SAN FRANCISCO (Planet Labs PR) — Planet Labs Inc. (“Planet”), a leading provider of daily data and insights about earth, today announced that its proposed business combination with dMY Technology Group, Inc. IV (NYSE:DMYQ) (“dMY IV”), a special purpose acquisition company, was approved by dMY IV’s stockholders at its special meeting held on December 3, 2021.
Approximately 99% of the votes cast at the meeting on the business combination proposal voted to approve the transaction.
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CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE BASE, Fla. — On Thursday, December 2 at 6:12 p.m. EST, Falcon 9 launched 48 Starlink broadband and two BlackSky Earth observation satellites to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
It was the 27th launch of 2022, a new record for SpaceX in a calendar year.
SpaceX has now launched 1,892 Starlink satellites since February 2018. A total of 1,732 are still functioning.
It was the ninth launch and landing of the Falcon 9 first stage booster, which previously launched GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, and five Starlink missions.
Satellite and data provider ADA Space (a.k.a., Guoxing Aerospace) announced that it recently completed a 355 million yuan (US $55.79 million) Series B round of financing.
“This round of financing will be mainly used for the company’s satellite network capacity building and innovative product research and development,” the company said in an announcement.
ADA Space is developing an Earth observation constellation of 192 satellites. The constellation will consist of CubeSats and microsats.
The funding round was led by Hengjian Holdings, followed by Oriental Fortune, Dongguan Financial Holdings, Qingchuang Bole and other institutions.
The company has raised a total of 615 million yuan ($96.65 million) in four rounds of financing since September 2018, according to Crunchbase.
ROME November 26, 2021 (Italian Space Agency PR) — The Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, signed the “Treaty for Enhanced Bilateral Cooperation” at the Quirinale, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and of the Italian and French delegations.
The agreement known as the Quirinal Treaty also gives specific attention to space cooperation between Italy and France, as stated in article 7. [see below]
On the sidelines of the bilateral agreement, an Italian-French Agreement on launchers was also signed. Vittorio Colao, Minister for Technology Innovation and Digital Transition, and Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance and the Recovery, agreed on the conclusions of the high level group on space matters they initiated last September.
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PARIS (ESA PR) — How the world is responding to life under the coronavirus pandemic is being illuminated by real-time economic indicators informed by data from space.
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PARIS (ESA PR) — Ambitious plans to expand the nascent space industry in Greece – enabling the digital transformation of society while creating jobs and generating prosperity – have received a fillip from ESA.
On 26 November, the Ministry of Digital Governance in Greece announced the implementation path to materialise its Greek National Satellite Space Project, with the technical support of ESA.
The project is part of the nation’s Recovery and Resilience Facility plans, which aim to enhance Greece’s capabilities in satellite technologies and applications, and to empower the country to exchange satellite data.
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Satellogic PR)–Satellogic, a leader in sub-meter resolution satellite imagery collection, today announced new key hires, bolstering company leadership and expertise in the Earth Observation space. These senior leaders, united by the vision and inspired by the technology behind it, bring unique expertise to solidify Satellogic’s best in class team.
“Since our founding, Satellogic has been driven by our mission to democratize access to geospatial data to help solve the world’s most pressing problems,” said Emiliano Kargieman, CEO at Satellogic. “These exceptional leadership hires reflect our commitment to delivering on this mission across the business, through our collective ambition, ingenuity, and determination.”
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EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
COUNCIL OF MINISTERS RESOLUTION ON
Accelerating the Use of Space in Europe
(“The Matosinhos Manifesto”)
(adopted on 19 November 2021 in Matosinhos, Portugal)
The Council, meeting at ministerial level,
CONVINCED that in times of unprecedented challenges facing Europe and the world at large, it is the moment to contribute with bold, shared ambitions to solutions enabled by space, a sector that is ever more indispensable for our common future,
HAVING REGARD to the ESA Director General’s ‘Agenda 2025’ (ESA/C(2021)51) as a vision for Europe to maintain and expand its excellence in space, for the benefit of everyone on Earth and in Europe in particular,
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IRVINE, Calif., November 18, 2021 (ICEYE PR) – ICEYE, the global leader in persistent monitoring with radar satellite imaging, announced today that it has entered into a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Defense Technical Center (SMDTC) to advance state-of-the-art Earth observation technology in support of U.S. Army missions.
