by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

SpaceX completed a hat trick over the weekend with three satellite launches from different coasts in 36 hours.

Elon Musk’s company wrapped up a busy weekend when a Falcon 9 booster launched the Globalstar FM15 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The rocket lifted off at 12:27 a.m. EDT.

SpaceX conducted its second launch in less than 24 hours on Saturday morning when a Falcon 9 carried a German reconnaissance satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The rocket lifted off at 7:19 a.m. PDT (10:19 a.m. EDT) with the Airbus-built SARah synthetic aperture radar satellite for the German military from a fog-shrouded launch pad. SpaceX ended its webcast early prior to satellite deployment at the […]

SpaceX has launches planned for Friday, Saturday and Sunday from the East and West coasts. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch 53 Starlink broadband satellites from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:08 p.m. EDT (16:08 UTC). The launch window is instantaneous. A backup launch window is Saturday at 11:47 a.m. EDT (15:47 UTC). The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, […]

The successful launch further expands the world’s largest SAR satellite constellation and includes the second and third satellites built, licensed and operated by ICEYE US.

HELSINKI, Finland and IRVINE, Calif. (ICEYE PR) — ICEYE, the global leader in persistent monitoring with radar satellite imaging and an expert in flood and natural catastrophe (NatCat) solutions, has successfully launched five new SAR satellites. All spacecraft were launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 smallsat rideshare mission via EXOLAUNCH from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Communication has successfully been established with each spacecraft. ICEYE and ICEYE US have now deployed 21 satellites since 2018, including both commercial and dedicated customer missions.

The collaboration will combine SAR satellite imagery with property insights to enable insurers to respond to flood claims with greater efficiency and accuracy

CHICAGO & HELSINKI (Arturo PR) — Arturo, the proptech company that delivers intelligent analytics from individual property to portfolio, and ICEYE, a world-leading SAR data provider and expert in natural catastrophe solutions, announced today a partnership that will change what’s possible with insurance response to flood events. ICEYE’s near real-time flood imagery that provides flood depth, extent and duration data will combine with Arturo’s portfolio and property characteristics data to give insurers the ability to estimate and triage flood damages immediately following a flood event.

Leveraging the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar constellation, ICEYE will provide ESA with active flood hazard data before, during and after large-scale flood events

HELSINKI (ICEYE PR) — ICEYE, the global leader in satellite driven persistent monitoring and an expert in natural catastrophe solutions, today announced the start of a pilot activity with the European Space Agency (ESA) to support the Copernicus Emergency Management Services (CEMS) team with flood insights. Through the pilot, ICEYE will deliver critical flood impact information showing the extent and depth of flooding at the structure level to ESA and CEMS throughout 2022. The pilot will allow CEMS to evaluate ICEYE’s flood insights and explore potential applications.

BOCA RATON, Fla., May 18, 2022 (Terran Orbital PR) – Terran Orbital Corporation (NYSE: LLAP), a global leader in small satellite solutions, primarily serving the United States aerospace and defense industry, today announced that its subsidiary, PredaSAR Corporation, received a contract award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under an Other Transaction Authority for Prototype Agreement. Specific terms of the Agreement were not disclosed.

This Agreement aims to research synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite formation flying concepts and joint data collection techniques. The potential prototype will provide data products from at least two SAR satellites flying in formation and demonstrate novel data processing algorithms. The conceptual design work is expected to take several months and may lead to follow-on opportunities for prototyping and demonstrations.

DAEGU (SI Imaging Services PR) — SI Imaging Services (SIIS), a firm providing high-resolution satellite imagery, will operate a joint booth with GHGSat, a methane tracking satellite firm in Canada, at the World Gas Congress 2022 (WGC) held at EXCO in Daegu, South Korea, from the 23rd May for five days.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Neptune Flood PR) — Neptune Flood, the first AI-driven flood insurance company to provide fast, easy, and superior flood insurance, has entered a strategic collaboration with ICEYE – an international, satellite imagery company providing earth observation data via the world’s largest synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) constellation. 

As part of the collaboration, ICEYE will provide Neptune Flood with high-resolution flood hazard data in the immediate aftermath of a flood event to enable monitoring of Neptune’s insured geolocations for micro changes in water depths around properties. The agreement also allows for exploration of future initiatives including triggers for parametric insurance products offered through Neptune’s Jumpstart brand. 

LONG BEACH, Calif. (Virgin Galactic PR)–Virgin Orbit (Nasdaq: VORB), a leading satellite launch provider, announced today the signing of a launch services agreement with Japanese earth observation constellation operator Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space, Inc. (“iQPS”). The satellite is expected to join Virgin Orbit’s manifest for early 2023.