HERNDON, Va. (February 13, 2024) — BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) won multi-year contracts that include Assured access to subscription-based low-latency, high-cadence imagery and AI-enabled analytics services. The deals also include the delivery of one high-resolution Earth observation satellite and launch support operations and on-orbit maintenance services. These contracts have a combined eight-figure value.

“Contributing to the development of India’s commercial Earth observation capabilities is an immense honor, and we look forward to supporting our customer’s upcoming launch and on-orbit operations. BlackSky’s combined offering will provide India immediate foresight into critical events impacting the nation as it continues to expand its sovereign space capabilities over the next few years,” said Brian O’Toole, BlackSky CEO.

“The customer has taken an innovative two-part adoption approach toward accelerating its space-based monitoring capabilities by first taking advantage of our commercially operated model for on-orbit sensor systems, while simultaneously activating a Spectra® subscription, which provides immediate access to BlackSky’s high-resolution, low-latency imagery and AI-enabled analytics services,” said Brian O’Toole, BlackSky CEO.

With subscription-based Assured access to BlackSky’s current high-cadence, real-time imagery and analytics services, the customer has guaranteed access and first-priority tasking capacity over their national and regional areas of interest. Once operational, the high-resolution, electro-optical satellite will work in parallel to BlackSky’s dynamic monitoring constellation to deliver mission-relevant insights at industry-leading speeds.

About BlackSky

BlackSky is a real-time, space-based intelligence company that delivers on-demand, high frequency imagery, analytics, and high-frequency monitoring of the most critical and strategic locations, economic assets, and events in the world. BlackSky owns and operates one of the industry’s most advanced, purpose-built commercial, real-time intelligence systems that combines the power of the BlackSky Spectra® tasking and analytics software platform and our proprietary low earth orbit satellite constellation. With BlackSky, customers can see, understand and anticipate changes for a decisive strategic advantage at the tactical edge, and act not just fast, but first. BlackSky is trusted by some of the most demanding U.S. and international government agencies, commercial businesses, and organizations around the world. BlackSky is headquartered in Herndon, VA, and is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange as BKSY.

Source: BlackSky

Vast is making rapid progress in designing and engineering Haven-1, establishing ourselves as a space station company—a title we believe is only earned by successfully building a station and safely hosting crew in orbit. Today, there are no operational commercial space station companies—only those working to achieve that milestone.

With the successful completion of the first crewed mission to Haven-1 on the updated timeline outlined below, Vast is on track to become the world’s first operational commercial space station company—well ahead of any other efforts. We kicked off the development of Haven-1, the first commercial space station, as part of a strategic plan to rapidly iterate on space station manufacturing for three main reasons:

1. Win NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destination (CLD) Phase II Contract

Vast was founded in 2021. At the time, NASA had already launched the CLD program and awarded funding to other companies. Recognizing the need for a leapfrog strategy, we developed Haven-1 to set us apart. When NASA selects its partner(s) to carry forward its low-Earth orbit (LEO) legacy, we will be the only company operating a crewed space station—one we designed, built, tested, and verified for safety entirely in-house. Every lesson learned from Haven-1 will be applied to our CLD Phase II proposal—Haven-2. No team will have more operational experience than Vast. No design will carry as much flight heritage. No company will be better positioned to deliver for NASA as fast—thanks to our work and over $1 billion investment in Haven-1 ahead of CLD Phase II.

2. Build a World-Class Team, Processes, and Facilities for Crewed Space Systems

‍At Vast, we believe that building a spacecraft under real-world budget and timeline constraints is the only way to develop the capabilities required for a successful space station. Others focus solely on design milestones, but what works on paper often breaks down when faced with manufacturing, supply chain, and testing realities. For example, Vast initially selected stainless steel as the primary structural material for Haven-1. However, due to manufacturing challenges and delays, we launched a parallel effort in November 2023 to explore aluminum as an alternative. By March 2024, after hands-on manufacturing experience with both materials, our team completed a trade study and selected aluminum—driven by real-world constraints, not theoretical assumptions. This philosophy applies to every critical subsystem, including avionics, control moment gyroscopes (CMGs), power systems, life support, and propulsion. We are actively maturing these technologies in-house and with trusted partners to ensure they are mission-ready for Haven-1 and future Vast stations. These are just a few reasons why no bidder will have more direct experience going into the CLD Phase II selection than Vast.

