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StarSpec's team has demonstrated unprecedented success in full life-cycle development, implementation, and in-flight operations of low-lead, high-impact space-based solutions, which is making waves in new space applications.
StarSpec Technologies is proud to announce the successful launch of the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT)! With liftoff from Wanaka, New Zealand at just after 2300h on April 15, 2023, the 1500 kg (3000 lbs) SuperBIT instrument was deployed in the stratosphere at 30-40 km altitude above 99.5% of the atmosphere via a football-stadium-sized balloon. As a founding enabler of the SuperBIT instrument, StarSpec Technologies commissioned the state-of-the-art stabilization platform that provides imaging capabilities that exceed those of the famous Hubble Space Telescope. StarSpec Technologies has since taken this image stabilization technology to market for balloon-borne and satellite instruments alike, offering components and systems that provide unprecented imaging capabilities at a fraction of the cost and time of a traditional space-based mission.
About the SuperBIT Mission
SuperBIT is a first-of-its-kind high precision, wide-field, balloon-borne designed to perform surveys of massive galaxy clusters. Using weak gravitational lensing analyses from imaging data collected, SuperBIT can measure the distribution of so-called dark matter, normally not detectable by traditional means, that shapes the large scale structure of these clusters. Some preliminary images taken by SuperBIT during commissioning are shown on the right (credit: SuperBIT/NASA), demonstrating diffraction limited imaging from near-UV to near IR (300-1000 nm).
Follow SuperBIT on Instagram and with NASA!
StarSpec Technologies is proud to annouce the official commencement of the InspireSAT Initiative: a bold approach to unprecedented, next-generation space-based imaging capabilities intended to economically viable scaling on an industrial and constellation scale. InspireSAT represents an encapsulation of the unrivaled space-based imaging capabilities for which StarSpec continues to demonstrate robustness and reliability from the modular components to standardized platforms. StarSpec has received support from the Canadian Space Agency to enable the Phase 1 Design for the InspireSAT MVP, to be demonstrated on-orbit by 2025.
InspireSAT Constellations On-Demand: Direct Commercialization through 12U Attitude Determination and Control Systems (ADCS) Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The recent reduction in launch costs has opened up potential for cost-efficient, high-performance, rapidly-deployable low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations. StarSpec Technologies specializes in high-precision high-accuracy Attitude Determination and Control Systems which are critical to the advancement of scientific, commercial, and military applications in space. StarSpec is directly addressing burgeoning demands in this sector through its InspireSAT Constellations On-Demand Initiative. This technology and related industrial capabilities will enable rapidly-deployable, high-precision and high-accuracy 12U to SmallSatclass constellations uniquely suitable for next-generation sustainable applications in high-resolution Earth-imaging/Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR), Space Situational Awareness (SSA)/ Space Domain Awareness (SDA), military surveillance, and research.This project will enable rapid commercial access to LEO while fostering growth through training of a critical mass of highly qualified personnel (HQP), thereby increasing Canadian space technologies prevalence and market share. StarSpec has received significant interest in this technology from Universities to collaborate on their projects, and is continuing to gain solid traction from the commercial sector.
StarSpec Technologies, Inc., and Litepulse, Inc.,
are pleased to announce the signing of a Letter of Intent. The transaction involves the
integration and/or mutual collaboration between Litepulse’s mesh network and
StarSpec ADCS InspireSAT sub-arcsecond ADCS products. StarSpec ADCS
InspireSAT’s unique design and capabilities will enable the sub-arcsecond Low-Earth
Orbit platform stability at a level suitable for Litepulse’s development. The techniques
and methodologies utilized for StarSpec’s InspireSAT are of particular interest for
Litepulse power distribution components and subsystems. This includes hardening off
the self-components for radiation, thermal vacuum, and dynamic vibration.
About Litepulse, Inc.
Litepulse is a Remote Power as a Service company for Space. Focused on providing
the power vehicles need to expand into orbit and beyond, the company is building a
mesh energy grid powered by the Sun. By providing more efficient power to satellites,
space stations, and additive manufacturing in LEO, GEO, and the cis-lunar space,
Litepulse will help unlock the potential of space.
More about Litpulse at:
www.litepulse.com
StarSpec is proud to announce the commissioning of our new space technology site: Canada's first fully commercial suborbital and space-based assembly, manufacturing, and testing facility. Located in the Kitchener-Waterloo region, this facility will serve as a primary base for integration and real-time operations of StarSpec's large NASA-contracted suborbital payloads, as well as technology development and manufacturing of space-based imaging hardware for LEO SmallSats. From this facility, StarSpec also looks forward to the launch of its InspireSat product line, which will enable fast and at-scale access to critical components used for high-res Earth-imaging satellites in support of emerging critical infrastructure, surveillance, and climate monitoring application.
