Tukwila, Wash.-based LeoStella is unveiling its latest, greatest platform for small satellites, which should hit a sweet spot for future manufacturing contracts.
LeoStella, which is a joint venture co-owned by European satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space and a geospatial data analysis company called BlackSky, started out in 2018 building Earth observation satellites for BlackSky’s Global constellation.
LeoStella’s LS-100 spacecraft platform, which is known in the space industry as a bus, was right-sized for those 120-pound (55-kilogram) satellites. But that was about as much mass as the LS-100 bus could accommodate.
When BlackSky came up with a more capable payload for its Gen3 satellites, LeoStella boosted its bus design to handle the added mass. Its LS-200 bus is suitable for satellites with a total weight of 330 pounds (150 kilograms), including 130 pounds (60 kilograms) of payload.
Now there’s a growing demand for a bigger class of small satellites, and LeoStella’s LS-300 bus is designed to serve that demand. The LS-300 design, unveiled in conjunction with this week’s Small Satellite Conference in Utah, can be used for satellites weighing 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms), with half of that mass available for the satellite’s payload.
That’s still small potatoes compared with, say, the 20,000-pound Jupiter 3 satellite that was sent into orbit last month by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. But LeoStella CEO Tim Kienberger told GeekWire that the LS-300 bus should make a big difference for the market that his company is targeting.
“Normally you would have jumped up to about the 300-kilogram class,” Kienberger said. “We jumped to the 500-kilogram class with the LS-300 satellite because that’s what the rideshare opportunities are offering up now. And I think that’s a big part of what’s shifting the market. This is all about total cost on orbit, so as the rideshare costs come down and enable the launch of larger satellites, it opens up the door to new capabilities.”
The larger size makes it possible to offer a xenon-based electric propulsion system that’s built by Astra. The propulsion system can achieve velocity changes of more than 440 mph (200 meters per second), which adds significantly to the LS-300’s capability for orbital maneuvering and precision pointing. The LS-300 can also provide up to a kilowatt of power for satellite payloads.
In the process of developing the LS-300 design, LeoStella’s engineers worked with two graduated seniors from the RAID Robotics team at Thomas Jefferson High School in Federal Way, Wash., to create a full-scale mockup for display.
“We’re seeing a big demand for the LS-300 already,” Kienberger said. He said one customer already has been secured — but he wasn’t yet at liberty to identify that customer.
Loft Orbital CEO Pierre-Damien Vanjour, who’s been a LeoStella customer in the past, said the LS-300 is “well-positioned to meet the varied needs of customers seeking access to space.”
“Loft Orbital has had great success with LeoStella’s established bus platforms,” Vanjour said in a news release. “I’m confident the updated LS-300 bus platform will enhance the company’s already established reputation.”
Kienberger is hoping to enlist the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency as a future LS-300 customer. The agency is soliciting bids for scores of satellites that will become part of its constellation for military communications in low Earth orbit.
“The LS-300 is, maybe not intentionally, but definitely targeted in the right size and capability for SDA opportunities,” Kienberger said. Defense contractors could conceivably use the LS-300 spacecraft bus as the foundation for the satellites they’d offer in their bids.
Kienberger said production of the new bus is due to begin early next year. He figures that the Tukwila factory currently has enough capacity to build about 24 LS-300 buses annually, “and with a small expansion in our current footprint, we think we can accommodate more than double that number.”
“We’ve kind of rolled back from production, and we’ve been focusing on developing new products so that we can then take off with those new products,” he said. “So right now we’re forecasting an increase in production next year, but really ramping up in 2025, For sure, if we win some SDA work, there’ll be a lot of production activity going on here in ’25 and ’26.”
