Spaceflight Industries

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]

This article is about the company. For the topic, see space industry and aerospace industry. For the launch services provider, see Spaceflight, Inc.

Spaceflight Industries
Private
IndustryAerospace
Founded2009 (2009)
FounderJason Andrews
Headquarters
Herndon, Virginia,
United States
Subsidiaries
Websitespaceflightindustries.com

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

Spaceflight 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, Mr. Andrews worked at Kistler Aerospace and founded Andrews Space in 1999. Mr. 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, in order to invest more funds in BlackSky.[2]

BlackSky

BlackSky, Spaceflight Industries' geospatial intelligence service, plans to offer on-demand images from a constellation of satellites.[13] Their first satellite, Pathfinder-1, was launched on 26 September 2016, and the first pictures were released publicly on 14 November 2016.[14] In late 2018, BlackSky launched Global-1 and Global-2, two of the company's next generation global satellites, aboard the SSO-A mission. The company is aiming for a 60-satellite constellation, which will offer 1-meter resolution and rapid satellite revisit rates.[15] The satellite constellation is currently being built by LeoStella LLC, a joint venture between Spaceflight Industries and Thales Alenia Space.[16]

gollark: Why don't you?
gollark: Or even nonlisp.
gollark: Question: am I to inevitably rewrite minoteaur in lisp of some sort?
gollark: Arguments ascending into metaargumentative space is always fun and cool.
gollark: Inevitably.

References
  1. "Spaceflight Industries About page".
  2. "Spaceflight Industries, Inc. Completes Sale of Rideshare Business" (Press release). Herndon, Virginina. Businesswire. 12 June 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  3. Foust, Jeff (18 February 2019). "LeoStella looks for more customers as it opens satellite factory". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  4. "Company Experience". Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
  5. "Spaceflight Inc. to Fly Payloads on LauncherOne". 20 July 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
  6. "Spaceflight Inc. Tapped To Find Rides for STP Satellite". Space News, 30 April 2012.
  7. Messier, Doug (24 June 2015). "AllSource, BlackSky Form Imagery Partnership – Parabolic Arc". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  8. Andrews, Jason; Springmann, John; Brzytwa, Philip; Blake, Curt (4 August 2014). "Spaceflight Networks – A New Paradigm for Cost Effective Satellite Communications". Small Satellite Conference.
  9. Foust, Jeff (17 July 2015). "Spaceflight Networks and Spire Partner on Smallsat Ground Network". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  10. Messier, Doug (3 June 2015). "Spaceflight Integrates 3 Service Lines in New Website – Parabolic Arc". Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  11. "Seattle firm says 60-satellite service will make Earth images faster, cheaper". The Seattle Times. 16 June 2015.
  12. de Selding, Peter B. (16 June 2015). "BlackSky Global Says it's Poised To Cover Globe with 60 Smallsats". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  13. "Introducing BlackSky Spectra".
  14. "Hello Beautiful! Our first pictures from Pathfinder-1".
  15. "BlackSky website".
  16. "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.
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