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Terran Orbital Successfully Completes Next Step In Demonstrating Space-To-Ground Optical Link On NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 Satellite
PTD-3’s TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload will demonstrate optical communications downlink at a groundbreaking 200 gigabits per second (Image Credit: Terran Orbital Corporation)

BOCA RATON, Fla. (Terran Orbital PR) — Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP), a global leader in satellite solutions, primarily serving the United States and Allied aerospace and defense industries, today announced the first signal acquisition of the Terabyte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) Lasercom Optical Link on NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) satellite. Acquisition of the Lasercom Optical Link means that the spacecraft and the optical ground terminal have successfully exchanged laser communication signals — bringing PTD-3 one step closer to full payload commissioning.

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  • July 19, 2022
Chinese Space Company Wins in Top International AI Competition
(Image Credit: STAR.VISION)

HANGZHOU, China (STAR.VISION AEROSPACE GROUP LIMITED PR) — STAR.VISION AEROSPACE GROUP LIMITED, a Chinese space technology innovator, has recently won the second place in the Multimodal Learning for Earth and Environment (MultiEarth 2022) competition during the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2022). They also topped the rankings in another track “CropHarvest 2022” which focuses on crop classification, using testing data set from Kenya, Togo and Brazil.

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  • June 29, 2022
NASA to Launch 6 Small Satellites to Monitor, Study Tropical Cyclones
An image of Tropical Cyclone Batsirai over Madagascar captured by the TROPICS Pathfinder satellite in February of 2022. (Credit: NASA)

Update: The launch aboard an Astra Space Rocket 3.3 booster failed after the vehicle’s second stage shut down prematurely on Sunday. NASA said in an update that the TROPICS constellation can still improve the monitoring of tropical cyclones with four satellites. Astra Space has the contract to launch the four additional TROPICS spacecraft on two launches.

By Sofie Bates
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

NASA is launching the first two of six small satellites no earlier than June 12 that will study the formation and development of tropical cyclones almost every hour – about four to six times more often than is possible with current satellites. This is the first of three CubeSat launches for NASA’s Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission. The remaining satellites will be placed into their orbits during two subsequent launches this year. If successful, the TROPICS satellites will be spread across three orbital planes to cover more of the globe more frequently.

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  • June 12, 2022
Astra to Launch NASA TROPICS No Earlier Than Sunday
Rocket 3.3 lifts off from Kodiak Island on March 15, 2022. (Credit: Astra Space/NASASpaceflight.com webcast)

CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. (NASA PR) — Astra Space Inc. is targeting no earlier than June 12, pending issuance of a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration, for the first launch of NASA’s Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS), a constellation of six CubeSats. Two CubeSats, each about the size of a loaf of bread, will launch aboard Astra’s Rocket 3.3 from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

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  • June 9, 2022
CubeSat Set to Demonstrate NASA’s Fastest Laser Link from Space
The completed TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory. (Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory)

By Kendall Murphy
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

GREENBELT, Md. — NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 (PTD-3) mission, carrying the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system, will debut on May 25 as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-5 rideshare launch. TBIRD will showcase the high-data-rate capabilities of laser communications from a CubeSat in low-Earth orbit. At 200 gigabits per second (Gbps), TBIRD will downlink data at the highest optical rate ever achieved by NASA.

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  • June 4, 2022
Spaceflight Inc. Successfully Debuts its Latest OTV, Sherpa-AC

SEATTLE (Spaceflight Inc. PR) — Spaceflight Inc., the leading global launch services provider, today announced it has contacted its Sherpa-AC vehicle and confirmed the vehicle is operating nominally. This is the debut launch of Sherpa-AC, the latest variation in the company’s Sherpa orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) portfolio. The Transporter 5 rideshare mission on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on May 25 headed to a Sun Synchronous orbit, 525km. Spaceflight successfully delivered all five customer payloads, including two hosted payloads on the Sherpa OTV, to their desired orbital destinations.

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  • May 27, 2022
Terran Orbital Begins Trading On The New York Stock Exchange Under Ticker Symbol “LLAP” And Announces Revenue Backlog Now Exceeds $200 Million

BOCA RATON, Fla., March 28, 2022 – Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP) (“Terran Orbital” or the “Company”), a leading small satellite manufacturer primarily serving the United States aerospace and defense industry, announced that its common stock and warrants will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today, March 28, 2022, under the ticker symbols “LLAP” and “LLAP WS”, respectively. 

Terran Orbital has made significant progress over recent months as it prepared to emerge as a public company. Some of the Company’s recent accomplishments include:

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  • March 28, 2022
NASA Invests in Tech Development From Small Businesses, Researchers
A new round of awards for small business and research partnerships will advance technology development. A partnership between Interstel Technologies, Inc., and University of Hawaii at Manoa will develop a system for guiding swarms of vehicles, such as rovers, illustrated here. (Credits: NASA)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA’s Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program has awarded $15 million to U.S. small businesses and research institutions to continue developing technologies in areas ranging from aeronautics to science and space exploration.

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  • February 21, 2022
NASA To Launch 4 Earth Science Missions in 2022
An illustration of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). JPSS is a collaborative program between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. JPSS-2 is NOAA’s next-generation operational Earth observation program that acquires and distributes global environmental data primarily from multiple polar-orbiting satellites. (Credits: Orbital ATK/Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems)

By Alison Gold
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

NASA will launch four Earth science missions in 2022 to provide scientists with more information about fundamental climate systems and processes including extreme storms, surface water and oceans, and atmospheric dust. Scientists will discuss the upcoming missions at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) 2021 Fall Meeting, hosted in New Orleans between Dec. 13 and 17.

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  • December 16, 2021
NASA’s Laser Communications Tech, Science Experiment Safely in Space
Conceptual image of the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration payload transmitting optical signals. (Credits: NASA)

CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) and a NASA-U.S. Naval Research Laboratory space weather payload to study the Sun’s radiation lifted off at 5:19 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 7.

The payloads launched aboard the Space Test Program Satellite-6 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as part of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Test Program 3 mission.

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  • December 7, 2021