Strategic Acquisitions and Strategic Partnerships

Top Stories in Space Commerce for the Week Ending August 16

A definitive agreement has been signed for the acquisition of Terran Orbital by Lockheed Martin Corporation. The strategic acquisition reinforces LMC's commitment to expanding its advanced satellite manufacturing and responsive space capabilities, the company said.

The transaction stands to pave a path for further advancement, as Lockheed Martin continues to invest in technology, people, and capacity to support future customer needs.

The enterprise value of the transaction is approximately $450 million. Lockheed Martin will acquire Terran Orbital for $0.25 in cash for each outstanding share of common stock and retire its existing debt. This transaction also provides for Lockheed Martin and other current Terran Orbital creditors establishing a new, $30 million working capital facility that has been put in place as of signing.

The transaction is expected to close in fourth quarter of 2024 and is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory and Terran Orbital stockholder approvals. Upon closing, Terran Orbital will remain a commercial merchant supplier to industry.

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A Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) unveiled at the 38th annual Small Satellite Conference marks the beginning of a robust collaboration between Exolaunch and Impulse Space aimed at elevating payload delivery services for commercial, academic, and institutional customers.

The SPA defines several key areas of cooperation between Exolaunch and Impulse Space. Exolaunch will supply advanced separation systems for cubesats and microsats, such as the industry-leading EXOpod Nova and CarboNIX, as well as integration and mission management services. Impulse Space will contribute its suite of OTVs, including Mira for delivering satellites in LEO, MEO, GEO, Cislunar or beyond; Helios, their high-performance kick stage, will also service satellites operating in Geostationary Orbit.

This announcement follows closely after Impulse Space's reveal of its new GEO Rideshare Program, which will enable delivery of four tons of aggregated small satellite mass to Geostationary Orbit in under one day, as well as upgrades to their orbital transfer vehicle (OTV), Mira.

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Moving out of Earth orbit towards the Moon, NASA has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) worth approximately $150k to Astrobotic for the development of an Extra Large Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT-XL) for the Moon. VSAT-XL’s impressive size, 34m tall and 12.5m wide (≈112 x 41 feet), would be the largest planned lunar power infrastructure technology to date to meet the growing energy demands on the lunar surface.

This new array will build on the 10kW lunar VSAT already in development at Astrobotic under an existing NASA contract. VSAT-XL, like its smaller cousin, is a deployable, relocatable, self-leveling, sun-tracking solar powered system. However, it is designed to increase power output from 10 kW to 50 kW.

The VSAT-XL system will incorporate engineering solutions developed by Astrobotic, including systems built for its lunar landers, lunar rovers, and the state-of-the-art 10 kW VSAT system, along with Roll Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) from Redwire Space. The system is ideal for placement near polar craters, where its tall vertical arrays can capture solar energy at shallow sun elevations.

VSAT-XL is part of the LunaGrid system, Astrobotic’s power generation and distribution service for long-term human and robotic operations at the south pole of the Moon.

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The U.S. Space Systems Command has selected Scout Space to participate in its Space Domain Awareness (SDA) Tools Applications and Processing (TAP) Lab Apollo Accelerator Cohort 4. Scout will focus on generating attitude change patterns of life for individual satellites using orbital data.

The SDA Tap Lab is an innovative initiative designed to enhance the capabilities of Space Domain Awareness by addressing key challenges in the field. As part of this effort, Scout will leverage its expertise in in-space observation and data analytics to develop solutions that detect and characterize changes in satellite orientation, including both satellite bus and payload movements.

During the three-month TAP Lab cycle, which got underway last week, Scout’s approach will involve the analysis of orbital data to detect and characterize changes in the orientation of satellite buses and payloads.

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The first five AST Space Mobile commercial satellites, called BlueBirds, have arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida, ahead of the planned orbital launch during a 7-day launch window in September.

The BlueBird satellites feature the largest-ever commercial communications arrays to be deployed in low Earth orbit, at a remarkable 693 square feet, a technological leap forward in AST SpaceMobile’s ability to deliver seamless cellular broadband connectivity to billions of mobile users worldwide.

Building on the success of its BlueWalker 3 satellite, AST SpaceMobile's first five commercial satellites will have a tenfold increase in processing capacity. This advancement sets the stage for delivering global space-based cellular broadband directly to everyday smartphones, starting with non-continuous coverage across the continental United States using over 5,600 cells on premium low-band spectrum.

Update on Changes

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