Welcome to S-SPACⁱ! In this week’s edition, Rocket Lab announced a five-launch deal with BlackSky as it reported higher earnings, Virgin Galactic is on the eve of launching its first space tourists after lowering expectations on future earnings, Astra Space laid off a quarter of its employees as it pivoted to producing rocket engines, Planet Labs conducted layoffs of its own, and Momentus unveiled its first satellite bus.

Welcome to S-SPACⁱ. This week, we say goodbye to Virgin Orbit, sister company Virgin Galactic prepares for its first launch in nearly two years, BlackSky and Spire Global team up to track ships, AST SpaceMobile will join two Russell indexes, Planet Labs announces two artificial intelligence partnerships, Redwire wins a contract to develop a 3D bioprinter, and SatixFy’s beam-hopping communications system is launched into orbit.

Welcome to S-SPACⁱ. In this edition, Terran Orbital received a milestone payment for the Rivada satellite constellation, Intuitive Machines’ joint venture won a major contract, and AST SpaceMobile made an historic phone call. Plus, news about BlackSky and Rocket Lab.

It is the worst of times for launch providers Virgin Orbit and Astra Space, whose futures could be decided in the next week. And two satellite operators — Momentus and Spire Global — have received delisting warnings from their respective stock exchanges. On that dour note, let’s dive right into this week’s S-SPACⁱ.

BlackSky Technology nearly doubled its revenue in 2022 while sharply narrowing its net loss as the company expanded its real-time satellite geospatial intelligence services (GEOINT).

Welcome to S-SPACⁱ.

Shares of SatixFy Communications (NYS: SATX) plunged by $4.94 (68.3 percent) to $2.29 on Tuesday following the announcement that the Israeli satellite communications equipment manufacturer is looking to sell up to 28.4 million shares and $1 million in redeemable warrants.

BlackSky’s Dynamic Monitoring to provide data for innovative research on global change

HERNDON, Va. (BlackSky Technology Inc. PR) — BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) received its first call order, worth $1.7 million, from NASA to evaluate accessibility, accuracy, quality and utility of the Company’s imaging data services for the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program.

“New discoveries in Earth science can be accelerated with innovative research methods and real-time dynamic data sets that keep up with the increasingly rapid pace and scale of change on our planet,” said Dr. Patrick O’Neil, BlackSky chief innovation officer.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Powered by 33 flights of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster, the United States leads all nations with 48 launch attempts through the first seven months of the year. The total is three short of the number of U.S. launches attempted last year, and far ahead of the 27 launches conducted by second place China through the end of July. The U.S. has conducted more launches than the 43 flights conducted by the rest of the world combined.

A number of notable flights were conducted. SpaceX launched two Crew Dragons to the International Space Station (ISS), including the first fully privately funded mission to the orbiting laboratory. United Launch Alliance (ULA) launched Boeing’s CST-100 Starship crew vehicle on an automated flight test to ISS, a crucial step before astronauts to fly on the spacecraft. Small satellite launch provider Rocket Lab conducted its first deep-space mission by sending a spacecraft the size of a microwave to the moon.

• Newly signed reseller agreement enables Telespazio’s companies worldwide to commercialize BlackSky products and services
• Telespazio Group to enrich its Geoinformation offering with BlackSky’s dynamic, high-resolution, high-revisit imagery

ROME, 24 June 2022 (Telespazio PR) — Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%), has signed an updated global, non-exclusive reseller agreement with BlackSky (NYSE: BKSY) enabling Telespazio Group to make BlackSky geospatial products and services commercially available to customers world-wide.

CHANTILLY, Va. (NRO PR) — The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) today announced the results of its largest ever commercial imagery contract effort, awarding Electro-Optical Commercial Layer (EOCL) to BlackSky, Maxar, and Planet. Valued at billions of dollars over the next decade, these contracts mark a historic expansion of the NRO’s acquisition of commercial imagery to meet increasing customer demands with greater capacity than ever before .

“The NRO has a longstanding strategy of ‘buy what we can, build what we must’,” said .Dr. Chris Scolese, director of the NRO. “The diversity offered by our expanding architecture comprised of both commercial and NRO systems increases our resilience and enables an integrated approach to the threats facing our Nation.”

Due to its unclassified and shareable nature, commercial remote sensing data offer important benefits, including increased transparency, mission-critical awareness , and humanitarian assistance. EOCL ‘s unique situational design, featuring user-friendly license agreements and built-in contract flexibility, maximizes shareability across a diverse customer base.