Xplore wins USAF award for innovative Cislunar commercial capabilities

Xplore Inc., a commercial space company has announced they have won an Air Force award to study positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions for cislunar space. The award category, for commercial and technical innovations between the Earth and the Moon - is entirely new for the Air Force, which is investigating the capabilities necessary to extend operations beyond geosynchronous orbit to now include cislunar space. Today, Earth-orbiting satellites rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation circling the Earth at an altitude of about 20,000 km (12,427 miles) - to know where they are and how to navigate to a destination. This GPS infrastructure, a public service provided by the U.S. Government, is essential to satellite operations and separately has become an integral part of our daily lives. Smartphones receive GPS signals that allow us to seamlessly perform a wide range of tasks such as planning travel itineraries, hailing a rideshare, viewing local weather or ordering a pizza and tracking its delivery in real-time. Beyond Earth orbit an equivalent positioning and navigation system does not exist. Given this, it can be extremely difficult for spacecraft, landers or rovers on the Moon or on Mars to identify their exact position. Navigation considerations have been an integral part of Xplore's development strategy since the company started rigorously developing its platform and multi-mission Xcraft - an ESPA-class space vehicle that will fly missions at destinations from Earth to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and other locations across the inner solar system.

Beyond the more obvious hardware requirements for operating in extreme environments, Xplore will maximize the full value of its orbital assets by designing a PNT architecture that mirrors the accessibility and reliability of GPS for cislunar space. The Xcraft's ability to operate across these vast distances provides tremendous value to customers in academia, industry, civil space and national security agencies.

Xplore Founder Lisa Rich said, "We understood the need to build navigation architectures beyond Earth orbit early in our development and are proud that our thought-leadership has been recognized. Xplore is among the first to win an Air Force award in this groundbreaking new category for missions and services around the Moon. We are uniquely qualified to provide innovative commercial solutions to the Air Force and rapidly advance space domain awareness now that cislunar space operations is a focal point."

She added, "Xplore is honored to respond to the growing and dynamic needs of our national security architecture beyond Earth orbit. We are poised to set new standards across the industry and our exceptional team is excited to provide these foundational capabilities and work with the USAF to ensure mission success."

Xplore's ability to design, built and test new PNT architectures beyond Earth orbit will expand the deep space ecosystem and will provide new opportunities for civilian space agencies, national security agencies, sovereign space agencies and commercial space companies to navigate in this challenging environment. Xplore can supply navigation capabilities for Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) regimes where typical GPS receivers fail to pick up a signal.

Dr. Clive R. Neal, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, who has over 30 years of experience in advancing our understanding of the Moon said: "Xplore's solution has strong technical and programmatic merit, and it supports USAF objectives.

The company has created a strong plan to use its Xcraft asset to facilitate a precision positioning, navigation and timing architecture to service our growing civil and national security needs. Not only is it a step in obtaining security in the cislunar domain, it provides vital infrastructure for expanding humanity to the Moon, and for creation of a vibrant cislunar economy. This first opportunity for Xplore has good potential."

Xplore plans to accelerate innovation and commercialize deep space via higher cadence, low-cost missions to the inner solar system. The highly capable Xcraft, a modular next-generation spacecraft, is uniquely designed to service the needs of multiple customers on a single mission, and operate in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), cislunar space and deep space.

Dr. Lou Friedman, founder of The Planetary Society and Advisor to Xplore said, "Xplore demonstrated tremendous foresight in their plans for deep space exploration as they build architectures to achieve positioning, navigation and timing between the Earth and the Moon. They understood early on that GPS doesn't work beyond the Earth, and to navigate beyond Earth, we must develop new technologies to perform in deep space environments."

Positioning, navigation and timing systems will directly benefit existing and future operations in cislunar and interplanetary space. As Xplore ventures beyond Earth orbit, their new infrastructure will support our nation's strategy and form essential building blocks for a sustainable cislunar economy.

Arianespace to orbit the first six satellites of the OneWeb constellation

For its second mission of the year - and the initial flight in 2019 with the Soyuz medium launcher - Arianespace will perform the first launch for the OneWeb constellation. By operating this maiden flight, out of 21 launches on behalf of the global satellite operator, Arianespace participates in the fulfilment of its customer's ultimate ambition: providing Internet access for everyone, everywhere. This mission will bring the number of constellation satellites orbited by Arianespace to 109, which shows a remarkable ability to deploy any type of constellation with its current and future family of launchers. The Launch Readiness Review (LRR) will take place on Monday, February 25, 2019 in Kourou to authorize the start of operations for the final countdown. Flight VS21, the 21st Soyuz mission from the Guiana Space Center, will put six OneWeb F6 satellites for U.S operator OneWeb into a circular low Earth orbit at 1,000 km. (close to their operational orbit), along with four Mass Flight Simulators (MFS) that will not be separated from the launcher's dispenser system. OneWeb's mission is to deliver global communications through a next-generation satellite constellation that will bring seamless connectivity to everyone, everywhere. With its system deployed, the OneWeb constellation will enable user terminals capable of offering 3G, LTE, 5G and Wi-Fi coverage, giving high-speed access around the world - by air, sea and land.