3. Ensure a Continuous U.S. and International Partner Presence in LEO

‍With the planned retirement of the ISS in 2030, we believe that it is imperative that the U.S. government have at least two years of overlap between its decommissioning and any successor station. To fill this critical gap, Vast is committed to developing safe, capable space stations at unprecedented speed and cost efficiency. By leveraging Haven-1’s proven design, team, facilities, and subsystems, we are confident that, if selected by mid-2026, we can launch Haven-2’s first module and have it ready to host crew as early as the end of 2028. <‍h3>Haven-1 Primary Structure Development ‍

Vast rapidly built the Haven-1 primary structure qualification article—the first space station primary structure built in the U.S. in over two decades—to demonstrate its ability to withstand the launch and on-orbit environments throughout its operational lifetime. This effort began with the Haven-1 Pathfinder article, manufactured between November 2023 and June 2024, which established the necessary tooling, team, and processes. The Pathfinder validated our ability to fabricate all critical geometries and interfaces required for Haven-1.

‍In July 2024, we began milling, inspecting, rolling, and welding the primary structure qualification article, completing it in six months. Building on that success, we began manufacturing our flight-ready primary structure in January 2025. We remain on track to complete it by July 2025—a major milestone leading into the Haven-1 flight integration campaign. Vast is producing space station primary structures in-house at an unprecedented pace—under six months per hull. This efficiency sets a new benchmark in space station manufacturing and is a key differentiator in our bid to succeed the ISS.

Vertically integrated production of Haven-1 is happening in the United States. This approach strengthens U.S. leadership in space and benefits our future international partners, ensuring an affordable, rapid build of the successor to the ISS, and preventing any gap in human spaceflight and scientific research in LEO.

Haven-1 Primary Structure Qualification Proof Test

‍On Friday, January 31, our team began the test campaign for Haven-1’s primary structure qualification article after completing all on-test stand integration tasks, procedure checks, and rehearsals. This marks the first of many full-scale vehicle test campaigns for Vast. We initiated the test with a decay leak check at 0.2 barD, which passed successfully. Next, we performed the proof test, pressurizing the vehicle to 1.8 barD (26 psig). ‍Following this, we maintained the vehicle at 3 psi (0.2 bar) for 48 hours without adding new nitrogen gas to measure the leak rate. The leak rate was indiscernible, exceeding our 1.2 standard cubic centimeters per minute requirement. This test procedure follows NASA-STD-5001, ensuring compliance with rigorous safety and performance standards. ‍

Testing Results

‍We are proud to report that Haven-1 successfully passed its primary structure qualification proof test on the first attempt—a critical milestone in our journey. This achievement demonstrates: The full proof qualification of a space station pressure vessel, A space station structure designed, built, and tested entirely in-house by Vast, A record timeline—completed in just 15 months from zero aluminum work to a proof tested structure. This is just the beginning of Vast’s vehicle operations. Our team is incredibly proud of this milestone and remains focused on what’s next. Over the coming weeks, we will complete the full qualification test campaign, which involves: Applying simulated launch and on-orbit forces using hydraulic actuators, Conducting structural load tests under pressure. In the meantime, our core team remains focused on our critical path—building the Haven-1 flight primary structure.

About Vast

Founded in 2021 by Jed McCaleb, Vast is developing humanity’s next-generation space stations and pioneering the path to long-term living and thriving in space. Haven-1, scheduled to be the world’s first commercial space station, is currently in development and is expected to launch NET May 2026. Vast is also developing Haven-2, the proposed successor to the International Space Station (ISS), designed to serve NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program as a micro-gravity laboratory in space. Vast’s long-term ambition is to create artificial gravity habitations that enable humans to live in space, reaffirming its commitment to ensuring a spacefaring future for all.

Source: Vast ‍ ‍

SAN FRANCISCO--Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, today announced the signing of a multi-year $230 million agreement to expand its partnership with a long-standing, Asia-Pacific commercial partner. Pursuant to the agreement, Planet will build and deliver a constellation of new Pelican high resolution satellites, securing certain capacity on the satellites for the partner, in addition to providing operational services. Planet will leverage the increased capacity of the expanded fleet to serve its own government and commercial customers around the world.

“This agreement represents a significant milestone for Planet, it is our largest contract to date, and is a major step forward in what we see as a very large market opportunity for satellite services,” said Will Marshall, Planet’s CEO and Co-founder. “These types of partnerships are a win-win: our partners gain critical satellite capabilities and priority access to leading-edge technology, while they help Planet accelerate key space programs and create synergistic benefits for all our customers. We are strategically pursuing a select number of similar opportunities, spanning our Pelican, Tanager and SuperDove satellites across the defense and intelligence, civil government, and commercial sectors.”

