BOULDER, Colo., June 12, 2019 — Small satellite manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) announced it has now reached a total of 12 spacecraft on-orbit with the launch of its latest satellite deployed earlier this year. All of the spacecraft buses are operational and currently in various stages of mission operations.

Highlights from some of the company’s recent launches include:

• Several 6U spacecraft for NASA-sponsored programs for earth-observation and deep space science
• Multiple Microsats and 6U spacecraft for government sponsored programs

BCT is currently building more than 60 spacecraft for government, commercial and academic missions. Many of these spacecraft are planned for launch in the second half of 2019.

In May, the company announced it will provide 12 precision pointing platforms, built on the company’s FleXcore™ product, to Capella Space, an information services company providing earth observation data on demand.

Blue Canyon Technologies has doubled in size over the past 12 months and plans to open its new 80,000-square-foot headquarters and production facility next year.

About BCT

Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc., (BCT) a Colorado-based private company founded in 2008 to bring innovative, reliable and affordable solutions to space missions, is an experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies. BCT is a vertically integrated spacecraft manufacturer supporting nearly 40 unique missions with over 70 spacecraft. The company currently has more than 50 satellites in production and is developing a new 80,000-square-foot facility for high rate production.

BCT has supported missions for The U.S. Air Force, NASA, The Defense Advanced Research Project (DARPA) and many others and provided the Attitude Control Systems for the first interplanetary CubeSats which successfully traveled to Mars. The company has been recognized with awards including Inc Magazine’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies, 2017 Colorado Companies to Watch, and the 2019 Colorado Biz Made in Colorado Emerging Manufacturer Winner.

For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

 

BOULDER, Colo. – May 29, 2019 – Small satellite manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has announced the appointment of Sam Francis as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), further strengthening its executive leadership team as the rapidly growing aerospace company continues to expand.

Francis brings more than 25 years of experience in financial leadership, capital markets and management of both buy- and sell-side M&A transactions. In his role at BCT, Francis will oversee all aspects of company finances including capital planning and management and make significant contributions to strategic planning and operations.

“We could not be more pleased to welcome Sam Francis to our executive leadership team,” said
George Stafford, CEO and President of Blue Canyon Technologies “As a growing company experiencing unprecedented growth and customer demand, the CFO role is more important than ever. We look forward to the leadership and strategy Sam will bring as we continue to grow and build on our current momentum.”

“Blue Canyon Technologies is increasingly being recognized as a leading disruptor in aerospace, and for good reason. I look forward to working with George and the rest of the team, to help the company exceed its financial goals and sustain its very positive growth trajectory,” said Francis.

Francis began his career in the telecom, software and technology markets where he led buy-side M&A teams for domestic and international acquisitions. He was a principal at AVL Growth Partners where he provided outsourced CFO services to entrepreneurial and lower middle-market companies.  He has worked across a broad variety of industries including aviation, healthcare, media, manufacturing and distribution. Prior to AVL he was a principal at Tatum, LLC where he provided strategic and financial consulting services to middle-market, private-equity backed companies.

Francis has a B.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Accounting from the University of Colorado.

About Blue Canyon Technologies 
Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc., (BCT) a Colorado-based private company founded in 2008 to bring innovative, reliable and affordable solutions to space missions, is an experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies. BCT is a vertically integrated spacecraft manufacturer supporting nearly 40 unique missions with over 70 spacecraft. The company currently has more than 50 satellites in production and is developing a new 80,000-square-foot facility for high rate production.

BCT has supported missions for The U.S. Air Force, NASA, The Defense Advanced Research Project (DARPA) and many others and provided the Attitude Control Systems for the first interplanetary CubeSats which successfully traveled to Mars. The company has been recognized with awards including Inc Magazine’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies, 2017 Colorado Companies to Watch, and the 2019 Colorado Biz Made in Colorado Emerging Manufacturer Winner.

For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

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by Caleb Henry — May 2, 2019

Originally published in Space News

WASHINGTON — Loft Orbital, a company preparing a constellation to carry payloads for customers who don’t want to operate their own satellites, has filled up its first satellite and booked a January 2020 launch through Spaceflight Industries.

