Xplore Inc. has signed a contract with Orbital Astronautics Ltd. (OrbAstro) to use OrbAstro’s satellite buses for a variety of innovative missions, starting with OrbAstro’s ORB-6 platform — Xplore will fly Earth and astronomical observation imagers, with a first launch scheduled for late 2022.
Xplore selected OrbAstro’s bus as it meets the company’s more complex requirement to fly multiple instruments on a single mission. One way that Xplore maximizes the value of its missions is by collecting a variety of data for its commercial, astronomical and climate research customers.
OrbAstro is highly vertical, having built satellite platforms and all subsystems from the ground up to the requirements of comprehensive satellite and constellation operations. This has allowed the company to compress costs and lead-times substantially, while providing as a baseline, a compelling offering for satellite and constellation operators. Their ORB-class platforms are state-of-the-art, with Ultrascale+ and LPDDR4 based onboard computing, electric propulsion, full ADCS with dual star-trackers, S-band transceiver, and optical communications as standard.
“We are excited to have our first flight underway, and it is wonderful to work with OrbAstro — a collaborative and high-quality supplier helping reduce time and cost in our mission development,” said Lisa Rich, Xplore’s Founder and Chief Operating Officer. “OrbAstro’s turnkey solution enables Xplore to run missions that prove out operations, data acquisition capabilities and customer integration functions. We embrace suppliers and partners capable of moving at the speed of business, as they accelerate our ability to rapidly deliver high-value data to our customers. We know that great innovation is afoot, and we love meeting new suppliers who surprise us with amazing capabilities that give us an edge.”
“Xplore is a highly innovative company that likes to move fast, which is what OrbAstro is all about. They are exactly the sort of company we love supporting,” said Dr. Ash Dove-Jay, CEO of OrbAstro. “Through working very closely with the Xplore team, we were able to quickly create an affordable solution for highly demanding mission parameters.”
As a collaborative company, Xplore is actively seeking incremental offerings and unique capabilities from the innovative suppliers with lower cost, high-quality solutions that are proliferating in today’s global space ecosystem.
Xplore offers Space as a Service®, providing data as a service, sensors as a service and satellites as a service to collect data from space that provides commercial, intelligence and climate solutions for its customers. The company is accelerating hardware development of the Xcraft, Xplore’s high-capability satellite data collection platform at its state-of-the-art 22,000 sq. ft. satellite manufacturing facility in Redmond, Washington. Xplore has multiple flight programs in progress and is currently recruiting space professionals. Openings at their Redmond headquarters include operations and engineering roles. Applicants may visit Xplore’s career page for details. Visit: www.xplore.com/careers.html About OrbAstro OrbAstro
Orbital Astronautics Ltd. is a United Kingdom and New Zealand based space technology company focused on supporting companies looking to directly use satellites for their businesses. Orbital Astronautics is currently maturing a satellite batch production facility targeting constellation markets and is building its own satellite constellation to provide low-latency access and autonomous operations services for customers satellites.
