Canadian NorthStar Earth and Space has signed a multiple-launch deal with Rocket Lab after Virgin Orbit’s bankruptcy disrupted its plans to begin deploying space situational awareness (SSA) satellites this summer. Rocket Lab, NorthStar announced on June 22, has signed a contract to launch the company’s first four satellites on an Electron rocket this fall. Spire Global provides satellites of 16 cubic sats each.

NorthStar had planned to launch three satellites in the first batch with Virgin Orbit before the air launch company went bankrupt in April. NorthStar COO David St. According to Germain, using Electron’s greater power to place more satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) gives more coverage to the SSA system right from the start for early adopters.

St., who joined the company shortly before Virgin Orbit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He added that it is a testament to the maturity of the industry. “So, a few years ago that wouldn’t have been possible.”

According to him, the agreement with Rocket Lab provides for two more missions of four satellites that could begin launching next year. At least 12 satellites are required to provide full commercial services from the SSA platform, designed to track objects as small as five centimeters in LEO and 40 centimeters in fixed orbit.

The agreement between NorthStar and Spire includes options for up to 30 satellites that will allow the SSA platform to track these objects more frequently. While the frequency of viewing depends on the type of object and orbit, St. Germain said that a LEO object could eventually come into view of an entire fleet of space cameras several times an hour.

“If there is an impact that creates a cloud of debris in space, and you don’t follow that debris often enough, you may collide with others. [супутниками]before I had time to move them,” he said.

“So it’s really important to reduce this time so that you have tracking accuracy and can switch to a tactical mode – you can actually enable behaviors that you couldn’t do if you only saw the object once a day.”

He said the company is exploring inter-satellite communications and onboard processing capabilities to reduce the time it takes to transmit tracking information to customers on the ground. st. According to Germain, unlike ground-based telescopes that track one object at a time, NorthStar’s optical satellites will be able to simultaneously capture all objects passing through their field of view. The SSA system is also designed to assist in tracking unknown objects in Earth orbit.

“When you do something from the ground, it’s very difficult to detect unknown objects because you have to know what you’re looking for to track it,” he said.

“When you’re in space, it cuts off your field of vision. So we’re going to see everything we don’t know and collect data like never before.”

NorthStar has yet to disclose the list of commercial and government customers it says have signed up for partial SSA service that will use the first four satellites. In early January, the company announced it had raised $35 million to fund its plans. The emerging SSA market has also seen recent financing deals for startups including Vyoma, Digantara. And Scout Space.

Several aerospace companies, including Rocket Lab, which bought the company’s main manufacturing facility in Long Beach, California, agreed to buy Virgin Orbit’s assets following its bankruptcy. Saint-Germain said Rocket Lab plans to deploy the first batch of NorthStar satellites from the launch pad in New Zealand. Source