Composed of approximately 650 satellites, OneWeb initial constellation will be orbited by Arianespace using 21 Soyuz launchers operated through 2020 from Kourou in French Guiana, Baikonur in Kazakhstan, and Vostochy in Russia.

OneWeb Satellites - a joint-venture between OneWeb and Airbus Defence and Space - is the prime contractor of the constellation. RUAG Space AB, on the other hand, is in charge of the development and production of the innovative dispenser system that will carry the six satellites and the four Mass Flight Simulators aboard Flight VS21. As for APCO Technologies, it is responsible for designing and building the four Mass Flight Simulators.

Iridium Declares Victory; $3 Billion Satellite Constellation Upgrade Complete

Iridium Communications Inc this week hailed the completion of its $3 billion satellite constellation upgrade campaign known as Iridium NEXT, during a press conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. During the press conference, the company also used the opportunity to introduce a new small-form-factor transceiver known as the Iridium CertusSM 9770, which will enable creation of new consumer and industrial applications that are highly portable and IoT-friendly, optimized for small size and low cost, yet with higher speeds than in the past thanks to the upgraded Iridium satellite network. The completion of the Iridium NEXT campaign comes as the final two satellites required to complete the network refresh were activated on February 5th at approximately 2:15 p.m. EST. With a fully operational constellation, featuring 66 new Iridium satellites and no further launches planned, Iridium has concluded its nearly decade-long capital-intensive program that created an upgraded network both in space and on the ground. After spending several hundred million dollars per year to build and deploy the new network, Iridium expects capital costs to decrease to approximately $35 million per year, with revenues continuing to grow as the company expands into newer revenue streams like broadband, IoT and hosted payloads. "The completion of the Iridium NEXT program signifies a new chapter in the Iridium story, one that sees us transforming from a big cash spender to a big cash generator," said Iridium CEO Matt Desch.

 "This is the realization of a long, successful climb, and reaching the peak, it's gratifying to know the future of the company is secure, and we have now financially matured as a satellite operator. Huge thanks are in order to our entire team, particularly our friends at SpaceX and our prime satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space and their teams."

First announced in 2010, the Iridium NEXT campaign featured eight launches with SpaceX. In total, 81 satellites were built by prime contractor Thales Alenia Space, of which 75 were launched, with 66 in the operational constellation and nine serving as on-orbit spares. Thales Alenia Space was responsible for design and integration of the new satellites, including launch and early operations testing in partnership with Iridium's team at the company's Satellite Network Operations Center in Virginia.

The upgraded Iridium constellation enables never before possible services such as the AireonSM global aircraft tracking and surveillance system and Iridium Certus, the company's new broadband service, which launched commercially in January 2019. The upgraded network is also fully compatible with the original satellite constellation's services, a notable accomplishment given the size and scope of the upgrade.

Jean-Loic Galle, CEO of Thales Alenia Space remarked: "The 75 in-orbit satellites are working very well, and the overall end-to-end performance improvement for existing customers is dramatic. Two years after the first launch, Iridium NEXT, one of the most sophisticated communication systems in the world, is now totally deployed and fully operational.

All the satellites are interconnected, and we have ensured a continuity of service without any interruption. We did it! And we did it together - together with the Iridium team, our customer with whom we worked all these years much more as a partner than as a customer, together with Northrop Grumman, with all our subcontractors, and with SpaceX. I'm convinced this one-team spirit was the secret of that success story."

The new Iridium Certus 9770 transceiver, also introduced during Monday's press conference, is a game changer for satellite IoT, aviation, maritime and consumer services, enabling low-cost, small devices that can make more efficient and higher speed connections than its predecessors. Built on the Iridium Certus technology platform, applications and devices made with the new transceiver will feature a range of speeds optimized for efficiently sending data to and from the user, typically in the range of less than 100kbps.

The Iridium Certus 9770 is the first in a series of new devices that will augment Iridium's existing transceivers with approximately the same form-factor as existing narrowband antennas used widely today in aviation, maritime, IoT and land-mobile markets, but using native IP technology at up to 35 times the speed as current devices. This supports telemetry, pictures, high-quality voice calling, emails, internet access and more, at highly competitive prices. Select licensed manufacturers of Iridium can expect to receive prototypes of the device around mid-2019.

The Iridium satellite network is comprised of 66 crosslinked satellites that create a web of coverage around the entire planet. Unlike other satellite systems, Iridium's crosslinked architecture enables real-time transit of data to and from any location on the globe without the need for abundant ground stations and allows it to maintain consistent, high-quality coverage, including over the oceans and polar regions.