“Today’s announcement builds on Planet’s ability to leverage its advanced space systems capabilities and IP to create unique value for partners,” said James Mason, Planet’s Chief Space Officer. “Our trusted partners have long expressed interest in our proprietary space systems technology and we’re proud to be able to fulfill their needs with our satellites and services. Our vertical integration and agile aerospace capabilities enable us to scale to customer and partner demand.”

Planet expects to recognize the $230 million of commercial payments from the partner as revenue over the build and operational service period of the satellites, which is estimated to be approximately seven years. Today’s announcement does not change Planet’s previously issued fourth quarter financial guidance provided as part of the Company’s December 9, 2024, earnings release.

“As shared on our prior earnings calls, we view these types of opportunities as highly strategic, enabling us to provide a differentiated capability for key partners and strengthen our financial position without taking on dilutive capital or debt,” said Ashley Johnson, Planet’s President and Chief Financial Officer. “We expect this expanded partnership will be meaningfully cash flow accretive to Planet in FY'26, and will strengthen our balance sheet for FY'27 and beyond. We look forward to sharing more details on our next earnings call.”

This is the third strategic space systems partnership Planet has signed in the last four years. In partnership with the Carbon Mapper Coalition, Planet has built, launched and deployed Tanager, a first-of-its-kind hyperspectral satellite, which is now producing a powerful dataset for use by customers and partners across government and commercial markets. In support of NASA’s Communications Services Project (CSP), Planet is developing real-time space-to-space connectivity solutions between Pelican and partner satellites with technology demonstrations onboard Planet’s Smallsat platform in 2025.

Pelican is Planet’s next generation high resolution satellite, which enables continuity and enhancements over the current SkySat fleet, including in image quality, spectral bands, imaging capacity and latency. Planet successfully launched the Pelican-2 satellite on January 14, 2025, including the latest NVIDIA GPU processor for AI on the edge and satellite to satellite communications, which are together designed to enable Planet to deliver critical data to its customers in minutes rather than hours.

Planet’s geospatial data supports a range of applications—commercial, governmental, and public benefit—in agriculture, land use, defense, insurance, and sustainability. By offering real-time insights into global events like conflicts, disasters, natural resources, and commerce, Planet enhances efforts to advance peace and security, manage resources, and create business value.

About Planet

Planet is a leading provider of global, daily satellite imagery and geospatial solutions. Planet is driven by a mission to image the world every day, and make change visible, accessible and actionable. Founded in 2010 by three NASA scientists, Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest Earth observation fleet of imaging satellites. Planet provides mission-critical data, advanced insights, and software solutions to over 1,000 customers, comprising the world’s leading agriculture, forestry, intelligence, education and finance companies and government agencies, enabling users to simply and effectively derive unique value from satellite imagery. Planet is a public benefit corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange as PL. To learn more visit www.planet.com and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) or tune in to HBO's ‘Wild Wild Space’.

Source: Planet Labs

We’re thrilled to share that at Spaceium, we have successfully closed an oversubscribed seed round of $6.3 million, led by Initialized Capital. After participating in Y Combinator’s Summer 2024 batch, we met our fundraising goal in just four weeks and quickly became oversubscribed due to strong investor interest. We’re gearing up for our demonstration mission as we work toward building the space superhighway.

We bootstrapped out of our laundry room in the early days before raising angel investments. Despite enormous growth in the space industry, missions are currently limited to the amount of fuel a spacecraft can carry. After dozens of iterations and prototypes, we’ve developed groundbreaking technology to make in-space refueling a reality. Once our refueling stations are operational, they’ll revolutionize the possibilities and economics of human activity in space. Enabling refueling in space allows spacecraft to extend lifespans, conduct more operations, reduce launch costs, and carry heavier payloads.

Fuel is invaluable for spacecraft and satellite operators—nothing can reach or function in space without propellant. That’s where we come in. Spaceium is tackling this critical need with a robust pipeline of customers already requiring multiple metric tons of fuel per mission. Two of our leading breakthrough technologies are our proprietary fuel tanks, which can store propellant in space for multiple years, and the advanced robotic arms we developed in-house.

