NorthStar Building
World's First Satellite Constellation to Combat
Imminent Threat of Space Collisions
Oct. 27, 2020
NorthStar Earth & Space has
contracted Thales Alenia Space (TAS) to build
the first three satellites of its debut
"Skylark" constellation for Space Situational
Awareness (SSA) services, with Seattle, WA's
LeoStella overseeing the final assembly.
With commercial space en
route to a forecast $2.7 trillion industry, new
satellites and planned mega-constellations are
launching into an environment dangerously
congested with traffic and space debris.
NorthStar's Skylark constellation services are
designed to revolutionize the safety of
spaceflight.
NorthStar is the first
commercial service to monitor space, from space,
via a constellation of satellites with dedicated
optical sensors. With a
secure data-driven 3D catalogue of the entire
space environment powered by advanced SSA
analytics, NorthStar will deliver timely and
precise Space Traffic Data, Collision Avoidance
and Navigation Services to the global satellite
community.
"The New Space Economy
depends on the safety and sustainability of
space. NorthStar, the first commercial SSA
system based in space, will deliver essential
information to space operators, enabling safe
navigation and supporting global space traffic
management. We are here to make space safe for
doing business, now and into the future."
"The Space Alliance is
proud to contribute to NorthStar success. Thales
Alenia Space will bring its world class
expertise in optical instruments associated to
Leostella multimission platforms to support this
important mission. Skylark materializes a first
step in providing evergreen information to the
satellite operators." – Herve Derrey, CEO,
Thales Alenia Space
Founding Partners
NorthStar's investors
comprise a global coalition of strategic
partners, including Telesystem Space (a
co-enterprise of the Sirois family office,
Telesystem and the Roger's Family Trust of
Canada), the Space Alliance (Thales Alenia Space
and Telespazio) of Europe, KinetX (USA), the
Government of Quebec and the Government of
Canada.
Skylark Mission
Starting in 2022, NorthStar
will begin operation of Skylark to enable the
delivery of near real-time high fidelity
tracking services, elevating traditional SSA to
the level of Space Information & Intelligence
(SI2).
With a comprehensive view
of the all near-earth orbits, Skylark's
space-based sensors will deliver precise
observations of more space objects than any
current system with higher revisit frequency per
object. The result is unprecedented coverage,
custody and enhanced predictive capabilities.
Earth & Space Dual
Mission Constellation
Starting in 2024, NorthStar
plans to augment the Skylark mission with dual
mission satellites performing both SSA and Earth
observation. Dual mission satellites will be
equipped with Hyperspectral, Infrared and
Optical sensors, which will operate continuously
from space, imaging, digitizing, and analyzing
the details of Earth's ecosystems and
surrounding orbits daily.
The NorthStar Platform used
for Skylark will expand to include Earth data to
deliver contextualized information solutions
directly to end users in the private and public
sectors, providing critical knowledge about
Earth and its orbital environment.