SAN FRANCISCO (Planet Labs PR) — Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, today unveiled details about plans for Pelican, its next-generation satellite constellation, which was previously announced at Planet Explore 2021. Pelican is designed to rapidly capture changing events as they unfold and to provide a leap forward in capabilities for Planet customers – from higher revisit frequency and higher spatial resolution, to faster data access and delivery and real-time analytics. The program is under current development on-site at Planet’s in-house design and manufacturing facility.

“We are seeing strong and growing demand from multiple market segments for our high resolution products today. We have designed our next generation ‘Pelican’ fleet to meet the evolving needs of customers who want real-time information about global events as they unfold – from floods and wildfires to political conflicts and threats to human rights. Pelican’s rapid response and higher resolution will do exactly that,” said Planet’s Co-Founder and CEO Will Marshall.

The effort will enable US customers to use the DIRSIG™ model with Rendered.ai’s cloud capabilities to generate Earth Observation datasets for AI training

BELLEVUE, Wash. and ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Rendered.ai PR) — Rendered.ai, the leading platform for physics-based synthetic data, and the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing (DIRS) Laboratory today announced a collaboration to combine the physics-driven accuracy of the DIRSIG synthetic imagery model with Rendered.ai’s cloud-based platform for high volume synthetic data generation.

Machine Learning (ML) algorithms using Computer Vision (CV) data provide a key tool for exploiting the rapidly expanding capability and content of Earth Observations (EO) collection and analytics companies around the world. Rendered.ai provides a platform as a service (PaaS) for data scientists and CV engineers to scalably produce large, configurable synthetic CV datasets in the cloud for training Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ML systems.

The DIRSIG model produces a range of simulated output representing passive single-band, multi-spectral, or hyper-spectral imagery from the visible through the thermal infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. DIRSIG is widely used to test algorithms and to train analysts on simulated standard imagery products. The Rendered.ai team has built simulators for visible light and synthetic aperture radar (SAR), however DIRSIG’s breadth of capability and ongoing investment by granting agencies will provide qualified Rendered.ai customers a much wider range of field-tested and production-quality sensor modeling technology.

“DIRSIG has been providing synthetic imagery to expert customers for decades,” said Scott Brown, Ph.D., principal scientist and project lead. “Our collaboration with Rendered.ai enables us to bring our proven capability to a wider audience at a time when satellite and other forms of remote sensing data collection are rapidly expanding.”

LAKEWOOD, Colo., April 21, 2022 (Aphelion Aerospace PR) –– Aphelion Aerospace is proud to announce that it has been awarded a Master Service Agreement (MSA) of up to $10M for CubeSat products from One Voice 4 Change of Colorado. This MSA is a 5-year contract for CubeSat simulators, balloon launched CubeSats, and rocket launched CubeSats that can operate in space.

CubeSats are miniature satellites made up of cubes. A single cube is 10 cubic centimeters. They can be stacked together to build larger CubeSats with more capabilities. These CubeSats can be launched to space and they can operate just like larger satellites. Their applications include communications, R&D, education, defense, and others.

Dr. Gregg Cannady of the STEM School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, the project leader of Sim to Balloon to Orbit (S2B2O), says that this is a 3-phase project to provide real life experience to high school and university students around the world.

PARIS (ESA PR) — If man’s best friend is a dog, then in the future astronauts’ closest companions might well be rovers. A technique allowing astronauts in orbit to control rovers exploring planetary surfaces has been developed by a research team from ESA, the German Aerospace Center DLR and European academia and industry, culminating in an Earth-based rover session commanded from the International Space Station. A paper published in the prestigious Science Robotics journal this week details their results.

PARIS (ESA PR) — The test version of a unique satellite navigation receiver has been delivered for integration testing on the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft. The NaviMoon satnav receiver is designed to perform the farthest ever positioning fix from Earth, employing signals that will be millions of times fainter than those used by our smartphones or cars.

“This engineering model of our NaviMoon receiver is the very first piece of hardware to be produced in the context of ESA’s Moonlight initiative, to develop dedicated telecommunications and navigation services for the Moon,” explains Javier Ventura-Traveset, Head of ESA’s Navigation Science Office and managing all ESA lunar navigation activities.

GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — On April 18, NASA decided to move forward with plans to complete the deployment of the Lucy spacecraft’s stalled, unlatched solar array. The spacecraft is powered by two large arrays of solar cells that were designed to unfold and latch into place after launch. One of the fan-like arrays opened as planned, but the other stopped just short of completing this operation.

CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. (SpaceX PR) — On Thursday, April 21 at 1:51 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was the 12th flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, and now nine Starlink missions.

SEATTLE. April 21, 2022 (Spaceflight Inc.) — Spaceflight Inc., the leading global launch services provider, is preparing for its 50^th mission, which will launch aboard a Rocket Lab Electron no earlier than April 22. The RL-9 mission, called “There and Back Again,” is scheduled to launch from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. Following this launch, Spaceflight will have successfully launched 448 spacecraft across 50 missions across a global network of launch vehicles. 

BEIJING (China.org.cn PR) — A news report by China.org.cn on a “space-Earth talk” organized by the Chinese embassy in the United States:

After six months in orbit, China’s Shenzhou-13 astronauts recently finished their work and safely returned to Earth. Just a few days before their return, the three Chinese astronauts did a small deed: having a “space-Earth talk” from China’s Tiangong space station with American kids.

AUGUSTA, Maine (Mattie Daughtry PR) — On Monday, Gov. Janet Mills signed into law a bill from Sen. Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick. LD 1923, “An Act To Establish the Maine Space Corporation,” will help Maine’s emerging aerospace industry, create high-paying jobs and grow the state’s economy.

Maxar’s strategic investment layers its best-in-class satellite imagery with Blackshark.ai’s semantic 3D geospatial platform to provide rapidly updated, comprehensive geospatial intelligence and 3D representation at global scale. 

GRAZ, Austria (Blackshark.ai PR) — Maxar Technologies, provider of comprehensive space solutions and secure, precise, geospatial intelligence, strategically invested in Blackshark.ai, a leading provider of AI-powered geospatial analytics services. The partnership represents Maxar’s commitment to innovation within its 3D Earth Intelligence product portfolio.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has captured dramatic footage of Phobos, Mars’ potato-shaped moon, crossing the face of the Sun. These observations can help scientists better understand the moon’s orbit and how its gravity pulls on the Martian surface, ultimately shaping the Red Planet’s crust and mantle.