Spaceflight Industries, Inc. is an American private aerospace company based out of Herndon, Virginia, that specializes in geospatial intelligence services.[1] It sold its satellite rideshare business, Spaceflight, Inc., in June 2020.[2]
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Founder | Jason Andrews |
| Headquarters | |
| Subsidiaries |
|
| Website | spaceflight |
Spaceflight Industries has two primary business services: BlackSky Global, their geospatial intelligence service, and LeoStella, a joint venture with Thales Alenia Space to manufacture small satellites.[3]
History
editSpaceflight Industries was founded in 2009 as Spaceflight Services by Jason Andrews, with Curt Blake joining soon thereafter as SVP and General Counsel.[4] Prior to founding Spaceflight, Jason Andrews worked at Kistler Aerospace and founded Andrews Space in 1999. Jason Blake has previous experience at Microsoft, Starwave, SpaceDev, and GotVoice.[4]
Spaceflight Services purchased excess capacity from commercial launch vehicles and resold it to a number of "rideshare" secondary payloads, along with providing integration and certification services.[4] By integrating all of the secondary satellites as one discrete unit to the launch vehicle, they were able to provide a significant price discount to reach orbit compared to buying an entire launch vehicle.[5][6]
Blacksky Global was founded in 2013 as an independent company owned by Spaceflight specializing in imaging-as-a-service.[7]
Spaceflight Networks was started in 2014 to provide a network of ground stations for low-latency communication with cubesats and other small satellites.[8][9]
In 2015, Spaceflight Services, Spaceflight Systems (formerly Andrews Space), and Spaceflight Networks, were consolidated under the Spaceflight Industries brand.[10] The same year, Blacksky announced plans for a constellation of 60 satellites that would provide low-cost satellite imagery of any location on Earth within 90 minutes.[11][12]
In March 2018, Spaceflight and Thales Alenia Space announced a joint venture, LeoStella, to build small satellites. LeoStella opened its production facility in February 2019.[3]
In 2020, Spaceflight Industries sold its rideshare business, Spaceflight, Inc. to Mitsui and Yamasa. BlackSky was not part of this deal.[2]
Through a business combination with Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp. (a SPAC), in September 2021 Blacksky became a separate company quoted on the NYSE (ticker: BKSY). The business combination grossed over $280 million in capital to fund Blacksky's growth plan. At the time, BlackSky Global constellation had seven satellites in low Earth orbit; the planned full complement for the constellation was at the time 30 satellites.[13]
BlackSky
editBlackSky started out as a subsidiary of Spaceflight Industries as its geospatial intelligence service, to offer on-demand images from a constellation of satellites.[14] Their first satellite, BlackSky Pathfinder-1, was launched on 26 September 2016, and the first pictures were released publicly on 14 November 2016.[15] In late 2018, BlackSky launched BlackSky Global-1 and BlackSky Global-2, two of the company's next generation global satellites, aboard the SSO-A mission. The company was aiming for a 60-satellite constellation, which would offer 1-meter resolution and rapid satellite revisit rates.[16] The satellite constellation was being built by LeoStella LLC, a joint venture between Spaceflight Industries and Thales Alenia Space.[17] BlackSky Global-3 and BlackSky Global-4 satellites were launched aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket in August 2019,[18] and BlackSky Global-7 and BlackSky Global-8 were launched in August 2020 as part of the SXRS-1 rideshare mission.[19] BlackSky Global-9 was launched 22 March 2021 on an Electron Photon but two more on an Electron KS on 15 May 2021 failed.[20] Two further BlackSky satellites were launched and successfully deployed into orbit on April 2, 2022 by Rocket Lab aboard another Electron rocket.[21]
In January 2020, BlackSky received a contract from the U.S. Army to prototype satellites with 50-centimeter resolution. In September 2020, they unveiled their third generation of satellites, scheduled to launch in 2022, that would provide 50-centimeter resolution imagery. They also announced that 16 of the second generation satellites would be launched before phasing in the third-generation units.[22]