San Francisco-based Loft Orbital will carry five customer payloads on its first mission, designated YAM-2, Alex Greenberg, Loft Orbital co-founder and head of operations, told SpaceNews. Greenberg said the satellite will launch aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to low Earth orbit.

Greenberg said the YAM-2 satellite will use a bus from Blue Canyon Technologies, and has a mass slightly under 100 kilograms. Customers on the mission include hyperspectral imaging startup Orbital Sidekick, blockchain startup SpaceChain, and a UAE government agency, he said. Greenberg declined to identify the other two customers for YAM-2, but said one is an established geostationary satellite operator.

Pierre-Damien Vaujour, Loft Orbital co-founder and head of product, said a second “condosat” is 85 percent filled with customers, and a third is 15 percent booked.

Greenberg said YAM stands for “Yet Another Mission,” and represents what the company hopes will be the start of an escalating launch cadence. Loft Orbital is aiming for three or four satellites in orbit by the end of 2020, he said. The company envisions a higher launch rate following those early spacecraft.

“We are thinking about three or four satellites a quarter on a given launch, which could mean about 10 satellites a year,” Vaujour said. “That’s pretty much where we want to be by the end of 2021.”

Loft Orbital does have a YAM-1 mission planned, Vaujour said, but he declined to give details on that mission.

Vaujour said Loft Orbital doesn’t have a target constellation size. Some prospective customers are discussing systems that would require upward of 40 satellites, he said.

Greenberg said Fugro, a Netherlands-based geologic data company that generated 1.65 billion euros ($1.84 billion) in revenue last year, has a payload launching on a future Loft Orbital satellite, but doesn’t have current plans for more than a tech demo mission.

Loft Orbital doesn’t build satellites, but is developing a payload hub to serve as a universal adapter to fit customer payloads inside different spacecraft buses. Greenberg said Loft Orbital is outsourcing the hardware for the hub, but writing all the software that will enable payloads to interface with their host satellite.

Vaujour said the company is working closely with Blue Canyon Technologies of Boulder, Colorado, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited in the U.K., and Luxembourg-based OHB LuxSpace on making the payload hub compatible with their satellite platforms.

“We are very rigid about not redesigning the satellite for each mission,” Greenberg said. “We use the same family of satellite designs for all the missions we will ever do.”

Greenberg said Loft Orbital settled on a target mass of around 100 kilograms for each satellite. The customers Loft is seeking typically have payloads between 5 and 10 kilograms, a range Vaujour said often makes them too large for a cubesat but not big enough to warrant a stand-alone microsatellite.

Loft Orbital consists of about 20 people, and envisions growing to 25 to 30 by the end of the year, Greenberg said. The company raised $3.2 million in 2017, and last year unveiled a network of 21 partners across the launch, manufacturing, ground segment and analytics sectors. Vaujour said Loft Orbital has modestly expanded that partner network by adding SSTL and OHB LuxSpace, but intends to strengthen existing partnerships rather than continue adding partners.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Capella Space, an information services company providing Earth observation data on demand, will provision the first phase of its small satellite constellation with industry-leading attitude control systems from Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT), a turnkey provider of spacecraft and subsystems for government, commercial, and academic applications. BCT will deliver the first batch of systems later this year, with full delivery of 12 precision pointing platforms built on the company’s FleXcore product by mid-2020.    

“The race to rapid revisit is on,” says Payam Banazadeh, CEO and founder of Capella Space. “The next generation of satellite we put up will be among the most agile in low-Earth orbit, capable of a range of operating modes and ground resolutions that will make a big difference in the quality and quantity of data we can provide our customers. As we scale from building a single satellite at a time to producing an entire fleet in short order, BCT offers a superior combination of performance, scale and affordability to pull forward our launch schedule. They’re a key partner to help us meet surging customer demand for space observation at the push of a button.”

After the success of its first satellite, Denali, which served as a test bed for calibrating on-orbit operations, Capella is enhancing the design of its satellite to offer higher resolution and greater flexibility in image acquisition. The Whitney constellation, which will begin deployment in 2020, will feature 0.5-meter resolution at significantly lower cost than traditional systems. Whitney is the first phase of the company’s build-out of a 36-satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation, capable of revisiting any point on Earth within an hour.

