Space SPAC Index – BlackSky and Momentus Win Contracts

Welcome to S-SPACⁱ. In this week’s edition, Momentus and BlackSky won contracts, Terran Orbital said CAPSTONE has completed its primary lunar mission, Redwire’s solar panels arrived at the space station, and BigBear.ai is working to improve hospital patient care in Colorado.

Momentus wins Apogeo contract, teams with Axient

Momentus has won a contract with Apogeo Space to provide in-space transportation for the Italian company’s batch of nine Internet of Things (IoT) picosatellites. Apogeo is developing a 100-satellite IoT constellation.

Momentus has also entered into a memorandum of understanding with Axient LLC to collaborate on technologies and capabilities to serve customers from low-Earth orbit (LEO) to cislunar space.

The two companies will work together to propose and develop capabilities to address a wide variety of space activities, including launch services, space communication, space domain awareness, precision navigation and timing, and related technologies.

Space SPAC Index
June 6, 2023

BlackSky wins ground station contract

BlackSky Technology (NYSE: BKSY) said it has won a two-year, multi-million dollar ground station augmentation contract for an unidentified Ministry of Defense customer. It is the company’s second major contract for an international advanced tactical agency.

BlackSky said the ground system infrastructure will allow the customer to directly access high-resolution imagery through the company’s Spectra AI tasking and analytics platform.

“BlackSky’s on-demand imagery tasking with low-latency delivery has become an indispensable part of daily operations for our client,” said BlackSky CEO Brian E. O’Toole. “This contract reflects strong, sustained client interest in developing the underlying infrastructure to support long-term use of BlackSky’s high-frequency, dawn-to-dusk imagery and analytics services.”

CAPSTONE’s primary mission completed

Terran Orbit (NYSE: LLAP) has announced the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) spacecraft the company built has completed its primary mission to the moon.

CAPSTONE’s mission was to fly in the near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) that will be used by the lunar Gateway station astronauts will use to explore the moon later this decade during the Artemis program. Among other benefits, the NRHO will allow for continuous communications with Earth.

Terran Orbital said CAPSTONE also successfully completed the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System (CAPS) experiment in which it determined its position and velocity by exchanging signals from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

Advanced Space led the CAPSTONE mission on behalf of NASA. The satellite’s operations are shared between Advanced Space and Terran Orbital.

Redwire sends solar arrays, materials to ISS

The SpaceX Crew Dragon resupply ship that docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday has a pair of advanced solar arrays built by Redwire (NYSE: RDW) as well as materials for two experiments operated by the company.

The ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs) are designed to boost power to ISS. Astronauts have already installed four iROSAs on the exterior of the facility. The station’s power will be boosted by 20 to 30 percent once all six arrays are installed.

Crew Dragon also delivered materials for a Redwire-managed Epigenetic Adaptation to the Spaceflight Environment – Accumulated Genomic Change Induced by Generations in Space (Plant Habitat-03(B)) investigation. Scientists are developing strategies for adapting crops and other important plants for growth in marginal and reclaimed habitats on Earth.

Redwire’s subsidiary in Belgium sent two cartridges for the company’s Transparent Alloys Instrument that is operating on the station. The cartridges contain mixtures that will be used to study how metal alloys solidify in microgravity. The experiments could lead to the development of new alloys for use on Earth.

BigBear.ai improves Colorado hospital care

BigBear.ai is working with Children’s Hospital Colorado to optimize scheduling and improve access to patient care.

“BigBear.ai’s FutureFlow RX® patient flow platform will enable prescriptive analytics and discrete event simulation to help clients plan and manage the scheduling of inpatient procedures based on operating room, hospital capacity, and resource availability. Children’s Hospital Colorado has engaged BigBear.ai to develop a new Operating Room (OR) Module within FutureFlow Rx,” the company said in a press release.

“The OR Module will be able to define and recommend schedules according to surgical procedure trends, hospital capacity, resource availability, and surgeon-specific supporting metrics. It will also provide prescriptive insights to optimize case scheduling based on the time of each surgery, procedure duration, and turnover time between cases,” BigBear.ai added.