| Satellite | Launch Vehicle | Launch Date |
|---|---|---|
| BlackSky Pathfinder 1 | PSLV-G | 26.09.2016 |
| BlackSky Global 1 | PSLV-CA | 29.11.2018 |
| BlackSky Global 2 | Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5) | 03.12.2018 |
| BlackSky Global 3 | Electron | 29.06.2019 |
| BlackSky Global 4 | Electron | 19.08.2019 |
| BlackSky Global 7 | Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5) | 07.08.2020 |
| BlackSky Global 8 | Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5) | 07.08.2020 |
| BlackSky Global 9 | Electron | 22.03.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 10 | Electron | 15.05.2021 Launch failure |
| BlackSky Global 11 | Electron | 15.05.2021 Launch failure |
| BlackSky Global 14 | Electron | 18.11.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 15 | Electron | 18.11.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 12 | Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5) | 02.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 13 | Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5) | 02.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 16 | Electron | 09.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 17 | Electron | 09.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 18 | Electron | 02.04.2022 |
| BlackSky Global 20 | Electron | 02.04.2022 |
| BlackSky Global 19 | Electron | 24.03.2023 |
| BlackSky Global 5 | Electron | 24.03.2023 |
| BlackSky Global 6 | SSLV | TBD - 2024 |
| BlackSky Global 21 | SSLV | TBD - 2024 |
References
edit
- ^ "Spaceflight Industries About page".
- ^ a b "Spaceflight Industries, Inc. Completes Sale of Rideshare Business" (Press release). Herndon, Virginia: Business Wire. 12 June 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ a b Foust, Jeff (18 February 2019). "LeoStella looks for more customers as it opens satellite factory". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ a b c "Company Experience". Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
- ^ "Spaceflight Inc. to Fly Payloads on LauncherOne". 20 July 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
- ^ "Spaceflight Inc. Tapped To Find Rides for STP Satellite" SpaceNews 30 April 2012.
- ^ Messier, Doug (24 June 2015). "AllSource, BlackSky Form Imagery Partnership". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ Andrews, Jason; Springmann, John; Brzytwa, Philip; Blake, Curt (4 August 2014). "Spaceflight Networks – A New Paradigm for Cost Effective Satellite Communications". Small Satellite Conference.
- ^ Foust, Jeff (17 July 2015). "Spaceflight Networks and Spire Partner on Smallsat Ground Network". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ Messier, Doug (3 June 2015). "Spaceflight Integrates 3 Service Lines in New Website". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ "Seattle firm says 60-satellite service will make Earth images faster, cheaper". The Seattle Times. 16 June 2015.
- ^ de Selding, Peter B. (16 June 2015). "BlackSky Global Says it's Poised To Cover Globe with 60 Smallsats". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- ^ "Beyond satellites: Now that it's gone public, BlackSky will boldly go into new markets". 13 September 2021.
- ^ "Introducing BlackSky Spectra". 5 April 2017.
- ^ "Hello Beautiful! Our first pictures from Pathfinder-1".
- ^ "BlackSky website".
- ^ "Thales Alenia Space, Telespazio and Spaceflight Industries Finalize Alliance to Manufacture Smallsats at Scale and Deliver Innovative Geospatial Services" (Press release). Business Wire. 13 March 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
- ^ Clark, Stephen (19 August 2019). "Rocket Lab launch fulfills initial block of BlackSky Earth-imaging satellites". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- ^ Meyerson, Hilary (11 August 2020). "SXRS-1 Launch Success!". Spaceflight. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- ^ "BlackSky 1, ..., 60". Retrieved 1 December 2021.
- ^ Foust, Jeff (2 April 2020). "Rocket Lab launches BlackSky satellites as it prepares for mid-air booster recovery". SpaceNews. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
- ^ "BlackSky to add high-resolution satellites in 2022, signs deal with U.S. Army". SpaceNews. 24 September 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
- ^ "BlackSky 1, ..., 60".