Plus: DARPA's satellite award to Redwire
By Jeff Foust
In today's edition: Redwire gets a DARPA award for a VLEO satellite, Pegasus wins a rare launch contract, German industry seeks funding increase to ESA and more.
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Top Stories
Redwire won a DARPA award to complete a satellite with an air-breathing propulsion system. The $44 million contract announced Wednesday expands a 2024 agreement in which DARPA tapped Redwire for its Otter Very Low Earth Orbit mission, an effort to field an air-breathing spacecraft that can function in an extremely thin but still resistant atmosphere. Otter uses Redwire's SabreSat design, which is designed to fly at altitudes as low as 90 kilometers and has drawn interest from military customers who want quicker intelligence cycles and improved tracking of mobile threats. SabreSat would maintain that very low orbit with a propulsion system that uses the tenuous atmosphere for an electric propulsion system to counteract drag. DARPA did not disclose a launch date for the mission. [SpaceNews]
Quindar raised $18 million to scale its mission-operations platform and expand into classified government work. The Colorado-based company announced a Series A round this week led by Washington Harbour, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures, FUSE, FCVC and Y Combinator. The new capital will support construction of a classified facility in the Denver area and allow the company to expand from about 30 employees to nearly 100. Quindar's platform automates tasks such as booking antenna time from commercial ground-station providers, and the company sees an opportunity as the government shifts to more commercially operated satellites. [SpaceNews]
Industry is expecting Germany to step up its contribution to the European Space Agency at next week's ministerial conference. Germany was ESA's biggest contributor at the previous ministerial in 2022, providing 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion). Industry executives want Germany to significantly increase that at the ministerial in Bremen, with many expecting a range of 4.5 to 5 billion euros. A large increase will likely be needed for ESA to meet its goal of 22 billion euros for the next three years. [SpaceNews]
Katalyst Space Technologies will use a Pegasus XL to launch a mission to raise the orbit of NASA's Swift space telescope. Katalyst announced Wednesday it signed a contract with Northrop Grumman to use Pegasus XL to launch its Link spacecraft by mid-2026. The spacecraft will dock with Swift to raise its orbit before Swift makes an uncontrolled reentry. Pegasus last launched in mid-2021, but Katalyst said the rocket was the best choice given the unique orbit of Swift, as well as assurance the mission can launch on schedule and at a competitive price. [SpaceNews]
OQ Technologies says it is the first European company to demonstrate direct-to-smartphone message services from space. The company announced Wednesday it successfully tested an emergency messaging service earlier this month in a remote part of Luxembourg without terrestrial coverage. The test showed that unmodified smartphones can receive such messages using OQ's technology operating on a 60-megahertz S-band allocation. The company has deployed 10 small satellites in orbit and aims to add 30 more to the constellation next year to demonstrate two-way, direct-to-device texting. [SpaceNews]
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Other News
Antenna manufacturer Kymeta announced it is working with launch startup iRocket for connectivity technologies for Golden Dome. The companies announced a partnership Wednesday to leverage the metamaterial technology used in Kymeta's multi-orbit broadband user terminals to connect IRX-100, a short-range missile iRocket flew for the first time last month. The technology would enable multi-orbit connectivity the companies argue is required for Golden Dome, which is expected to include space-based interceptors. [SpaceNews]
Swedish Space Corporation is rolling out a new ground station service for operators of small satellites. SSC Go, announced this week at Space Tech Expo Europe, will use smaller antennas at five of the company's ground stations to support individual smallsats and constellations of them. The company says SSC Go is a streamlined, less expensive version of the ground station services it offers to other customers, and will compete with similar offering from KSAT and Leaf Space. [SpaceNews]
Italian-Dutch company Revolv Space has its first customer for the company's next-generation solar array drive assembly. The company said it has sold 10 units of that product, called MARA, to an unnamed customer. The technology is intended to serve as a solution that fills the gap between body-mounted solar arrays and costly, bespoke-design drive assemblies sold by legacy manufacturers. [SpaceNews]
NASA released a batch of images of an interstellar comet. The images of comet 3I/ATLAS, released Wednesday, were taken by several spacecraft from Earth orbit to Mars. Some of the images were taken weeks ago but could not be released until after the six-week government shutdown ended. The images and other data from those spacecraft support the hypothesis that 3I/ATLAS is from a solar system older than our own. NASA officials also added that the images show that 3I/ATLAS is indeed a comet and not an extraterrestrial spacecraft. [AP]
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Beer-Fueled Space Business
| "We literally met by chance and, over beers, we started talking about doing something together. And, beer after beer, the D-Orbit business plan was born."
| – Renato Panesi, chief commercial officer of D-Orbit, discussing during a Space Tech Expo Europe panel on Wednesday how he and his co-founder started the in-space transportation company.
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