long lead time to figure out the communication schedule.

Atlas’ software platform, Freedom, attacks that problem by using machine learning to determine the best times to talk with a satellite based on the customer’s preferences. The result is a more flexible, automated experience that reduces the burden on the operator.

• The platform uses a priority-based scheduling construct to weigh ground station capacity with customer comms needs.

• Per McDaniel, the system’s choices are in line with the choices the customers would have made ~98% of the time, and the company is working on bringing that closer to 100%.

• Freedom is “medium-agnostic,” McDaniel said, and can make these decisions regardless of where the data is coming from or what form it’s in—including, potentially, optical links.

“I think it's a leap forward in how we think about selling ground network scheduling, and, quite frankly, how we think about incorporating the future of connectivity between space and ground to include optical communication, as well as emerging space relay capabilities,” said McDaniel.

Atlas currently employs 43 people across seven states. Its customer base straddles both government and commercial space, and includes NASA, the DoD, BlackSky, Planet, and Capella Space.

The round: Atlas is putting this $26M investment toward growth. That means building out its team to reach more customers and to better equip itself to win larger government deals, particularly with the Pentagon’s hybrid space architecture.

Mitsui’s involvement, McDaniel said, will also help the company to expand into international markets.

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Orbex Launches Major Recruitment Drive

Scottish launch startup Orbex has announced that it plans to add 50 new staff to its ranks over the next six months.

Orbex is developing its 19-meter two-stage Prime vehicle, which can lift 150 kg payloads to orbit. The company unveiled the first full-scale prototype of the vehicle in May, which is currently being used for integrated testing.

The new recruitment drive is designed to strengthen existing teams working on key areas of the new vehicle, including propulsion, structures, avionics, CNC machining, and embedded software. Although it’s the company’s largest to date, this latest recruitment drive continues a trend of bold growth from the launch startup as it prepares to debut Prime in 2023.

“We have already tripled the size of our team over the last twelve months. And now, the roles we’re recruiting for are the clearest demonstration that we’re in the final countdown to launch from UK soil. There’s no better time to join Orbex,” explained CEO Chris Larmour.

Time for a career change?

In addition to the technical roles, fifteen of the new roles will be for non-technical positions. According to Orbex, the company hopes to offer “a wide range of people new opportunities to train or re-skill for a career in the UK and European Space sector.”

These positions will require no previous experience in the space or aerospace industry and will cover areas such as logistics, finance, and procurement.

“Orbex’s latest recruitment drive, which offers technical and non-technical jobs in Moray and the surrounding areas, is a great example of how the UK’s launch industry is already helping to bring new jobs and economic benefits to communities and organizations right across the UK,” Director of Commercial Spaceflight at the UK Space Agency Matt Archer told Payload.

According to Archer, the UK space sector currently employs 47,000 people across a diverse range of positions.

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In Other News

• T-Mobile and SpaceX are hosting a Starbase event at 8pm Eastern tonight, in which they will detail plans to “increase connectivity.”

• The event, which will be livestreamed, “is something special,” per Elon.

• Blue Origin will launch 36 commercial, academic, and STEM students’ payloads on the NS-23 mission, targeted for next Wednesday, Aug. 31.

• The Air Force’s football team will debut Space Force uniforms against Navy this fall.

The View from KSC

Pilots and astronauts perform a tight flyby of Artemis I. Photo: NASA