Tag: Maxar Technologies

Categories
GeekWire

NRO strikes multibillion-dollar deals for satellite images

BlackSky satellite in orbit
An artist’s conception shows one of BlackSky’s satellites in orbit. (Black Sky Illustration)

Three satellite imaging companies are in line to receive billions of dollars from the National Reconnaissance Office over the next decade, thanks to a string of contracts announced today.

The companies are the same satellite operators who won study contracts from the NRO three years ago: BlackSky, Maxar Technologies and Planet.

BlackSky, which got its start in Seattle and is now headquartered in Virginia, says its contract for Electro-Optical Commercial Layer imagery sets up a five-year base subscription with a starting value of $85.5 million, plus options to extend the contract to 10 years. If all options are exercised, total contract value would be $1.021 billion.

Colorado-based Maxar, which was the first to provide commercial satellite imagery to the NRO, would be paid $300 million per year for the first five years, plus options for $1.74 billion in the following five years. Total potential value would be $3.24 billion. California-based Planet didn’t disclose the value of its contract.

BlackSky’s stock nearly doubled in value today, ending the trading session at $2.33 per share. Maxar’s share price rose almost 18% to close at $28.86. Meanwhile, Planet’s stock was up 14%, finishing up at $5.73.

Frequently updated commercial imaging has proven its value to the U.S. intelligence community in crises such as the war in Ukraine. The NRO said today’s deals represent the agency’s largest-ever commercial imagery contract effort.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
Cosmic Space

Satellites swarm to look at Beirut blast aftermath

Beirut explosion via BlackSky satellite
An image captured by the BlackSky Global-4 satellite shows the site of the Beirut chemical explosion at 8:22 a.m. local time Aug. 5. Image resolution is about 1 meter (3 feet) per pixel. (BlackSky Global Monitoring Photo)

The aftermath of this week’s Beirut chemical explosion has been covered in triplicate by U.S. satellite imaging systems — with other nations’ satellites, drones and on-the-scene videos adding perspective.

All that imagery helped outside observers quickly verify that the killing blast was caused by the blow-up of a years-old stockpile of ammonium nitrate, which is typically used as fertilizer but can be turned into dangerous explosives.

The Aug. 4 explosion killed at least 100 people, injured thousands more, sent out a shock wave that damaged buildings up to 6 miles away, and generated a seismic shock that was felt as far away as Cyprus.

BlackSky is due to have two more Global satellites launched as soon as this week, as rideshare payloads on a SpaceX Falcon 9 under an arrangement with Seattle’s Spaceflight Inc. They’re among the first satellites built for BlackSky by Tukwila, Wash.-based LeoStella, a joint venture between Spaceflight Industries and Europe’s Thales Alenia Space. The deployment timetable calls for 16 BlackSky satellites to be on duty in low Earth orbit by early next year.

Two of BlackSky’s competitors, Planet and Maxar Technologies, also shared before-and-after views of the Beirut blast scene today:

https://twitter.com/_danjuna/status/1291012916183998465

BlackSky, Maxar Technologies and Planet have all won study contracts from the National Reconnaissance Office, under a program aimed at assessing the companies’ ability to provide imagery for the defense and intelligence communities.

NRO says it will start a new round of commercial imagery procurements in late 2020, with an eye toward satisfying government requirements into the 2023 time frame. So the efforts to capture over Beirut isn’t merely meant to satisfy curiosity; they serve to demonstrate what the companies can do for national defense.

In addition to the satellite pictures from those three U.S. companies, there’s a surfeit of sobering imagery from other satellites and drones. Here’s a sampling:

To contribute online to Beirut relief efforts, check out the Lebanese Red Cross and Impact Lebanon on Just Giving.

This report was published on Cosmic Log. Accept no substitutes.

Categories
GeekWire

NASA funds in-space manufacturing demo

Antenna on Restore-L
An artist’s conception shows Maxar Technologies’ SPIDER robot assembling a communications antenna for the Restore-L spacecraft. (Maxar Technologies Illustration)

NASA has awarded a $142 million contract to Maxar Technologies for a demonstration of in-space construction technologies, including the robotic assembly of a communications antenna and the production of a structural beam.

The beam-manufacturing device, known as MakerSat, is being provided by Tethers Unlimited, a space technology company headquartered in Bothell, Wash.

Maxar, Tethers Unlimited and other partners — including the West Virginia Robotic Technology Center and NASA’s Langley Research Center — will have their hardware integrated onto NASA’s Restore-L spacecraft, which Maxar is getting ready for launch in the 2020s.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Olis will lend a hand with Maxar’s lunar robotic arm

Maxar robotic arm
An artist’s conception shows the SAMPLR robotic arm working on the moon. (Maxar Technologies Illustration)

Seattle-based Olis Robotics says it’s been selected by Maxar Technologies to provide software that will prepare operators on Earth to control a robotic arm on the moon.

The software will be used in connection with a robotic-arm experiment known as SAMPLR (Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering and Probing of Lunar Regolith).

SAMPLR is one of a dozen payloads chosen by NASA to fly on commercial lunar landers in support of the space agency’s Artemis program to send astronauts to the moon by 2024.

The robotic arm is a flight spare left over from NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Both of those rovers landed on the Red Planet back in 2004, and the mission was brought to a close this February.

SAMPLR will be attached to a lander to be named later, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. It’ll be NASA’s first robotic  arm sent to the moon in more than 50 years.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Maxar to build the first piece of lunar Gateway

Power and Propulsion Element
An artist’s conception shows the Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element with its solar electric propulsion system in action. (Maxar / Business Wire Illustration)

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine today announced that the first major component for a future mini-space station in lunar orbit will be provided by Maxar Technologies, formerly known as SSL.

“The contractor that will be building that element is … drum roll … Maxar,” Bridenstine said during a talk at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, south of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “Maxar is going to be building that for the United States of America.”

Colorado-based Maxar will build the Power and Propulsion Element, or PPE, which will house the 50-kilowatt solar electric propulsion system as well as the communications relay system for the Gateway space platform. “It will be the key component upon which we will build our lunar Gateway outpost, the cornerstone of NASA’s sustainable and reusable Artemis exploration architecture on and around the moon,” Bridenstine said in a NASA news release.

The Gateway is destined to be the staging point for astronauts heading down to the lunar surface by as early as 2024. To meet that five-year deadline, the Gateway will have only one other component by that time, known as the mini-habitation module. NASA and its international partners expect to add more modules in the years that follow, leading up to a “sustainable” lunar presence by 2028.

Get the full story on GeekWire.