News from #SmallSat | British companies plan smallsat hosted payload mission

View this email in your browser SpaceNews' show daily for the 31st Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites Today is Thursday, August 10, 2017 British companies plan small satellite hosted payload mission LOGAN, Utah — A British small satellite manufacturer and a startup company are partnering on a mission to fly a series of smallsats carrying hosted payloads of varying sizes. Faraday is a joint project of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) and In-Space Missions Ltd., a company founded in 2015 by former SSTL executives that provides spacecraft services and consulting. Faraday features a spacecraft developed by SSTL, with In-Space Missions offering accommodations on the spacecraft for payloads ranging from 50 kilograms down to individual circuit boards. Those circuit board slots are offered for $12,000. "That's great for universities, but it's also pretty good for guys who want to get some tests data from flying their new components," said Doug Liddle, chief executive of In-Space Missions, in an Aug. 9 interview during the 31st Annual Conference on Small Satellites here. SEE FULL STORY ELSE raises $3 million for Internet of Things nanosatellite constellation LOGAN, Utah — A Swiss company with plans to deploy 64 cubesat-class spacecraft by 2021 to support Internet of Things applications has raised an initial $3 million funding round. ELSE announced Aug. 8 that it closed the $3 million seed round with several investors, led by Airbus Ventures, the early-stage investment arm of Airbus Group, that will support the company through the deployment of two demonstration spacecraft next year. "We have a strong group of investors, and certainly having Airbus Ventures behind us is really big," said Kjell Karlsen, chief executive officer of ELSE, in an Aug. 8 interview here. "That could also lead to some potential industrial cooperation." SEE FULL STORY Ursa Space Systems plans to track oil supplies around the world LOGAN, Utah — Ursa Space Systems, a geospatial data and analytics company, announced plans to offer global reports on oil storage drawn from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Ursa plans to begin offering weekly reports tracking oil supplies in the Caribbean, the Middle East-North Africa region and Europe in 2017, adding reports for the Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Americas in 2018.  "We are going to be measuring a majority of the world's oil storage to provide transparency," Derek Edinger, Ursa co-founder and vice president for strategic partnerships, said Aug. 10 at the Small Satellite conference here. "It's not just China that is important." In May, Ursa began offering customers weekly China Oil Storage reports. SEE FULL STORY   . With its first ground station, Clyde Space moves towards turnkey smallsat service LOGAN, Utah— Clyde Space, a company well-known for manufacturing cubesats, commissioned its first ground station with an antenna installed on the roof of the company's headquarters in Glasgow, Scotland. The company is building additional ground stations in San Jose, California and Qatar, as part of its campaign to offer customers end-to-end satellite mission services. Many new companies seeking to gather data or provide services via satellite have little expertise in satellite mission design or on-orbit operations.  "There's been a big demand for us to operate our satellites as well as manufacture them," Craig Clark, Clyde Space founder and chief executive, said in an Aug. 9 statement released at the Small Satellite Conference here. SEE FULL STORY Stop by our booth to sign up for free trial subscriptions. We're in the Field House next to the stage. Follow SpaceNews Advertise with Us Copyright © 2017 SpaceNews Inc., All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: SpaceNews Inc. 1414 Prince St, Suite 204 Alexandria, VA 22314

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