Spaceleaks daily: Mar 26, 2021

The newsletter for space professionals

Spaceleaks daily: Mar 26, 2021

Worldwide:

• Taiwan: Look beyond US for ties on space
• UK Space Sector receives £1 Million government boost to support international innovation
• NASA Provides $45M Boost to US Small Businesses

Business:

• Rocket builder ABL raises $170 million from T. Rowe, Fidelity to become the latest space unicorn
• Redwire to become publicly traded through merger with Genesis Park Acquisition Corp.
• Satellite data services company SpaceLink opens Virginia HQ
• Mojave Spaceport Names Todd Lindner as new CEO
• Rocket Lab inks deal to launch five missions for BlackSky constellation
• Sky Perfect JSAT orders first Airbus satellite
• AIAA announces election of trustees and treasurer to Board of Trustees
• Space Force begins loaning anti-jamming GPS tech to allies
• Soyuz rocket launches OneWeb satellites from Russia

Technology:

• The 2 key parts of NASA and ISRO’s disaster satellite just came together
• SolAero technologies powers OneWeb’s satellite constellation
• Fleet Space Technologies applies for a Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI) grant to revolutionise satellite manufacturing
• BlackSky’s newest satellite delivers first insights within 24 hours
• Space Surveillance Telescope to assist in Space Domain Awareness

Science:

• The menu for Mars: designing a Deep Space food system
• NASA Harvest partners with CropX to combine soil monitoring and satellite data

Education:

• UNOOSA launches third edition of Space4Youth competition. To participate, anyone aged 18-35 years should submit an essay on “Space as a tool to foster climate adaptation and mitigation.”

Cathie Wood’s latest ETF could launch as soon as next week based on regulatory filing dates. ARKX filed on January 13, making March 29 the earliest date Ark could complete the SEC approval process, Bloomberg first reported. Also, Maxar has 40% upside, JPMorgan says in upgrade.

Redwire and Genesis Park Acquisition Corp announced a definitive merger agreement that values Redwire at a pro forma enterprise value of $615 million. The transaction is expected to deliver approximately $170 million cash to the Redwire balance sheet (assuming no redemptions).

OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson does not see Elon Musk’s space business as a direct competitor and has explained why their product is different than Starlink. For the Indian market, analysts say that they are both likely to remain much more expensive than mobile and wired broadband since India is among the 30-odd countries worldwide that continue to limit access to satellite services. The country already has 63% 4G penetration, offers the lowest mobile data rates in the world and sees high data consumption levels at 12 GB per month per user

Researchers have produced a structural battery that performs ten times better than all previous versions, and a new project financed by the Swedish National Space Agency is underway, where the performance of the structural battery will be increased yet further and the weight decreased.