Blue Canyon’s FleXcore system is a high-performance, cost-efficient modular ADCS platform that’s scalable to a wide range of bus sizes and mission requirements. BCT’s ADCS Systems have flown on a variety of small satellites, including micro-sat spacecraft, and was first put on-orbit in 2016. FleXcore offers customers flexible mission solutions by using standard commercial products in the BCT component line to achieve unique mission requirements.

“BCT is proud to offer the ability for Capella to grow its constellation using our commercial FleXcore product line,” states BCT’s FleXcore Product Line Lead, Matthew Pallas. 

While terms of the contract were not disclosed, Banazadeh indicated that Capella has other orders pending and that the company is hiring a range of engineering positions to help the company meet a larger than anticipated demand for data and monitoring services.

“The market is beginning to understand what remote sensing offers, with timelier, more reliable and better quality data,” said Banazadeh. “We’ve gained invaluable insights from our customers across traditional and new markets and are developing a generation of satellites specifically designed to meet the demand.”

BCT will execute the order from the company’s 54,000 square foot facility in Boulder, CO, adding Capella to the company’s list of over 60 missions on-orbit supported by the best-in-class systems. BCT is expected to begin shipping finished systems the fall of 2019. Capella will launch Sequoia, its first imaging mission, for advance bookings, later this year.

About Capella Space 
Capella Space is an aerospace and information services company that provides Earth observation on demand. Through a constellation of micro-satellites, Capella is democratizing access to timely and reliable information affecting dozens of industries. Capella’s synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites are faster to build than traditional satellite systems, cheaper to deploy, and optimized to deliver comprehensive global coverage and insight to improve patterns of commerce, conservation, and well-being on Earth. Learn more at capellaspace.com.

About Blue Canyon Technologies 
Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc. is a privately-held business founded in 2008 to bring high-performance, affordable solutions to space missions. The company is an innovative, experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies.  For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

Success results in the need for more of the product or service that the particular business provides. And so it is with Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT), which is currently supporting numerous successful missions with a cumulative total of 9 spacecraft, 11 attitude control systems, 49 star trackers and 150 reaction wheels on-orbit. Additionally, BCT has orders for nearly 60 spacecraft, ranging from 3U CubeSats to 200kg ESPA-class microsatellites, for missions in LEO to GEO, for commercial, academic, and Government customers.

As a testament to their recent successes, Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has expanded their business operations to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The new facility is in the hub of the space technology business environment to enable close coordination with current and future Government and commercial customers. Located near Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) and the Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), the new lab and office space will aid in managing programs with Air Force Research Lab Space Vehicles (AFRL/RV) and Directed Energy (AFRL/RD) Directorates, Space and Missile Systems Center Advanced Systems and Development Directorate (SMC/AD), Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SpRCO), the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), and Sandia National Laboratories.

This growth allows for collaboration with government and commercial partners interested in Blue Canyon’s successful small satellite technology. The new space will be an advantage to support execution of the DARPA Blackjack Phase 1 program, as well as the AFRL ASCENT program.  

Prior to the development in New Mexico, BCT expanded their satellite manufacturing facilities in Boulder, Colorado to over 54,000 square feet. The state-of-the-art facility supports high-volume spacecraft production, including constellations, by leveraging cleanrooms, thermal vacuums, vibration, integration, and test capabilities.  The combined expansions have made their facilities one of the largest for small satellite production in the world.

By Debra Werner

Originally published in Space News

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, April 9, 2019 Blue Canyon Technologies doubled its workforce in 2018 and is on track to double it again in 2019, George Stafford, BCT president and chief executive, told SpaceNews.

The company established in 2008 in Boulder, Colorado, as a satellite component supplier, is expanding rapidly to meet demand for spacecraft components, complete spacecraft and mission operations.

To make room for its 140 person staff, BCT acquired additional office space in February. The company plans to double its manufacturing space in 2020 when it moves into an 80,000 square foot facility.

Stafford attributes the firm’s growth to expertise and lean processes. The engineers from Ball Aerospace and the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics who founded BCT had “decades of experience,” Stafford said.

