Overview
As concern about space sustainability advances globally, NorthStar Earth and Space (NorthStar) will soon bring a first-in-class satellite constellation into service that may provide unique insights from tracking where space objects are and the way they behave, fueling multiple decisions across safety and security boundaries. This information will improve decision-making for presidency and business space operators and enable decisions by entrepreneurs and regulators for future space missions like satellite servicing and other innovations within the space economy.
Headquartered in Montreal, Canada with subsidiaries in Washington, D.C., and Luxembourg City, NorthStar was conceived from its early beginnings in 2012 as a worldwide company, given widespread interest in leveraging the advantages of the space economy. Other than those major hubs, NorthStar has raised over $100m in investments from Canadian, European, and U.S. investors, along with business partnerships that stretch the corporate’s reach to Asia, South Asia, and Australia. NorthStar’s existing business has created high-tech jobs in areas starting from astrodynamics to satellite design, software engineering, and imagery evaluation, to call just a few. Its products have been designed for near-term use by government and business customers in addition to to assist drive progressive recent capabilities that will likely be needed as the muse of the space economy.
NorthStar’s Constellation
As early as January 2024, the primary 4 of a planned 24 NorthStar satellites will fly aboard a Rocket Labs Electron rocket, representing the first-ever SSA-satellite-as-a-service constellation. Starting with this initial flight, NorthStar will enable continuous monitoring of satellites and nearby objects, providing state vectors for early detection and warning of safety- and security-related phenomena.
As NorthStar operates in space, it complements ground based SSA systems and creates additional advantage by allowing for more frequent observations that feed proprietary, advanced orbit determination algorithms that increase trajectory model accuracy and reduce the uncertainty related to an area object’s position. NorthStar’s “all the time on” constellation allows for across the clock monitoring of objects in LEO, MEO, and GEO orbits while avoiding the restrictions of ground-based sensors. NorthStar’s initial services will include maneuver detection, conjunction warning, and anomaly detection at a level of precision not yet publicly available to business operators.
Space-based SSA has additional benefits to think about. Legacy ground-based collection systems have specific orientation – mainly to cover the Eurasian landmass – while business systems are limited by geography, distance, atmospheric, and high relative dynamics limitations. Today, and even after current modernization plans, there will likely be large gaps in coverage within the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, and on the South Pole. NorthStar’s planned flight of twelve (12) satellites by 2026 increases coverage of greater than sixty (60) percent of the sky at any given time and potentially 100 (100) percent if utilized in collaboration with multiple government resources.
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Providing a Holistic Picture of the Space Environment
Data collection just isn’t enough to trace and characterize activities within the space environment. NorthStar’s deep investment in modeling and simulation, in addition to data fusion capabilities have already demonstrated the worth of integrating a big selection of SSA and other data sources right into a coherent picture, whether in a wide-area view or in monitoring activities around a selected space object. NorthStar’s data fusion capabilities have already been successfully tested in exercises on problems requiring assessment of unstable debris to satellites whose position has been lost. These capabilities are extremely necessary in a world where space monitoring and assessment have to happen across national boundaries and diverse information sources.
A dynamic and coherent picture of what’s happening in space is important for all space operators. The necessity to protect the lives of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station and the growing number of business human spaceflights is priority one, while all business operators often face complex decisions about whether and how one can move, given natural and manmade debris, and the necessity to preserve fuel, maintain mission focus, and other economic costs related to secure passage. Increasingly, NorthStar’s clientele includes business operators – like Luxembourg’s SES – who need additional monitoring to make sure space safety.
Governments aren’t any different. Because the United Nations and lots of other global actors pursue an efficient space traffic coordination and management system, they may need to depend on far more timely, accurate, and a holistic picture to maintain space operators secure while preserving options and maximizing the advantages of the space economy for all.
Enhancing Security
Because the space environment grows more congested and contested, the big potential of the space economy will rest increasingly on conflict avoidance and effective protection of business operations in space. This creates a fair more urgent demand for improved awareness, especially where there’s growing evidence of unexpected proximity operations, rapid orbital shifts and the event of co-orbital weapons. NorthStar’s constellation and analytic capabilities are uniquely poised to support the person and collective security missions of Canada and the USA and their Five Eyes partners, in addition to France, Germany, and Japan, and including broader efforts in Asia, Europe, and inside NATO.
