Welcome to Biz Briefs! In this edition, Thales Alenia Space and its Thales parent company signed $400 million worth of contracts for the Galileo Second Generation satellite navigation program, SpaceX is closing in on a $150 billion valuation, Lockheed Martin reported higher quarterly space revenue, India’s space sector is booming, we’ll soon see how well alcohol and zero gravity mix, and so much more.

The activity follows approval for satellite-driven 5G non-terrestrial networks (5G NTNs) from the 3GPP global telecommunications standards’ body

5G non-terrestrial networks could help to provide complete global 5G coverage – including areas currently not served by terrestrial networks

This initial work in France would be to test and validate 5G NTN to gain leverage from the satellite and ICT ecosystem  

STOCKHOLM (Ericsson PR) — Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), French aerospace company Thales (Euronext Paris: HO), and wireless technology innovator Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) are planning to take 5G out of this world and across a network of Earth-orbiting satellites.

Contract amendment signed for development and qualification of the IRIS radar altimeter

CANNES, France, June 27, 2022 (Thales Alenia Space PR) — Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), today signed an amendment to the CRISTAL contract with Airbus Defence and Space, prime contractor for the satellite. The amendment provides for the development and qualification of IRIS, the Interferometric Radar Altimeter for Ice and Snow to be carried on the Copernicus polaR Ice and Snow Topography ALtimeter (CRISTAL) mission. CRISTAL is part of the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Expansion program, in partnership with the European Commission. Copernicus is a European flagship program providing Earth observation and in situ data, along with a broad range of services for environmental monitoring and protection, climate monitoring and natural disaster assessment to improve the quality of life for all European citizens.

• 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.

CANNES, France, June 9, 2022 (Thales Alenia Space PR) – The NILESAT 301 communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%) for the Egyptian operator NILESAT was successfully launched today from Cape Canaveral launch pad, Florida (USA), on board of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

This Launch Completes Deployment of the ‘Omnispace Spark Program,’ Bringing the Delivery of World’s First Global Hybrid Mobile Network One Step Closer

TYSONS, Va. and TOULOUSE, France (Omnispace, LLC PR) — Omnispace and Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), today announced the successful launch and delivery of “Omnispace Spark-2™” satellite into orbit. This marks the completion of the deployment phase of the “Omnispace Spark™” program, the initial phase in the company’s development and delivery of the world’s first 5G capable satellite network.

Cannes (Thales Alenia Space PR) –  Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has signed an amendment to its CO2M contract worth €169 million with project prime contractor OHB System for the development and qualification of the payloads for the first two satellites in the CO2M mission, part of Europe’s Copernicus program. Copernicus is the core satellite Earth-observation program of the European Commission and a cornerstone of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) activities in this field, providing Earth observation data for environmental protection, climate monitoring, natural disaster assessment and other social tasks. 

RIYADH, April 29, 2022 (ARABSAT PR) – ARABSAT, the leading regional satellite operator in the Middle East and Africa, and Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), have signed a contract to build ARABSAT-7A, a fully flexible Software-Defined Satellite (SDS) based on the Space Inspire (INstant SPace In-orbit REconfiguration) platform by Thales Alenia Space.

With this contract, ARABSAT joins the exclusive club of geostationary satellite operators who have chosen this revolutionary technology to empower their business and transition from traditional bent-pipe GEO satellites to the highly agile and adaptable SDSs which are expected to change the face of the geostationary satcom industry. Indeed, the Space Inspire platform will enable seamless telecom mission and services reconfiguration of the ARABSAT-7A satellite, instant in-orbit adjustment to broadband connectivity demand, and superior video broadcasting performance while maximizing the effective use of satellite resources.

This demonstration is the keystone of an agreement between the two companies to enable new capabilities in the intersection of space and cloud.

CANNES, France, April 4, 2022 (Thales Alenia Space PR) – Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) (67%) and Leonardo (Milan stock exchange: LDO) (33%), announced a strategic collaboration with Microsoft to explore the enablement of new capabilities in the Space Edge Computing (SEC), Artificial Intelligence Space Observation tools (DeeperVision) and Digital Ground Segment.

In particular, Thales Alenia Space plans to deliver advanced connectivity, analytics and compute in space with Space Edge Computing (SEC) with Microsoft. To this end, the companies will demonstrate and validate on-orbit computing technologies and potentialities onboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023. Thales Alenia Space will deploy a powerful on-orbit computer, an on-orbit application framework, and high-performance Earth Observation sensors to unlock new on-orbit climate data processing applications for the benefits of our planet sustainability. Thales Alenia Space will work with Microsoft Research in remote sensing, computer vision and climate science to demonstrate the potential of next-generation on-orbit compute for Earth observation. This space edge computing capacity will allow gathering faster, to-the-point Earth observation insights immediately applicable for our planet’s surveillance, understanding and protection.

Selected by the European Space Agency, Thales Alenia Space leads study to develop a demonstration payload to extract oxygen from Moon rock

BRISTOL, UK, February 23, 2022 (Thales Alenia Space PR) – Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has signed a study contract with the European Space Agency worth one million euros for a payload concept to extract oxygen from Moon rock.