{"id":17630,"date":"2020-10-27T19:12:01","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T11:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/leostella-takes-on-assembly-role-for-northstars-space-traffic-monitoring-satellites\/"},"modified":"2020-10-27T19:12:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T11:12:01","slug":"leostella-takes-on-assembly-role-for-northstars-space-traffic-monitoring-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/leostella-takes-on-assembly-role-for-northstars-space-traffic-monitoring-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"LeoStella takes on assembly role for NorthStar\u2019s space traffic-monitoring satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Skylark
An artist\u2019s conception shows NorthStar\u2019s Skylark constellation at work. (CNW Group \/ NorthStar Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tukwila, Wash.-based LeoStella will oversee the assembly of the first three satellites for a constellation that\u2019s designed to keep track of space traffic.<\/p>\n

LeoStella\u2019s new project is part of a bigger contract between Canada\u2019s NorthStar Earth and Space on one hand, and Europe\u2019s Thales Alenia Space on the other.<\/p>\n

NorthStar says its Skylark satellite constellation will be part of the world\u2019s first commercial space-based environmental and near-space monitoring system. The satellites will be tasked with monitoring thousands of natural and human-made objects in low Earth orbit, and sounding an alert if a collision risk is detected.<\/p>\n

That sort of space situational awareness is expected to become more important as thousands more satellites \u2014 including spacecraft for the SpaceX Starlink, OneWeb and Amazon Kuiper broadband data networks \u2014 are launched in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here to make space safe for doing business, now and into the future,\u201d Stewart Bain, NorthStar\u2019s CEO and co-founder, said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The contract for the first three Skylark satellites draws upon complex corporate connections: Thales Alenia Space is one of the world\u2019s largest satellite manufacturers. LeoStella is a joint venture between Thales Alenia Space and BlackSky, a satellite and geospatial intelligence company that has offices in Seattle and Virginia. And as if that\u2019s not complex enough, Thales Alenia Space owns a stake in NorthStar by virtue of its partnership with Telespazio in a joint venture called the Space Alliance.<\/p>\n

Thales Alenia Space will be responsible for providing the satellite payloads, while LeoStella will provide its LEO-100 satellite platform and oversee the assembly, integration and testing of the satellites at its Tukwila factory. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

NorthStar plans to start operating Skylark in 2022, and will add dual-mission satellites for Earth observation plus space situational awareness in 2024..<\/p>\n

LeoStella was created in 2018 to build Earth observation satellites for BlackSky\u2019s constellation. Since then, it\u2019s taken on satellite construction contracts for Cloud Constellation Corp. and Loft Orbital. The venture currently has 45 employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist\u2019s conception shows NorthStar\u2019s Skylark constellation at work. (CNW Group \/ NorthStar Illustration) Tukwila, Wash.-based LeoStella will oversee the assembly of the first three satellites for a constellation that\u2019s designed to keep track of space traffic. LeoStella\u2019s new project is part of a bigger contract between Canada\u2019s NorthStar Earth and Space on one hand, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4542,582,20,442,874],"class_list":["post-17630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-leostella","tag-northstar","tag-satellite","tag-satellites","tag-thales-alenia-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}