Power play (7/24/23)

Good morning. Happy Monday! It’s your last week to nominate rising stars of the space industry who are under 30 years old for our list of Payload Pioneers. Nominations will close July 31!

Today’s newsletter:
🛰️ Astranis loses service
🍊 Amazon <3’s Florida
🗓️ The week ahead

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Power Problems for Astranis

Astranis’ first satellite, Arcturus, has run into a snag in its mission to provide internet connectivity over Alaska from GEO.

An anomaly with the solar array drive assembly, which is meant to keep the solar arrays pointed toward the sun, has left the craft unable to keep its payload fully charged. Despite the power problems, Astranis said Arcturus should still be able to provide six to 12 hours of connectivity per day.

Astranis’ mission: Astranis has taken the unbeaten path in a world of large LEO broadband constellations and instead opted to provide smaller, more targeted satellites to provide connectivity to specific geographic areas from GEO.

Arcturus, its first MicroGEO bird, launched in April. As of May, it was up and running as planned, before this power issue got in the way.

• Astranis emphasized that the drive assembly issue is in a part supplied by an outside provider, and that all its own hardware is still working as intended.

Spare parts: Arcturus may be down for the count, but Astranis has a backup plan up its sleeve. The company has designed a small, multipurpose satellite it calls UtilitySat that can be launched and deployed as an interim solution for customers when anomalies like this one occur.

“Unlike with a traditional large GEO satellite, where an on-orbit anomaly could mean a gap of many years and a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars before a replacement satellite can be deployed, a spare satellite of the type we are building at Astranis can be brought in on incredibly short notice,” CEO John Gedmark said in a statement on Twitter (uh…X?). “We’re proud of what we’ve built with UtilitySat, and what it means for the future of our industry.”

UtilitySat is manifested on Astranis’ next launch, now targeting the end of the year to allow time to update the next batch of MicroGEO sats, Gedmark said.

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Amazon Plans a $120M Satellite Facility in Florida

Amazon will invest $120M to build out a Project Kuiper satellite processing facility at NASA’s KSC in Florida that will be used for final satellite prep before launch, the company announced Friday.

Kuiper: Amazon is building a $10B, 3,236-bird LEO internet constellation. The tech giant has already booked 77 (!) heavy-lift launches, mostly with Blue Origin and ULA, to deploy this monster network.

• The facility's close proximity to launch sites will facilitate Amazon’s ambitious launch cadence.

Amazon is set to launch its first two prototypes aboard Vulcan’s maiden flight in Q4.

“We have an ambitious plan to begin Project Kuiper’s full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next year, and this new facility will play a critical role in helping us deliver on that timeline,” said Amazon VP Steve Metayer.

Space Florida: The facility is located at KSC’s Launch and Landing Facility—formerly the Shuttle Landing Facility—and is operated and maintained by Space Florida. Investment incentives from Space Florida’s Spaceport Improvement Program are supporting Amazon’s facility build-out.

Florida is actively courting space businesses to move to the Sunshine State by offering financial benefits, establishing strategic partnerships, and enacting business-friendly laws. The policies encouraged Boeing and Made in Space to expand their presence in Florida.

Space Florida estimates the space industry will add $5.9B to the Florida economy over the next five years.

Automation vs. Manual Action in Satellites

The Payload team is excited to host a webinar on "Automation vs. Manual Action in Satellites." In this conversation, we will discuss satellite companies and how they are dealing with automation vs. manual tasks within their operations.

In Other News

• The Space Force is buying more launches than previously planned.

• China is moving aggressively to dominate space, according to a Washington Post op-ed.

• The Long March 10, a carrier rocket intended to deliver spacecraft to an Earth-Moon transfer orbit, is under development in China.

• NASA is at work constructing an SLS for Artemis IV.

• ISRO completed the fourth orbit raise for its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander.

• Swarm, SpaceX’s IoT subsidiary, is halting device sales.

• New Zealand’s new aerospace strategy includes NZ$12M (~$7.4M) in funding.

The View from SpaceX