Plus: Kepler starts commercial optical data relay service
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By Debra Werner Constellations of small satellites with hyperspectral instruments have promised global insights that are impossible to obtain with airborne hyperspectral sensors and revisit rates that improve on government hyperspectral missions that often cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
But for more than a decade companies have grappled with the complexity of calibrating hyperspectral sensors and turning the raw data into information customers value.
Now, investors and entrepreneurs see a light at the end of the tunnel. |
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Portal Space Systems, a Seattle-based startup developing maneuverable spacecraft, is working with Long Beach, California-based Rebel Space to put spectrum monitoring technology aboard its vehicles, extending a capability now used on the ground into orbit.
Finnish hyperspectral startup Kuva Space plans to operate eight hyperspectral satellites in 2028 to obtain daily imagery of Europe’s northern flank. |
Constellr has ordered two satellites from Danish microsatellite specialist Space Inventor to expand and upgrade the German startup’s thermal imagery constellation in 2028.
Kepler Communications announced the start of commercial in-orbit optical data relay services Aug. 24, marking the smallsat operator’s expansion beyond the Internet of Things connectivity business it began more than a decade ago. |
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Beyond Reach Technologies announced its Flarewing line of rigid deployable structures. Those structures can be used to mount solar panels that could enable small satellites to generate large amounts of power.
Veoware successfully demonstrated its mini control moment gyroscopes for the first time aboard a Planet Pelican Earth observation satellite. The ability to turn quickly could help Earth observation satellites collect images of multiple targets in a single pass. |
Kongsberg NanoAvionics has unveiled a 500-kilogram version of its flagship MP42D satellite bus, more than doubling its previous maximum mass to support more demanding defense and intelligence missions. |
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FROM SPACENEWS |
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Robotics and the future of on-orbit labor: In the latest episode of the Space Minds podcast, SpaceNews’ Mike Gruss interviews Icarus Robotics CEO and co-founder Ethan Barajas at SmallSat in Salt Lake City. They discuss why astronauts have compared space missions to working in a warehouse, recent progress toward robotic systems that can offload menial tasks during missions and the future of on-orbit labor. Watch or listen now. |
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