NorthStar isn’t any stranger to Allied space and defense issues, having participated often within the annual Schriever Wargame and within the Sprint Advanced Concept Training (SACT) exercises sponsored by the US Departments of Defense and Commerce. NorthStar often hosts the SACT’s Meridien Cell at its European Headquarters in Luxembourg, consistent with other efforts on behalf of the US Space Force’s Joint Industrial Operations Cell (JCO). NorthStar has worked with Canadian Department of National Defense (DND) and US Space Force (USSF) officials within the planning and execution of those exercises designed to enhance allied communications about developments within the space environment in addition to test business capabilities to anticipate and assess adversary behavior. NorthStar was granted an award by the US Department of Commerce in 2019 that recognized the firm’s contribution to the US economy and to the Canada-US relationship.
Inside the USA, NorthStar works with a big selection of US government agencies and business partners from its Washington, DC office. NorthStar was one among only seven firms awarded a task within the Department of Commerce’s 2022 GEO pilot project, and the US team routinely consults with organizations like DARPA and NASA, the US Space Systems Command’s Industrial Space Office (COMSO), various Intelligence Community agencies, and others. NorthStar has the lead role in organizing the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation’s working group on SSA. Plans are underway to enable the US subsidiary to work with the total range of US government agencies.
NorthStar’s global business serves to strengthen defense and other ties around the globe. Luxembourg’s early and continuing investment in NorthStar reflects a robust belief within the economic importance of space while also serving broader defense, development, and other global interests. NorthStar’s partnerships in Japan have been designed to explore recent technical horizons – combining space surveillance with space object characterization – while also offering early warning space capabilities in a geopolitically complex Pacific region.
These partnerships span the complete SSA value chain: NorthStar is nurturing other partnerships around the globe to mix astrodynamics and modeling expertise with data fusion, knowledge graph and inferencing capability to create a world class capability for “pattern of life” capabilities for space objects in much the identical way as has been developed for behaviors here on Earth. Multiple conversations are underway for NorthStar to support the French and UK Space Commands, the Japanese Ministry of Defense, and NATO considering its updated space strategy.
NorthStar’s Team and Ethos
Space sustainability and security are international issues transcending geopolitics, space science, environmental threats, and other domains, and they’re going to should be achieved in an environment where the balance between government and business activities is shifting rapidly. NorthStar is taking this on with a world-class multidisciplinary team that is predicated around the globe and focused on the highest challenges of its government and business clients.
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NorthStar’s CEO Stewart Bain is an internationally recognized commentator on space innovation and space sustainability. From his early work as an aerospace engineer and in global business development, Stewart has dedicated his personal and skilled activities to helping improve the importance of space in our day by day lives to the urgent have to give attention to space safety and sustainability. He has been a pioneer in establishing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria for secure and sustainable operations in space. Drawing upon Albert Einstein’s comments that “we cannot solve an issue with the identical consciousness that created it” Stewart routinely calls upon leaders from all industries to reflect on how they leverage space inside their very own businesses and the way take into consideration sustainability.
Trying to the Future
NorthStar’s immediate focus is the successful launch of its first 4 satellites expected next month. Efforts to enhance data processing and evaluation to enable assessment and prediction of space activities proceed in parallel. As does an intense level of customer engagement.
One example of NorthStar’s continuing investment in innovation is their give attention to improving the reliability and accuracy of space data. NorthStar’s planned future products will deliver enhanced identification features to significantly reduce frequent mis-tagging of resident space objects. These enhancements will likely be made possible only through NorthStar’s unique tracking method.
Further, an increasing amount of scientific data points to deep linkages between the environments of Earth and space, creating recent opportunities and the necessity for data collection and assessment. Beyond the work on SSA, NorthStar has an existing business assessing hyperspectral data for Canadian government entities on issues related to resource quality and resource management. Following the successful flight of the SSA constellation, NorthStar has their very own concrete plans to take hyperspectral imagery to space in 2026.
NorthStar looks forward to helping with the longer term challenges and the opportunities of the worldwide space economy. As the corporate embarks on this groundbreaking journey with a first-in-class satellite constellation, NorthStar just isn’t just launching satellites, but enabling a brand new era of space safety, sustainability, and security. NorthStar’s capabilities in continuous monitoring and advanced data evaluation will revolutionize how we understand and interact with the space environment. It is predicated on a commitment to making sure that the advantages of the space economy are secure and accessible for all, from entrepreneurs to space operators to government agencies to all users of the space economy. NorthStar is proud to be on the forefront of this transformative movement, setting a brand new standard for responsible and progressive operations that may function the muse of the longer term space economy.