We’re fortunate to be backed by an amazing group of investors. Y Combinator and Initialized Capital—known for supporting unicorns like Rippling, Coinbase, and Reddit—led our round. Other incredible participants include Zeno Ventures, Olive Tree Capital, DTX Ventures, 16Z Scout Fund, Crosscourt Ventures, Giangels, Calm Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Spacedust Ventures, Capitalize Funds, Outfit Ventures, Mergus Ventures, Hydrocarbon Minerals, and an exceptional group of angel investors like Saturning Pugnet (Worldcoin), Justin Hamilton (Clutterbot), and Benjamin Bryant (Earbits). “With launch costs already steadily decreasing, we think Spaceium is pursuing the next highest-leverage orbital financial solution,” says Andrew Sather, partner at Initialized Capital. “In-space refueling will greatly expand the capabilities and 4X the productive lifespans of their clients’ on-orbit assets. These remarkable founders will revolutionize the economics of space.”

Our vision is bold. Within the next five years, Spaceium’s refueling stations—capable of carrying multiple metric tons of fuel—will support missions across Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO), Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Geostationary Orbit (GEO), the moon, and Mars. We look forward to partnering with government agencies, commercial space programs, and businesses operating in and traveling to these destinations.

With this funding, we’re ready to demonstrate our refueling technology in orbit and recruit an incredible team of builders.

We are going to Mars. We’re going to deep space. And we’ll get there using fuel from Spaceium.

Source: Spaceium

Helsinki, Finland - January 15, 2025 - ICEYE, the global leader in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite operations for high-fidelity Earth Observation, persistent monitoring, and natural catastrophe solutions, has successfully launched and deployed four new SAR satellites into orbit. The satellites were integrated via Exolaunch and successfully lifted off on January 14 aboard the Transporter-12 Rideshare mission with SpaceX from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA. Each spacecraft has established communication, and early routine operations are underway.

Including today’s launch, ICEYE has launched 44 satellites into orbit for the company and its customers since 2018. ICEYE now exclusively launches satellites that deliver 25 cm resolution, the highest fidelity in the industry. ICEYE plans to launch more than 20 new satellites annually in 2025 and beyond.

The new satellites serve both ICEYE’s commercial and dedicated customer missions and were manufactured by ICEYE in Finland and by ICEYE US in the United States. The satellites include the second ICEYE satellite for Space42, a UAE-based AI-powered SpaceTech company with a global reach, for the company’s previously announced Earth Observation Space Program.

"Through the continuous and reliable deployment of new satellites into the ICEYE constellation, we are reinforcing our leadership position in Earth Observation. ICEYE’s revolutionary satellites have a ground-breaking combination of capabilities - smaller size and high performance - which ICEYE as the only company in the market can deliver to customers. Our team is focused on our commitment to working as a trusted partner for governments and industries worldwide. With today’s announcement, we also celebrate the launch of the second ICEYE satellite for Space42, and we look forward to further successful collaboration on their missions and developing the UAE’s space capabilities," said Rafal Modrzewski, CEO and Co-Founder of ICEYE.

Hasan Al Hosani, CEO of Bayanat Smart Solutions, Space42, said: “Foresight-2 has furthered the UAE’s position as a global leader in satellite-based Earth observation, while enabling us to strengthen our credentials as a multi-orbit satellite operator. Through the SAR constellation, we continue to drive the development of our local satellite manufacturing capabilities, while boosting nation-wide preparedness for emergency response; ensuring we deliver maximum value to our customers in the region and beyond.”

The new satellites further expand the world’s largest SAR constellation, owned and operated by ICEYE. SAR satellites can image any location on the Earth’s surface in any environmental condition, day or night. SAR data provides precise, near real-time insights for ICEYE’s government and commercial customers.

ICEYE’s previous launch in December 2024 successfully deployed two new satellites into the constellation. During 2024 ICEYE successfully launched nine new satellites.

About ICEYE

ICEYE delivers unparalleled persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes in any location on Earth, faster and more accurately than ever before.

Owning the world's largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, ICEYE provides objective, near real-time insights, ensuring that customers have unmatched access to actionable high-quality data, day or night, even in challenging environmental conditions. As a trusted partner to governments and commercial industries, ICEYE delivers intelligence in sectors such as insurance, natural catastrophe response and recovery, security, maritime monitoring, and finance, enabling decision-making that contributes to community resilience and sustainable development. ICEYE operates internationally with offices in Finland, Poland, Spain, the UK, Australia, Japan, UAE, Greece, and the US. We have more than 700 employees, inspired by the shared vision of improving life on Earth by becoming the global source of truth in Earth Observation.

Source: ICEYE

More Articles …