Five Satellogic Satellites to Fly on SpaceX Transporter-4 Mission

The SpaceX Transporter-4 mission will carry five Satellogic satellites into orbit when it launches later this year. The five Satellogic satellites have been shipped to Cape Canaveral, FL for integration into the Transporter-4 payload.

“The new and enhanced satellites will increase the quality of our current services and create new opportunities for our customers.”

Matthew Tirman, President of Satellogic North America.

The upcoming launch includes the first deployment of Satellogic’s new Mark V satellite model. This new generation of satellites enhances the company’s constellation with improved cameras, radios, computers, and other subsystems compatible with all components from previous models.

The remaining satellites are four updated NewSats Mark IV. These improved satellites contain increased onboard storage and upgrades to the propulsion and navigation systems. The enhancements include manufacturability and cost saving processes used in preparation for the start-up of Satellogic’s High-Throughout Plant in the Netherlands later this year.

“We are excited to increase our customer’s opportunities and product offering with this launch,” said Matthew Tirman, President of Satellogic North America. “The new and enhanced satellites will increase the quality of our current services and create new opportunities for our customers.”

The new Mark V model includes a new proprietary-designed multispectral camera as the primary payload that will boost image quality with 70 cm native resolution and significantly improve the Signal-to-Noise Ratio and the Dynamic Range of the images. The new satellite also increases swath by 40%, optimizing Satellogic’s constellation size while guaranteeing world remap capabilities and reducing imagery costs. The Mark V also includes a new generation of onboard computers with enhanced processing power, allowing for better operations and improved efficiency.

Satellogic’s customers have the opportunity to fly their own hardware in space onboard each NewSat Hosted Payload bay without the purchase of an entire satellite. This bay’s modular design and standard interface definition facilitate hardware integration in the company’s manufacturing plants, provide transparent operations for customers, and optimize time to orbit from contract signature to launch date.

The Mark IVs include Hosted Payloads from Satellogic’s customers and the company’s last-mile testing of future payloads, including onboard edge computing for customers who want to run their algorithms where data is generated, and future radio frequency (RF) products. With this Hosted Payload, Satellogic will begin to equip its satellites with a payload that enables its constellation to geolocate devices that emit RF signals.

This launch of these five Satellogic satellites is part of company’s previously announced plans for 2022 and will expand Satellogic’s fleet to 22 satellites delivering high-resolution data from space. Satellogic plans to launch up to 12 additional spacecraft later this year, offering up to seven daily revisits of any point of interest, which would result in a total of 34 commercial satellites in orbit by Q1 2023. The company intends that its constellation will include over 200 satellites by 2025, providing Satellogic with the capacity to remap the entire Earth daily. By democratizing Earth Observation (“EO”) imagery, Satellogic is able to serve previously underserved verticals, and partner with US government and Dedicated Satellite Constellations customers around the world, to provide new insights into the occurrence and progression of economic activities, security risks, and natural events unfolding across the globe.

(Source: Satellogic news release. Image from file)