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]
![]() | |
Private | |
Industry | Aerospace |
Founded | 2009 |
Founder | Jason Andrews |
Headquarters | |
Subsidiaries |
|
Website | spaceflightindustries |
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]
References
- "Spaceflight Industries About page".
- "Spaceflight Industries, Inc. Completes Sale of Rideshare Business" (Press release). Herndon, Virginina. Businesswire. 12 June 2020. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- Foust, Jeff (18 February 2019). "LeoStella looks for more customers as it opens satellite factory". SpaceNews. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
- "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". Space News, 30 April 2012.
- Messier, Doug (24 June 2015). "AllSource, BlackSky Form Imagery Partnership – Parabolic Arc". 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.
- "Introducing BlackSky Spectra".
- "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.