Artist’s rendition of a satellite – mechanik/123RF Stock Photo
Last week the second satellite in Airbus’ Pléiades Neo Earth Observation (EO) constellation was successfully launched from French Guiana onboard ArianeSpace’s Vega rocket.
Pléiades Neo 4 is the second in what will be a four-satellite constellation. The first satellite, Pléiades Neo 3, was launched in April, and the latest launch will be going into the same 620 km sun-synchronous orbit, but 180 degrees out of phase.
The Pleiades Neo constellation will offer high-resolution imaging with a 30 cm spatial resolution and a swath width of 14 km. Once complete, the four satellites will provide coverage of the entire Earth between two and four times per day. The data is for military or civilian uses such as disaster response, and will use the Airbus SpaceDataHighway (EDRS) geostationary satellites to enable urgent acquisitions to be available less than 40 minutes after tasking, enabling near-real time imaging which is critical for disaster situations.
Alongside Pléiades Neo 4, four cubesats were launched:
- BRO 4 (Breizh Reconnaissance Orbiter) developed by French company UnseenLabs, is a spectrum monitoring and electromagnetic intelligence service for maritime and aerial traffic surveillance. It is the fourth satellite in a planned constellation of 20 – 25 satellites in the next four years.
- RADCUBEfrom Hungarian manufacturer C3S aims to demonstrate instruments for real-time monitoring of the cosmic radiation and space weather.
- LEDSAT(LED-based small Satellite) an educational project from the University of Sapienza in Italy, is equipped with LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) and retroreflectors for optical tracking with ground-based telescopes and laser ranging observatories and aims to test technology for tracking low Earth orbit satellites. Currently, to track LEO satellites the satellite must be in sunlight, while the ground-based telescope must be in darkness, but the LED’s will increase visability and allow more frequent and more precise tracking.
- Sunstorm is a demonstrator mission of a solar X-ray flux monitor by Finish space solutions firm Reaktor Space Lab’s, to monitoring solar X-ray flares.
Last weekend, Arianespace also launched the latest 34 satellites in the OneWeb constellation on board its Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. OneWeb currently have 288 satellites in orbit, which is 44% of their planned 650 constellation. Although, OneWeb is focused on satellite broadband in competition with SpaceX, it’s part ownership by the UK Government has led to speculation that it is intended to become the backbone of the UK Government’s ambition to have its own satellite navigation system following the loss of access to Galieo with Brexit. The original plan to build an independent UK Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) was dropped in September last year following a study, instead now there is the Space-Based Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) Programme, exploring “new and alternative ways” to provide PNT services. Three months ago the UK Space Agency issued study awards worth more than two million pounds to six companies — Airbus, CGI, GMV NSL, Inmarsat, QinetiQ and Sirius Analysis — to study aspects of these alternative PNT systems, although it is unclear precisely what it being looked at. It will be interesting to see how, if at all, OneWeb could be part of any future solution.
Finally, an interesting update from Virgin Orbit, the horizontal satellite launch firm, which is key to our local spaceport in Newquay, Cornwall. It announced this week that it will merge with the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) NextGen Acquisition Corp II this year, in deal that will also see Boeing and AE Industrial Partnersinvest in the new company. This follows similar deals for Planet and Satellogic which we highlighted recently, and will give the new organisation an almost $500 million cash injection.
This new organisation is expected to move from purely launching other people’s satellites into launching its own, with the establishment of a ‘space solutions’ business launching EO and Internet Of Things (IOT) satellites, with a focus on agriculture, aviation, maritime and pipeline monitoring applications using visible, infrared and radar imagery. It plans to launch two IOT and two EO satellites in two years time, to be followed by more, although the exact size of the constellation is still to be confirmed.
It’s interesting that a new entrant is coming into the EO industry with the potential to be a significant player, and shows it that the EO market is still on an upward growth curve.
