NorthStar Earth and Space has been quiet for some time and now we know why. The Montreal based company which has so far raised $86 million, announced today it had contracted Thales Alenia Space to build the first three satellites that will make up an initial constellation of 12 satellites dedicated to space situational awareness (SSA). The commercial constellation will be the first of its kind.
Stewart Bain, the co-founder and CEO of NorthStar told SpaceQ in an interview that there is an “imminent threat to the new space economy.” That threat is space collisions between satellites in the increasingly congested low Earth orbit (LEO) space domain.
SSA is so important that the White House issued a Presidential Memoranda known as Space Policy Directive-3, National Space Traffic Management Policy to deal with the issue.
For NorthStar, the constellation is not so much a pivot from its initial plan, but rather a way to generate revenue now.
The original vision of NorthStar was to create a constellation of 40 satellites that had the dual-purpose of hosting a variety of sensors for Earth Observation along with sensors for SSA.
“If you want to look at it from a purely business perspective, when you’re a startup and you’re pre-revenue, look at the amount of capital and imagine the amount of capital that would need to be raised to put up a 40 satellite constellation with hyperspectral imagers and space situational awareness imagers on it, and get it all up and running. It’s a huge undertaking.”
Which brings up its investors. That list includes Telesystem Space, the Space Alliance (Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio), KinetX, the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada. These investors represent interests in Canada, Europe and the U.S. And while investors can be patient, they do expect a return on their investment at some point. So to get it where it wants to be, and a going concern as a business, NorthStar decided to proceed with the first step of providing “a safe and sustainable environment for space, so that the satellites that are already up there that are doing work for us for Earth Observation and helping us protect our planet can operate safely.”
In other words build a cheaper, though not necessarily less capable small constellation of satellites with one mission, albeit an important one, SSA. Building complex, larger multi-sensor satellites can be costly and time consuming as Bain pointed out. So NorthStar opted for 12 smaller satellites that would weigh in equal to about 1 satellite of the previously envisioned constellation of 40 satellites. That makes a big difference in terms of costs.
The constellation, known as Skylark, will have its first three satellites launched by 2022 and the balance by 2024. The name also has meaning to the company. Canada’s first satellite was called Alouette, the french word for the lark, or the skylark species of bird. As Skylark is the first of its kind constellation, the NorthStar team is paying homage to Alouette.
Also reimagined are the satellites. They will be much smaller in size, about 1 metre x 1 metre x 1 metre and weigh around 100 kg. The company will also be using a “commercial off the shelf” spacecraft bus developed by Seattle based LeoStella, itself a joint venture between Thales Alenia Space and Spaceflight Industries. The spacecraft bus will be based on the design LeoStella developed for the BlackSky Constellation. LeoStella will oversee the final assembly of the Thales Alenia Space built satellites. The company didn’t get into any specifics on the spacecraft design other to say that its SSA telescope would be about 60 cm in length.
While NorthStar has been reimagining its constellation, it’s been busy working on the downstream application layer. The company now has around 40 employees, almost all working from their homes in the Montreal area due to the pandemic, with most working on the backend platform that will analyze the data from the SkyLark constellation, and importantly make it accessible to clients when ready.
Once the Skylark constellation is launched and operational by 2024, NorthStar intends to augment the constellation with the original idea of another 40 satellites that will be dual-purpose, fulfilling the vision of having satellites with Earth Observation and SSA capabilities.
The story of NorthStar as a startup is familiar. Most often companies have to modify, even pivot, their original business idea. NorthStar still intends to stay true to its vision, but with a little detour to make the company viable.