WASHINGTON (NRO PR) — The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) announced the award of five contracts for commercial radar capabilities under the agency’s new Strategic Commercial Enhancements Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Framework. Companies receiving contracts are Airbus, U.S.; Capella Space; ICEYE, U.S.; PredaSAR; and Umbra.

“We are very pleased with the response to the first focus area under our new BAA,” said Dr. Chris Scolese, NRO director, who announced the release of the BAA acquisition just three months ago. “We know that users across the National System for Geospatial Intelligence are eager to explore commercial radar, and these contracts will allow us to rapidly validate capabilities and the benefits to the national mission.”

The Strategic Commercial Enhancements BAA Framework is designed to reach across disciplines and the global commercial remote sensing market to drive innovation, explore new phenomenologies, and ultimately, to ensure that the U.S. government has access to the best available commercial remote sensing capabilities.

• Satellites for Sen (16U), Dubai Electricity & Water Authority and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology are all operational
• Company plans launch of 14 satellites in 2022, including the industry’s first commercially available modular microsat bus (MP42)

VILNIUS, Lithuania, 20 January 2022 (NanoAvionics PR) – NanoAvionics, a leading smallsat manufacturer and mission integrator, confirmed the reception of signals and healthy telemetry data from all of the three satellites launched into low Earth orbit via the successful SpaceX Transporter-3 mission. The rideshare mission that went into orbit on 13 January 2022 included one of the largest and heaviest CubeSats ever built and launched. The 16U small satellite, is the first of five satellites, contracted to NanoAvionics by British company Sen, to establish video streaming media to provide real-time Ultra-High Definition (UHD) videos of Earth.

NEW DELHI/LONDON/GERMANTOWN, Md., 20 January 2022 (OneWeb PR) — OneWeb, the low Earth orbit satellite communications company, and Hughes Network Systems LLC (“Hughes”), an innovator in satellite and multi-transport technologies and networks for 50 years, today announced a strategic six-year Distribution Partner agreement to provide low Earth orbit (LEO) connectivity services across India. The arrangement between OneWeb and Hughes Communications India Private Ltd. (HCIPL), a joint venture between Hughes and Bharti Airtel Limited (“Airtel”),  follows the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the companies in September 2021.

As the leading satellite broadband provider in India , HCIPL is well positioned to deliver services to enterprise and government with OneWeb capacity, especially in areas outside the reach of fibre connectivity. OneWeb will connect towns, villages, and local and regional municipalities in those hardest-to-reach areas, playing a critical role in bridging the digital divide.

TUCSON, Ariz. (University of Arizona PR) — The NASA and University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission team has been selected to receive the 2022 John L. “Jack” Swigert Jr. Award for Space Exploration by the Space Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for space exploration and space-inspired industries.

The award will be presented April 4 during the opening ceremony of the 37th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

• Arianespace announces the appointment of Pierre-Yves Tissier as Chief Technical Officer, effective January 19, 2022.
• Pierre-Yves Tissier will succeed Roland Lagier after his retirement. He will report to Stéphane Israël, Chief Executive Officer of Arianespace, and will join the company’s Executive Committee.

ÉVRY-COURCOURONNES, France (Arianespace PR) — Pierre-Yves Tissier began his career in 1985 at Bertin Technologies, in the turbo-machinery and thermodynamics department before joining the SNPE (today, ArianeGroup) research center, five years later, as Head of the Internal Ballistics Laboratory, a position in which he led numerous projects in civil and military launcher propulsion, in collaboration with the French space agency, CNES, and the French defense procurement agency, DGA.

SWINDON, UK (UK Space Agency PR) — The UK-built ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover is set for launch in September after a series of successful tests, including driving off its landing platform.

The European Space Agency (ESA) rover starts the year with months of successful maintenance and functional tests behind it. All its instruments are go for flight, with some minor tuning left to complete this month.

OTTAWA, Ont. (The Ottawa Hospital PR) — A world-first study has revealed how space travel can cause lower red blood cell counts, known as space anemia. Analysis of 14 astronauts showed their bodies destroyed 54 percent more red blood cells in space than they normally would on Earth, according to a study published in Nature Medicine.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

MOJAVE, Calif. — A loud boom echoed across California’s Mojave Desert on Wednesday afternoon. I would normally pay little attention to it given how common such occurrences are in Mojave. But, this one was different: instead of nearly daily boom-boom of jet fighters from nearby Edwards Air Force Base going supersonic, this one was a single large BOOM!

And oh, there was a giant cloud of black smoke rising from the rocket test area at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Someone’s engine test had clearly gone awry.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (SpaceX PR) — On Tuesday, January 18 at 9:02 p.m. EST, Falcon 9 launched 49 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This was the tenth launch and landing of this Falcon 9 first stage booster, which has launched GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, and now seven Starlink missions.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Well, this isn’t good for Virgin Galactic or the Virgin brand it represents. Gizmodo reports:

Chamath Palihapitiya, the chairman of Virgin Galactic and CEO of Social Capital, doesn’t care about the plight of Uyghurs—a Muslim-majority ethnic group that’s faced persecution by the Chinese government. Numerous reports out of China have documented how the Uyghurs have been subject to forced abortions, systematic rape, torture, and internment in concentration camps. But Palihapitiya says “nobody” cares about the Uyghurs, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Palihapitiya, who’s reportedly worth roughly $1.2 billion and is a co-owner of the [Golden State] Warriors basketball team, made the comments Saturday on his podcast, titled All In, which he co-hosts with tech industry veteran Jason Calacanis.

“Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs,” Palihapitiya said. “You bring it up because you really care, and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care.”

• Radian Aerospace emerges from stealth, announces seed funding led by Fine Structure Ventures
• Development of the world’s first fully reusable horizontal takeoff and landing, single-stage to orbit spaceplane takes critical step forward with investment

RENTON, Wash., Jan. 19, 2022 (Radian Aerospace PR) — Radian Aerospace (Radian), the developers of the world’s first fully reusable horizontal takeoff and landing, single-stage to orbit spaceplane, announced today that the company recently closed $27.5 million in seed funding. The recent round was led by Fine Structure Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments, with additional investment from EXOR, The Venture Collective,  Helios Capital, SpaceFund, Gaingels, The Private Shares Fund, Explorer 1 Fund, Type One Ventures as well as others.

Wyvern raises USD $4.5M and enters Y Combinator, paving the way for access to affordable hyperspectral imagery from space

EDMONTON, Alberta, January 17, 2022 (Wyvern PR) — Wyvern, a space data company making hyperspectral imagery accessible and affordable, announced today its acceptance into the Y Combinator accelerator after closing an oversubscribed USD $2.25M seed round led by MaC Venture Capital, with an additional USD $2.25M raised through earlier pre-seed funding and support from the Government of Canada. Soma Capital, Liquid 2 Ventures, Gaingels, Unpopular Ventures, and Matt Mickiewicz invested alongside lead MaC Venture Capital.

The world has been waiting for hyperspectral imaging to become commercially accessible. An advanced spectral imaging technique that collects hundreds of images at different wavelengths to form 3D data blocks, hyperspectral imaging has the power to detect incredible details invisible to conventional imaging standards.