BCT applies that expertise to a wide variety of small satellite missions. The two Mars Cube One cubesats that served as communications relays for NASA’s Mars InSight mission relied on BCT attitude controlsystems. BCT is building seven identical three-unit cubesats for the NASA and Massachusetts Institute of Technologies TROPICS constellation, a mission focused on temperature and humidity observations related to tropical cyclones. BCT also is defining bus and payload requirements for Blackjack, a DARPA program focused on small satellite constellations.

While the missions have different objectives, BCT applies common hardware and software to many of them.

“The star tracker that flies on 3u cubesats is the same star tracker that would fly on a 300-kilogram spacecraft,” Stafford said. Blue Canyon also developed a line of reaction wheels for spacecraft ranging from miniature cubesats to 1,000-kilogram satellites. “We can plug and play whatever size we need,” Stafford said. “The software stays the same.”

Increasingly, customers turn to BCT for entire missions rather than individual components. “We currently operate five spacecraft,” Stafford said. “By the end of the year, it will be closer to 15.”

At the same time, BCT’s component business remains strong. To date, the firm has flown 52 star trackers, 153 reaction wheels and 25 attitude determination and control modules, says Johannes Loschnigg, BCT consultant and Loschnigg Consulting principal.

BOULDER, Colorado – Dec 14, 2018 –  The Spaceflight SSO-A SmallSat Express mission successfully launched from Vandenburg Airforce Base in California on Monday, December 3^rd. The small satellites hitched a ride on the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and are now in sun-synchronous orbit. To date, this is the largest single rideshare mission from a U.S.-based launch vehicle.

Of the 64 spacecraft that launched into low Earth orbit (LEO), Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) either fully manufactured the spacecraft bus or provided components for 11 of the small satellites, which support a variety of NASA, Department of Defense and commercial applications.

Working with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) team at the University of Colorado at Boulder, BCT manufactured a 6U CubeSat for the Compact Spectral Irradiance Monitor Flight Demonstration (CSIM) mission. BCT’s 6U spacecraft bus is a state-of-the-art, high-performance CubeSat platform that maximizes available payload volume. The spacecraft includes ultra-high-performance pointing accuracy, robust power system, command and data handling, RF communications, optional propulsion, and multiple flexible payload interfaces.  The BCT XB Spacecraft family provides a complete solution for payload needs ranging from a 3U CubeSat to ESPA-class.

BCT provided high-performance components for several of the small satellites as well. The US Air Force-led STPSat-5 mission and another commercial customer utilized BCT’s FleXcore ADCS system – a highly capable and low-cost attitude control system for microsatellite-sized spacecraft. BCT’s standard XACT Attitude Control System was provided for a 3U CubeSat called MinXSS-2, a mission developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  The XACT provided control for other commercial and government customers in addition to MinXSS.  BCT’s advanced Nano Star Tracker (NST) was integrated with other hardware on the US Air Force’s FalconSat 6 satellite.

About Blue Canyon Technologies

Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc. is a privately held business founded in 2008 to bring high-performance, affordable solutions to space missions. The company is an innovative, experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies. For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

BOULDER, Colorado – Dec 12, 2018 –  HSAT, a 6U CubeSat using a Bus manufactured by Blue Canyon Technologies for the Harris Corporation, successfully launched from India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and has begun initial operations. The briefcase-sized spacecraft will test and characterize the performance of a payload in a circular, sunsynchronous, Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Blue Canyon Technologies is proud to support the Harris Corporation as a partner on the HSAT mission.  BCT’s 6U spacecraft bus is a state-of-the-art, high-performance CubeSat platform that maximizes available payload volume. The spacecraft includes ultra-high-performance pointing accuracy, robust power system, command and data handling, RF communications, optional propulsion, and multiple flexible payload interfaces.  The BCT XB Spacecraft family provides a complete solution for payload needs ranging from a 3U CubeSat to ESPA-class.

