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WASHINGTON – Earth observation firm Satellogic announced on January 19 that it had signed a contract with SpaceX covering several carpooling launches of its satellites until next year.
The multiple launch services agreement makes SpaceX Satellogic’s preferred supplier for the launch of its constellation of microsatellites, having previously relied on Chinese, European and Russian vehicles, including a 10-satellite launch as its primary payload on the 6 March long on November 5th.
In an interview, Emiliano Kargieman, chief executive of Satellogic, said the low prices and frequent launch opportunities offered by SpaceX led his company to sign up. “The new carpooling program that SpaceX has put in place has reduced the price in the order of four or five times per kilogram,” he said. “It really allowed the rideshare program to be very competitive in the market and it got us to start having conversations with SpaceX.”
Satellogic plans to conduct its next four launches with SpaceX, starting in June. Additional launches will take place in December and March and June 2022. All will be carpooling missions in sun-synchronous orbits, with at least four satellites at the June launch. The company, which currently has 13 operational satellites, projects a constellation of around 60 satellites by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
The company also has the ability to pilot satellites as ride-sharing payloads on Starlink missions. These would go in mid-tilt orbits, which Kargieman said would complete most of the constellation in orbits synchronous with the sun. “They give us more diversity in the times for revisiting for points of interest,” he said, noting that the company has a satellite in such an orbit. “We plan to deploy more mid-tilt satellites over the next 12-18 months, but we haven’t yet decided exactly when these launches will take place.”
Another benefit of the deal, he said, is the flexibility it offers in determining the number of satellites to fly, as well as the options for flying satellites in Starlink missions. “It gives us the ability to make those decisions closer to the launch date.”
Although SpaceX is Satellogic’s preferred launch provider, Kargieman has not ruled out occasional use of other providers. “Because we might need a particular orbit, we might still decide to launch a dedicated rocket every now and then to make sure we have the satellites where we want them,” he said.
Satellogic is experiencing strong demand for the high-resolution images produced by its satellites, he said, with this demand accelerating in the past year from government customers in particular. “From the government side, it is very clear that there is significant unmet demand,” he said. “The pandemic has accelerated the demand for Earth observation data and geospatial analysis.”
This demand was a key factor in the decision to select SpaceX, as its launch services allowed Satellogic to accelerate the deployment of its constellation. “It’s a good point to invest more,” Kargieman said. “We are convinced that the time has come for us to double, scale and continue to market this data at an affordable cost.”
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