SAN FRANCISCO – Muon Space, a Silicon Valley startup constructing a climate-monitoring constellation, sent its first satellite into orbit June 12 on the SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare flight.
With the 70-kilogram satellite, Muon intends to show the technology stack developed for the reason that startup was founded in 2021.
“The primary satellite launch is a crucial stepping stone for us to show that we are able to do things quickly with high performance and reliably,” Muon CEO Johnny Dyer told . “We’ve developed from scratch a really capable spacecraft platform in addition to the infrastructure required to operate it on the bottom.”
Unique Climate Applications
In two launches scheduled for 2024, Muon plans to start testing sensors the corporate is developing to offer sub-hourly global measurements.
“We have now a mixture of sensors that may uniquely address some climate applications specifically,” Dyer said. “The constellation will collect a set of measurements at a sampling cadence and a temporal revisit cadence that’s unprecedented. Measurements we’ll be making will probably be extremely impactful for flood and water issues.”
Muon plans to launch its first-generation microwave instrument in February to assemble weather data for the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit. In October 2024, Muon plans to launch at the least one additional satellite with microwave and multispectral infrared instruments, Dyer said.
“We’re taking a really rapid, iterative approach to this,” Dyer said. “We predict that flexibility is essential to addressing loads of these needs.”
Dyer, former chief engineer for Skybox Imaging, founded Muon with Dan McCleese, former NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory chief scientist, Greg Smirin, former Climate Corp. chief operating officer, Paul Day, Loft Orbital former chief product officer, and Reuben Rohrschneider, former Ball Aerospace principal mission systems and architecture engineer.
Science and Engineering Partnerships
In seed and Series A rounds, Muon has raised about $35 million so far. Muon also has established partnerships with key technology corporations including Google and nonprofits just like the Environmental Defense Fund.
“We are able to’t be the expert on every application, but we are able to deeply partner with groups to know where the needs and gaps are,” Dyer said.
Muon is exclusive, Dyer said, in specializing in each science and engineering.
“We predict there’s loads of value to find first-order operational pain points which might be being driven by things like climate and national security and constructing out the capabilities needed to resolve those problems,” Dyer said.