About Blue Canyon Technologies

Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc. is a privately held business founded in 2008 to bring high-performance, affordable solutions to space missions. The company is an innovative, experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies. For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

BOULDER, Colorado – Nov 29, 2018 – While people around planet Earth were eagerly listening to the events unfold with NASA JPL’s InSight Lander on Mars, NASA JPL’s MarCO CubeSats were busy making history themselves by relaying, in real-time, the telemetry from InSight back to Earth.  The two MarCO CubeSats, the first-ever interplanetary CubeSats, were guided throughout their 6.5-month journey from Earth to Mars using Blue Canyon Technologies’ (BCT) XACT Attitude Control Systems.  The XACTs (fleXible Attitude Control Technology) provided the precision necessary to point the MarCO reflect-array high-gain antennas back toward Earth to relay the data collected from InSight during its entry, descent, and landing on Mars. The CubeSats also relayed the first image from Insight.  Additionally, the XACTs provided control of the on-board propulsion system during multiple trajectory correction maneuvers throughout its journey to the Red Planet.

The XACT system contains a precision nano-star tracker with sun keep-out baffle, three low-jitter reaction wheels, multiple sun sensors, an IMU, and a fully-programmed hyper-integrated electronics board, all within a 10x10x5 cm package.  It supports virtually any mode of pointing, and provides the highest precision pointing available for spacecraft in its class, measured on orbit by another mission to be better than 0.001 deg, RMS.  Multiple XACTs have flown in LEO missions, and are baselined in approximately 60 different user-built CubeSats for LEO, GEO, Lunar, and deep space missions.  The same technology is also baselined in an additional 60 turn-key spacecraft being built by BCT, ranging from 3U to 200-kg ESPA class.

About Blue Canyon Technologies

Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc. is a privately held business founded in 2008 to bring high-performance, affordable solutions to space missions. The company is an innovative, experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies. For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

BOULDER, Colorado – Nov 26, 2018 – Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has been awarded a $1.54 million contract for Phase 1 – Architecture and Design of a spacecraft for the highly sought-after Blackjack Program, a military space capabilities demonstration developed by The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). BCT will design an ESPA-class micro-satellite using their state-of-the-art commoditized FleXbus spacecraft architecture. The spacecraft will feature BCT’s flight-proven integrated avionics and precise attitude control. BCT’s focus will be on the development of the systems requirements and preliminary designs, culminating in the Preliminary Design Review (PDR).

With funding being provided by DARPA and the US Air Force, the basic formula of the Blackjack program is to develop and demonstrate the critical technical elements for building a global high-speed network platform in low Earth orbit (LEO) that enables highly networked, resilient and persistent Department of Defense (DoD) payloads.

Subsequent phases will cover detailed design up through a CDR, construction of two flight spacecraft, launch and demonstration of the first two spacecraft for six months, and finally build and launch 18 additional spacecraft to complete a 20-spacecraft constellation demonstration by 2021.

“We are excited to be off and running on this program as we all recognize the importance of this project.  The core elements of this effort have been in the works at BCT for years and we are thrilled to be able to see them realized on Blackjack.  We are expecting to see numerous constellations of our high-performance spacecraft bus with interconnections between the satellites and the ground, performing various functions for multiple users.  The Blackjack program will be leading the way.”

In addition to designing spacecraft for the Blackjack program, BCT is now supporting numerous successful missions with a cumulative total of 4 spacecraft, 11 attitude control systems, 25 star trackers and 69 reaction wheels on-orbit. In conjunction with this recent on-orbit success, BCT has expanded their satellite manufacturing facilities in Boulder, Colorado to over 42,000 square feet. The new facility was designed to accommodate the increasing demand for their high-performance, high-reliability spacecraft, subsystems, and components.  BCT’s new state-of-the-art facility supports high-volume spacecraft production, including constellations, by leveraging new cleanrooms, thermal vacuums, vibration, integration, and test capabilities.  BCT has orders for nearly 60 spacecraft, ranging from 3U CubeSats to 200kg ESPA-class, for missions in LEO to GEO, for commercial, academic, and Government customers.  BCT has also recently obtained building permits for an additional 40,000 square feet, which will make their facility one of the largest for small satellite production in the world.

About Blue Canyon Technologies

Blue Canyon Technologies, Inc. is a privately held business founded in 2008 to bring high-performance, affordable solutions to space missions. The company is an innovative, experienced integrator of aerospace systems and developer of advanced aerospace products and technologies. For the latest news on Blue Canyon Technologies and for other company information, please visit www.bluecanyontech.com.

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