Spaceflight Industries, Inc. is an American private
aerospace company
An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry.
...
based out of
Herndon, Virginia
Herndon is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area of the United States. The population was 23,292 at the 2010 census. In 2020, the population was estimated to be 24,532, which makes it the largest of three i ...
that specializes in
geospatial intelligence
In the United States, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) is intelligence about the human activity on earth derived from the exploitation and analysis of imagery, signals, or signatures with geospatial information. GEOINT describes, assesses, and vis ...
services. It sold its satellite rideshare business,
Spaceflight, Inc.
Spaceflight, Inc. is an American aerospace company based out of Seattle, Washington, that specializes in organizing rideshare space launches of secondary payloads. It was part of Spaceflight Industries until June 2020.
Spaceflight was founded i ...
, in June 2020.
Spaceflight Industries has two primary business services: BlackSky Global, their geospatial intelligence service, and LeoStella, a joint venture with
Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufacture ...
to manufacture small satellites.
History
Spaceflight Industries was founded in 2009 as Spaceflight Services by
Jason Andrews
Jason Andrews is an American space and technology entrepreneur. He co-founded with his wife Marian Joh, Andrews Space in 1999, founded Spaceflight Inc. in 2010, BlackSky Global LLC in 2013, and integrated all three entities together in 2015 unde ...
, with Curt Blake joining soon thereafter as SVP and General Counsel.
Prior to founding Spaceflight, Jason Andrews worked at
Kistler Aerospace
Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) was a reusable launch system firm originally based in Oklahoma. It was formed in 2006 after Rocketplane Limited, Inc. acquired Kistler Aerospace. NASA announced that Rocketplane Kistler had been chosen to develop crew and ...
and founded
Andrews Space
Andrews Space was founded in 1999 by Jason Andrews and Marian Joh to be a catalyst in the commercialization, exploration and development of space. Originally named Andrews Space & Technology, the company shortened its name in 2003 to Andrews Space. ...
in 1999. Jason Blake has previous experience at
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
,
Starwave
Starwave was a Seattle, Washington-based software and website company, founded in 1993 by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and led by CEO Mike Slade. The company produced original CD-ROM titles, including '' Muppets Inside'', and titles for Cl ...
,
SpaceDev
SpaceDev, a part of the "Space Systems Business" of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is prominent for its spaceflight and microsatellite work. It designed and built components for the hybrid rocket motors for Paul Allen's Tier One suborbital SpaceS ...
, and
GotVoice
GotVoice is an American visual voicemail company founded in 2003 by former RealNetworks and Microsoft executive Martin Dunsmuir. In 2006, the service began to convert voicemails into mp3's and deliver them via e-mail
Electronic mail ...
.
Spaceflight Services purchased excess capacity from commercial launch vehicles and resold it to a number of "rideshare" secondary payloads, along with providing integration and certification services.
By integrating all of the secondary satellites as one discrete unit to the launch vehicle, they were able to provide a significant price discount to reach orbit compared to buying an entire launch vehicle.
Blacksky Global was founded in 2013 as an independent company owned by Spaceflight specializing in imaging-as-a-service.
Spaceflight Networks was started in 2014 to provide a network of ground stations for low-latency communication with cubesats and other small satellites.
In 2015, Spaceflight Services, Spaceflight Systems (formerly
Andrews Space
Andrews Space was founded in 1999 by Jason Andrews and Marian Joh to be a catalyst in the commercialization, exploration and development of space. Originally named Andrews Space & Technology, the company shortened its name in 2003 to Andrews Space. ...
), and Spaceflight Networks, were consolidated under the Spaceflight Industries brand. The same year, Blacksky announced plans for a constellation of 60 satellites that would provide low-cost satellite imagery of any location on earth within 90 minutes.
In March 2018, Spaceflight and
Thales Alenia Space
Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufacture ...
announced a joint venture, LeoStella, to build small satellites. LeoStella opened its production facility in February 2019.
In 2020, Spaceflight Industries sold its rideshare business,
Spaceflight, Inc.
Spaceflight, Inc. is an American aerospace company based out of Seattle, Washington, that specializes in organizing rideshare space launches of secondary payloads. It was part of Spaceflight Industries until June 2020.
Spaceflight was founded i ...
to
Mitsui
is one of the largest '' keiretsu'' in Japan and one of the largest corporate groups in the world.
The major companies of the group include Mitsui & Co. ( general trading company), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nippon Paper Industri ...
and
Yamasa
Yamasa Corporation (ヤマサ醤油株式会社 ''Yamasa Shōyu Kabushikigaisha'') is a Japanese corporation founded in 1645 whose primary field of business is the manufacturing of soy sauce and various seasonings. It was incorporated in November ...
. BlackSky was not part of this deal.
Through a business combination with Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp., Blacksky became a separate company quoted on the NYSE.
BlackSky
BlackSky started out as a subsidiary of Spaceflight Industries as its geospatial intelligence service, to offer on-demand images from a constellation of satellites. Their first satellite,
BlackSky Pathfinder-1
BlackSky Pathfinder-1 is an Earth imaging satellite. The satellite is equipped with payloads from Harris Corporation designed to image an area approximately .
It is a demonstration satellite for BlackSky Global, a Seattle-based company intendi ...
, was launched on 26 September 2016, and the first pictures were released publicly on 14 November 2016. In late 2018, BlackSky launched BlackSky Global-1 and BlackSky Global-2, two of the company's next generation global satellites, aboard the
SSO-A
SHERPA is a commercial satellite dispenser developed by Andrews Space, a subsidiary of Spaceflight Industries,