Golbriak Space raises €4M in seed funding

Golbriak Space raises €4M in seed funding

Estonian space laser communications company Golbriak Space has raised €4 million ($4.5 million) in seed funding. The round was co-led by Join Capital and PhotonVentures, with participation from Takeoff Accelerator. The company announced the funding on 8 October.

Golbriak designed the Ermes laser terminal for space and the Ares laser terminal for airborne missions. The company reports it has functioning products, paying customers, and advanced commercial discussions involving several thousand terminals.

The investment will go towards serial production of its laser communication terminals and expanding manufacturing capacity to meet growing commercial demand. The company's focus is now on bringing optical communications to constellation scale.

Nicola Garzaniti, founder and CEO of Golbriak Space, said, "Our priority now is to serve that demand reliably and at volume."

Sourcesatellitetoday.com

L3Harris to build telescopes for ESA's LISA mission

L3Harris will build an all-glass telescope for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, expected to launch in the mid-2030s. NASA awarded the company the contract.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is leading the mission, with NASA as a collaborative partner. NASA is contributing the telescopes and other critical hardware, as well as engineering and scientific support.

LISA is designed as a constellation of three spacecraft. Each satellite will include two L3Harris telescopes capable of transmitting and receiving precision laser beams with the support of ceramic glass. L3Harris has manufactured a full-scale prototype for the mission.

LISA will be the first gravitational wave detector in space. It is designed to detect gravitational waves by measuring distance changes between satellites using laser beams. This will inform the study of black holes, colliding stars, and space-time. ESA recently selected Germany's OHB, together with Thales Alenia Space, to build the three-spacecraft mission.

Sourcesatellitetoday.com

Banglalink to launch Starlink Mobile in Bangladesh

Veon-owned operator Banglalink will bring SpaceX's Starlink Mobile service to its customers under a new agreement announced on 9 October. Bangladesh will be the first country in South Asia to introduce the service.

Banglalink said the service will provide connectivity for essential apps and location services through its MyBL app. It is intended for use during emergencies, natural disasters, and prolonged power outages for customers with a 4G phone and a Banglalink SIM.

Johan Buse, Banglalink CEO, said, "Adding satellite-to-mobile extends Banglalink's reach beyond what towers alone can cover and makes our network more resilient."

Banglalink is the third-largest mobile network operator in Bangladesh, with a reported 37.8 million subscribers. Dubai-based Veon has been rolling out Starlink Mobile across its subsidiaries, with Kyivstar in Ukraine being the first to launch, and Beeline in Kazakhstan also launching the service.

Sourcesatellitetoday.com

Webb observes extreme debris disks around young stars

Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to examine young star systems with extreme debris disks, which appear to be experiencing cataclysmic collisions. The team's findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope discovered the extreme debris disk phase before its retirement in January 2020. Systems in this phase contain large amounts of warm dust in a region comparable to where rocky planets orbit in the Solar System. Webb observations show these systems are rare, with current data suggesting only about 1% of young stars show observable signatures.

The team compiled a sample of 21 extreme debris disks using Spitzer and Webb archival data, with 5 from Spitzer and 16 from Webb. They also identified 12 newly observed disks.

Scientists theorise that a Mars-sized object called Theia struck the infant Earth about 4.5 billion years ago, creating the Earth-Moon system. Kate Su, a researcher with the Space Science Institute and the study's lead author, said, "Our work on extreme debris disks helps us bring together the big picture of what we currently understand."

Sourceuniversetoday.com

Vulcan return to flight targets 29 October with Amazon Leo payload

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan rocket has a no-earlier-than launch date of 29 October for its return to flight mission. The flight will carry an Amazon Leo payload, according to Ars Technica's Rocket Report.

The next Vulcan mission after that is also an Amazon Leo flight, and it is planned for this year.

Ars Technica said that, assuming the solid rocket boosters work, Vulcan could be poised for a major increase in launch cadence next year.

Sourcearstechnica.com