This joint R&D effort will explore low-cost, on-orbit, synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) related concepts. The areas of interest include exploration of cost-effective SAR systems including imagery tasking and uplink, SAR satellite downlink and ground station(s), image processing, and image dissemination as these abilities relate to U.S. Army and other DoD requirements more broadly. Emphasis will be placed on significant data latency reduction between the sensor and the shooter, as well as interfacing with the U.S. Army’s current Common Ground Terminal (CGT) and the future Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN), a mobile ground station system that’s currently under development.
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MAHIA, New Zealand. 18 November 2021 (Rocket Lab PR) – Rocket Lab (Nasdaq: RKLB), a leading launch and space systems company, has successfully deployed two satellites to orbit for real-time geospatial monitoring company BlackSky (NYSE: BKSY). Rocket Lab also successfully introduced helicopter operations to a recovery mission for the first time, using a helicopter to observe and track the Electron rocket’s first stage as it descended to Earth under parachute as part of the company’s program to make Electron the world’s first reusable, orbital-class commercial small rocket.
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Funding led by OTB Ventures for thermal infrared satellite constellation
WASHINGTON (Hydrosat PR) — Hydrosat, the geospatial data and analytics company, announces a new Seed Round raising $10M to create its thermal infrared satellite constellation. Today’s funding brings Hydrosat’s total capital raised to over $15M. The oversubscribed venture round was led by OTB Ventures, a leading European venture firm with a dedicated space investment vehicle, OTB Space Program I. Freeflow Ventures, Cultivation Capital, Santa Barbara Venture Partners, and Expon Capital also participated in the round.
Hydrosat began as a satellite company monitoring the water cycle to rapidly detect environmental stress brought about by climate change. Recent climate disasters, ranging from drought on the West Coast to flash floods on the East Coast of the United States, illustrates the growing importance of this technology as the world’s major governments meet this month for the United Nations COP26 Climate Change Conference.
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MINNEAPOLIS (Geosys PR) — Satellite imagery and data is helping agriculture companies grow to new heights. Geosys, the agricultural division of EarthDaily Analytics, has reported significant growth in 2021 as demand for geoanalytic data rises.
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BlackSky to bring smallsat imagery for NASA-funded Earth and applied science research
HERNDON, Va., November 12, 2021 (BlackSky PR) — BlackSky (NYSE: BKSY) secured a five-year, sole-source blanket purchase agreement by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide high revisit satellite imaging data in support of the agency’s existing Earth observation research to advance predictive capabilities.
“This award reflects yet another valuable point of alignment between government demand and BlackSky’s commercially available real-time, global intelligence products,” said Brian E. O’Toole, CEO of BlackSky. “Helping NASA-backed researchers broaden their understanding around critical changes in the Earth’s ecosystems, oceanography, geographic and polar sciences is vitally important.”
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3rd Quarter Revenue Up Over 49% YoY
On a Year to Date Basis, Total Revenue up over 53%
HERNDON, Va., November 12, 2021 (BlackSky PR) — BlackSky Technology Inc. (“BlackSky” or the “Company”) (NYSE: BKSY), a leading technology platform providing real-time geospatial intelligence and global monitoring, today announced its results for the third quarter of 2021.
Key points from the third quarter include:
SWINDON, UK (UK Space Agency PR) — Trailblazing technology that will help tackle climate change and predict global disasters using satellites is receiving new funding from the UK Space Agency.
Eleven UK organisations have been awarded a share of just under £7 million of government funding to put into action the latest advances in space innovation. The majority of the projects focus on climate change or environmental management, with others designed to secure our telecommunication systems and protect digital infrastructure against cyber-attacks.
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