Spaceflight Industries
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Aerospace, Geospatial intelligence |
| Predecessor | Spaceflight Services, Spaceflight Systems (formerly Andrews Space), Spaceflight Networks |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Founder | Jason Andrews |
| Fate | Divested satellite rideshare division (Spaceflight, Inc.) in June 2020 |
| Headquarters | Herndon , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Jason Andrews (Founder), Curt Blake (Senior Vice President and General Counsel) |
| Products | Geospatial intelligence services, small satellite manufacturing |
| Owner | Private |
Spaceflight Industries, Inc. is a privately held aerospace firm based in Herndon, Virginia, United States, that focuses on providing geospatial intelligence solutions. In June 2020, it divested its satellite rideshare division, Spaceflight, Inc..
The company comprises two primary segments: BlackSky Global, which delivers geospatial intelligence services, and LeoStella, a collaborative venture with Thales Alenia Space dedicated to the manufacturing of small satellites.
History
Established in 2009 under the name Spaceflight Services by entrepreneur Jason Andrews, with Curt Blake joining shortly thereafter as Senior Vice President and General Counsel, the enterprise initially acquired surplus capacity on commercial launch vehicles to offer as "rideshare" secondary payload opportunities. This approach combined multiple secondary satellites into a single launch package, providing considerable cost savings compared to purchasing entire launch vehicles. Prior to founding Spaceflight, Andrews had experience at Kistler Aerospace and was the founder of Andrews Space in 1999; Blake contributed expertise from his tenure at Microsoft, Starwave, SpaceDev, and GotVoice.
In 2013, Spaceflight launched BlackSky Global to offer imaging-as-a-service capabilities. The following year saw the creation of Spaceflight Networks to build a ground station infrastructure aimed at enabling low-latency communications with cubesats and small satellites.
By 2015, the company unified its operations—comprising Spaceflight Services, Spaceflight Systems (formerly Andrews Space), and Spaceflight Networks—under the umbrella brand Spaceflight Industries. That year, BlackSky revealed plans for a constellation of 60 satellites designed to provide affordable satellite imagery globally with a refresh rate of approximately 90 minutes.
In March 2018, Spaceflight Industries partnered with Thales Alenia Space to establish LeoStella for small satellite production; manufacturing activities commenced in early 2019.
In 2020, the rideshare segment was sold to Mitsui and Yamasa while BlackSky continued as an independent entity. Later that year, BlackSky went public on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: BKSY) through a SPAC merger with Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp., raising over $280 million to fund expansion efforts. At that point, BlackSky operated seven satellites with ambitions to grow its constellation to 30 units.
BlackSky
BlackSky originated as a division within Spaceflight Industries focused on delivering geospatial intelligence via on-demand satellite imagery services. The inaugural satellite, BlackSky Pathfinder-1, launched on 26 September 2016 and provided initial publicly available images by November of that year. In late 2018, BlackSky deployed Global-1 and Global-2 satellites through the SSO-A mission, progressing toward its objective of a 60-satellite constellation capable of 1-meter resolution imaging and rapid revisit times. This constellation is manufactured by LeoStella LLC, a joint venture between Spaceflight Industries and Thales Alenia Space.
Following launches included Global-3 and Global-4 in August 2019 aboard Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle; Global-7 and Global-8 were launched in August 2020 during the SXRS-1 rideshare mission. Global-9 was deployed in March 2021; however, two satellites were lost during an Electron KS launch in May 2021. Additional successful deployments occurred in April 2022 via Rocket Lab.
In January 2020, BlackSky secured a contract from the U.S. Army to develop satellites with enhanced imaging capabilities at 50-centimeter resolution. By September of the same year, the company announced its third-generation satellite series targeting launches in 2022 to achieve this improved resolution while continuing deployment of second-generation models.
| Satellite | Launch Vehicle | Launch Date |
|---|---|---|
| BlackSky Pathfinder 1 | PSLV-G | 26.09.2016 |
| BlackSky Global 1 | PSLV-CA | 29.11.2018 |
| BlackSky Global 2 | Falcon-9 Block 5 | 03.12.2018 |
| BlackSky Global 3 | Electron | 29.06.2019 |
| BlackSky Global 4 | Electron | 19.08.2019 |
| BlackSky Global 7 | Falcon-9 Block 5 | 07.08.2020 |
| BlackSky Global 8 | Falcon-9 Block 5 | 07.08.2020 |
| BlackSky Global 9 | Electron | 22.03.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 10 | Electron | 15.05.2021 Launch failure |
| BlackSky Global 11 | Electron | 15.05.2021 Launch failure |
| BlackSky Global 14 | Electron | 18.11.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 15 | Electron | 18.11.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 12 | Falcon-9 Block 5 | 02.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 13 | Falcon-9 Block 5 | 02.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 16 | Electron | 09.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 17 | Electron | 09.12.2021 |
| BlackSky Global 18 | Electron | 02.04.2022 |
| BlackSky Global 20 | Electron | 02.04.2022 |
| BlackSky Global 19 | Electron | 24.03.2023 |
| BlackSky Global 5 | Electron | 24.03.2023 |
| BlackSky Global 6 | SSLV | TBD - 2024 |
| BlackSky Global 21 | SSLV | TBD - 2024 |