More updates on tooling up our new facility coming soon - stay tuned!
StarSpec is pleased to announce the successful completion of Year 1 for NASA's EXCITE project! This state-of-the-art payload is designed to have the same imaging stability as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in order to be able to perform detailed analyses of exoplanet atmospheres that could possibly be very similar to Earth. Set to for integration to begin at NASA in Spring of 2023, EXCITE will launch it's first Test Flight in Fall 2023 with the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) from Ft. Sumner, NM. After successful recovery, EXCITE is queued to launch from McMurdo, Antarctica in Winter 2024 on a football-stadium sized balloon capable of lifting all 3000 lbs of scientific hardware into the stratosphere at three times higher than a typical jet (40 km altitude), during which StarSpec systems will allow EXCITE to collect highly precise exoplanet data.
Click below, to get a sneak peak at some of operational behind-the-scenes capabilities:
StarSpec is celebrating an amazing press release from one of our core founding projects, SuperBIT - the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope! Based on and supported by StarSpec's core suborbital technology, SuperBIT is looking to fly on NASA's super-pressure balloon system from Wanaka, New Zealand with imaging capabilities rivaling the famous Hubble Space Telescope. Click below to learn more about how StarSpec is enabling projects like SuperBIT to realize space-based capabilities faster, cheaper, and more effectively.
StarSpec has passed a critical milestone in securing sole-source status with a new high-profile sub-orbital project out of NASA Goddard. This milestone vets StarSpec's space-based technologies and solutions as the most viable compared to other traditional commercial vendors on the basis of cost, timeline, and overall performance capabilities. More news to come on StarSpec's support of this high profile NASA project!
StarSpec is thrilled to be featured in Betakit's cover piece on how our technology is shaping the way future "new space" applications are approaching space. Click below to read the full article.
In addition to breaking ground on NASA's EXCITE project, StarSpec has been officially contracted to join a second high-profile NASA-led project as part of the 2021 NASA Pioneers program. StarSpec's primary role on this project (official details to be released) will be the design, fabrication, integration, and in-field operational support for a first-of-its-kind suborbital platform to be launched and operated from McMurdo, Antarctica as early as 2025 and Kiruna, Sweden in the following year. Though in the early stages of development, this project promises to not only be a welcome engineering challenge for the StarSpec team, but an incredible opportunity to strengthen ties with technology development leaders and science innovators at NASA and research institutions across North America.
We have hit the ground running in the first month of 2021, completing critical development for the AVIN project—a partnership with Aposys to develop high-definition three-dimensional maps for self driving car applications. StarSpec and Aposys hope to continue development of this project, fusing StarSpec satellite imagery with data collected from AVIN to develop the necessary mapping infrastructure for fully autonomous self driving car applications in urban and suburban environments. More updates on this exciting project and more to come soon!
Click here for a sneak peak.
StarSpec is finishing off a busy year having received an incredible amount of interest from research and technology development groups across North America. With nearly half a dozen high-value commitments from academic institutions and high-profile research groups at NASA, StarSpec is looking forward to providing suborbital gondola hardware and software for a broad spectrum of scientific diversity, from exoplanet atmospheres to observing intricate properties of the galactic interstellar medium to probing the fundamental mechanisms of the universe itself. We are excited to break ground and provide StarSpec technology and expertise to enable exploration of these new frontiers starting as early as Spring 2021.
StarSpec Technologies has been contracted to take part in a critical design study for a state-of-the-art suborbital gondola as part of NASA's new Pioneers program. As part of an ongoing partnership with academic institutions across Canada and the United States, StarSpec's primary role on this project (details to be released) will be to design, manufacture and integrate the primary gondola pointing and scanning system while providing critical in-field operational support and training throughout and up to the project's at-float commissioning stage. When funded, this multi-institutional project will be the first-of-its kind balloon-based remote research facility to be launched via NASA's Super-Pressure Balloon capabilities out of Wanaka, New Zealand as early as Spring 2025.
We are excited to announce that StarSpec is part of the winning EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope (EXCITE) proposal team, headed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. StarSpec will develop, construct, and integrate the suborbital balloon-borne platform for the project. Based on the high-precision telescope and image stabilization systems developed by our core team, StarSpec will enable EXCITE to make spectrographic measurements of planets outside our solar system (exoplanets) with unparalleled accuracy and precision. Scheduled to launch from McMurdo, Antarctica in 2025 to near-space via a football-stadium-sized balloon as part of NASA's Long Duration Balloon program, the EXCITE project aims to use these high fidelity measurements to better understand the atmospheric content of these exoplanets at a level not achievable with current ground, sub-orbital, or space-based instrumentation.