TAMPA, Fla. — NorthStar Earth & Space plans to deploy 11 optical space domain awareness (SDA) sensors on Kepler Communications data relay satellites in 2028 following the failure of its first four orbital-tracking spacecraft.
The Canadian companies announced an agreement Aug. 27 they said provides the foundation for a long-term relationship, combining NorthStar’s sensing and analytics capabilities with Kepler’s relay infrastructure in low Earth orbit (LEO).
NorthStar plans to announce a manufacturer later for the payload sensors, which the company told SpaceNews are slated to deploy across two separate launches in 2028 for Kepler’s next-generation relay spacecraft.
Kepler announced the start of commercial services earlier this week from the 10 satellites in its first-generation optical relay constellation.
The first-generation relay constellation includes four thermal imaging payloads for Germany’s OroraTech, which is also using the relay network to accelerate the delivery of wildfire-detection data.
“Kepler’s constellation was built to enable real-time space applications and move mission-critical data from orbit to the people and programs who need it most,” Kepler cofounder and CEO Mina Mitry said in a statement.
”Partnering with NorthStar demonstrates how integrated space infrastructure can accelerate the deployment of advanced sensing missions while delivering timely, reliable access to the data they generate.”
Rebuilding and expanding
Rocket Lab deployed four 16U satellites in January 2024 that NorthStar had ordered from smallsat specialist Spire Global, equipped with sensors designed to track objects as small as five centimeters across LEO and 40 centimeters in geostationary orbit.
After all four spacecraft ceased functioning earlier than planned, NorthStar told SpaceNews it began using dedicated sensors from undisclosed partner satellite systems to continue providing space-based services.
“The addition of these 11 sensors will provide much improved sky coverage in all near-Earth orbits and higher revisit rates of resident space objects for in-orbit anomaly detection,” NorthStar said via email.
“The next steps will be to continue to scale operations to reach full sky coverage (up to 98%) with revisit times between all [resident space objects] at 20-30 minutes.”
An arbitration tribunal recently dismissed NorthStar’s claims against Spire over the spacecraft, ordering the SDA provider to pay about $12.4 million following successful counterclaims.
Meanwhile, NorthStar is preparing to go public by merging with Viking Acquisition Corp. I, a shell company that had about $230 million in trust Dec. 31 shortly after listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
The special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal gives NorthStar a $300 million pre-money valuation and includes a $30 million private investment in public equity, or PIPE.
NorthStar announced the SPAC merger plan in April, when the company said it had raised about $100 million since its founding in 2015, including backing from the governments of Quebec and Luxembourg.
The Canadian firm also disclosed it was drawing on 80 million observations a day at the time to track activity and detect threats in orbit, supported by third-party ground- and space-based data.
Pointing to rising government and commercial demand to keep tabs on increasingly crowded orbits, NorthStar estimated it would generate more than $30 million in revenue in 2026.
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