{"id":19212,"date":"2016-10-11T22:27:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T14:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spaceflight-signs-up-googles-terra-bella-for-satellite-launch-on-spacex-rocket\/"},"modified":"2016-10-11T22:27:32","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T14:27:32","slug":"spaceflight-signs-up-googles-terra-bella-for-satellite-launch-on-spacex-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spaceflight-signs-up-googles-terra-bella-for-satellite-launch-on-spacex-rocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Spaceflight signs up Google\u2019s Terra Bella for satellite launch on SpaceX rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SkySat
An artist\u2019s conception shows Terra Bella\u2019s SkySat satelltes in orbit. (Credit: Terra Bella)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries says it\u2019s made a deal with Terra Bella to have the Google subsidiary\u2019s Earth-observing satellites launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next year.<\/p>\n

The agreement makes Terra Bella, which was known as Skybox Imaging before Google bought it for $500 million in 2014, the lead payload provider on a dedicated-rideshare mission arranged through Spaceflight Industries\u2019 launch services entity, known simply as Spaceflight.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, it looks like Terra Bella may be the only lead,\u201d Spaceflight\u2019s president, Curt Blake, told GeekWire in an email today. So far, seven of Terra Bella\u2019s SkySat satellites have been put into orbit, and that number is expected to grow to 24. Blake declined to say how many of Terra Bella\u2019s satellites would be launched on Spaceflight\u2019s mission in late 2017.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=N3nIlIAoEmw<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Spaceflight purchased the entire Falcon 9 flight from SpaceX a year ago, with the aim of launching an array of other people\u2019s satellites from California\u2019s Vandenberg Air Force Base. Today the company says it\u2019s sold 90 percent of the available capacity, comprising more than 20 payloads from 10 different countries.<\/p>\n

The amount being charged for launching Terra Bella\u2019s satellites was not released, but Spaceflight\u2019s price list suggests that it costs about $5 million to put a 150-kilogram spacecraft into low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

In addition to Terra Bella\u2019s satellites, the confirmed payloads include NEXTSat-1 from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, a technology demonstration satellite that will also study star formation and space storms; a radar-mapping satellte from Finnish startup Iceye; and three satellites from HawkEye 360 that will fly in formation and use radio signals to monitor transportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a tide shift in the industry\u2019s expectation for routine, reliable and affordable access to space,\u201d Blake said in a news release. \u201cThe willingness of prominent commercial organizations to join forces for the advancement of global initiatives is very encouraging to the smallsat community, and to society as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spaceflight says it has negotiated the launch of nearly 120 satellites, with contracts to put more than 150 additional satellites into orbit by 2018. The largest satellite array, comprising 89 spacecraft, is due to be deployed by Spaceflight\u2019s Sherpa tug from a Falcon 9 rocket next year. One of those satellites is the Arkyd 6A, an Earth-observing spacecraft built by Redmond-based Planetary Resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist\u2019s conception shows Terra Bella\u2019s SkySat satelltes in orbit. (Credit: Terra Bella) Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries says it\u2019s made a deal with Terra Bella to have the Google subsidiary\u2019s Earth-observing satellites launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next year. The agreement makes Terra Bella, which was known as Skybox Imaging before Google bought it […]<\/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":[291,3055,20,2340,5455],"class_list":["post-19212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-google","tag-satellite","tag-spaceflight","tag-terra-bella"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19212"}],"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=19212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}