PierSight has raised $8 million in funding.

NASA replaced the Apollo color camera’s SEC tubes with Electron Bounded Silicon tubes.

PierSight is hiring for various roles.

PierSight was co-selected to build India’s first public-private Earth observation constellation.

NASA added lens caps and backup black-and-white cameras after Apollo 12 to reduce the risk of camera failure on later missions.

Gaurav Seth is the CEO of PierSight.

Katalyst’s operations facility will conduct systems checkouts, instrument calibrations, and thruster verifications for approximately 7 to 14 days after insertion into low Earth orbit.

The launch window for the Swift servicing mission opens no earlier than 6:23 a.m. Eastern Time from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The Link spacecraft will perform orbital phasing burns over a six-week period to match Swift’s orbital velocity and vector.

The Link spacecraft is calculated to raise the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory by 100 miles, or 160 km.

Link will conduct low-thrust orbital maintenance burns over a span of two months after docking with Swift.

The Pegasus rocket will be released from a modified Stargazer L-1011 carrier aircraft at an altitude of 40,000 feet before its first-stage motor ignites.

The Link servicing vehicle is a refrigerator-sized spacecraft designed for autonomous proximity operations and mechanical docking without standardized grapple fixtures.

Katalyst Space Technologies procured a surplus Pegasus rocket from Northrop Grumman for the $30 million mission budget.

The Pegasus rocket is an air-launched, three-stage solid-fuel booster.

NASA restricted the Link mission to successfully executing the orbital boost while avoiding structural impact or sensor contamination.

NASA awarded Katalyst Space Technologies an expedited $30 million firm-fixed-price contract in September 2025 to develop and manufacture the servicing payload.

Swift’s passive orientation maneuvers slowed its descent by an estimated 25 miles.

NASA and Katalyst Space Technologies are scheduled to launch an orbital servicing mission for the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory on June 30, 2026.

Brad Cenko directed Swift to halt scientific imaging and execute passive orientation maneuvers in early 2026.

The mission aims to arrest the atmospheric decay of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and prevent a destructive atmospheric re-entry projected within the next few months.

The orbital restoration is projected to extend the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory’s operational lifespan by an additional decade.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has no onboard propulsion system for orbital maintenance.

The SBA will use its SBIC investment framework to provide federal matching leverage to licensed private equity and venture capital funds under the SBIC-NASA Initiative.

The SBIC-NASA Initiative mobilizes private institutional capital to build manufacturing capabilities for sustained lunar operations and future Martian exploration frameworks.

NASA’s Office of Strategic Capital will connect vetted small business defense and civil contractors with participating SBIC fund managers through technical briefings and matchmaking forums.

The SBIC-NASA Initiative is designed to address production bottlenecks and expand commercial manufacturing throughput within the domestic space industrial base.

The SBIC-NASA Initiative merges NASA’s Office of Strategic Capital with the SBA’s Small Business Investment Company program.

NASA and the U.S. Small Business Administration signed a Memorandum of Agreement on June 29, 2026, establishing the Small Business Investment Company-NASA Initiative.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman leads NASA during the SBIC-NASA Initiative launch period.

Licensed SBIC funds participating in the program will be eligible for secondary debt leverage backed by the SBA.

The SBA’s Office of Investment and Innovation will host the operational framework for the SBIC-NASA Initiative.

The SBA has prioritized structural enhancements for domestic manufacturers in fiscal year 2026, including fee reductions and loan guarantees up to 90%.

NASA will identify technological shortfalls and engineering priorities across the civil aerospace sector under the SBIC-NASA Initiative.

NASA’s Office of Strategic Capital will begin hosting technical briefings and matchmaking forums in the third quarter of 2026.

JPL’s autonomous tip-and-queue capability can automatically detect an event of interest and redirect satellite assets to gather more data.

Flight demonstrations for the FAME project are set to begin in June 2026.

JPL’s software is designed to enable autonomous tip-and-queue tasking without requiring ground-based command uplinks.

NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office funds the FAME project.

Loft Orbital’s on-orbit infrastructure features a high-performance processing architecture that supports edge computing and lightweight AI application deployment.

The spacecraft involved in FAME will use intersatellite links for rapid communication with one another or with ground stations at any time.

Additional FAME deployments on future AI-enabled satellites are planned for 2027 and 2028.

Loft Orbital will provide on-orbit infrastructure for JPL’s AI software under the Federated Autonomous MEasurement (FAME) project.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory selected Loft Orbital to host and fly demonstrations of artificial intelligence software for near-real-time Earth observation data processing without human intervention.

Julie Kearney previously served as the first Chief of the FCC Space Bureau.

David Redl previously led the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

David Redl is SpaceConnect Association’s Executive Director.

SpaceConnect Association’s priorities include market access, radio spectrum allocation, updated licensing processes, and shared practices for sustainable space operations.

SpaceConnect Association will collaborate with international institutions, governments, and industry stakeholders on a regulatory framework for the NGSO sector.

Julie Kearney is SpaceConnect Association’s General Counsel.