NorthStar Earth & Space is rebuilding its orbital tracking business around 11 new sensors after its first four spacecraft failed and an arbitration panel ordered it to pay Spire Global about $12.4M.
The sensors will fly in 2028 on Kepler Communications relay satellites, the two Canadian companies announced Aug. 27. Kepler’s low Earth orbit network moves data between spacecraft, and NorthStar will use that relay capacity to stream its tracking observations. The payloads will spread across two launches of Kepler’s next-generation satellites.
Kepler switched on commercial service this week using 10 first-generation relay spacecraft. NorthStar has been filling gaps with sensors aboard undisclosed partner satellites since its own quartet stopped working.
The rebuild targets near-total sky coverage. NorthStar says the 11 sensors improve coverage across near-Earth orbits and raise how often it revisits tracked objects, aiming for 98% of the sky with revisit intervals of 20 to 30 minutes.
The company is also going public. A merger with Viking Acquisition Corp. I values it at $300M pre-money with a $30M PIPE, and NorthStar, backed by Quebec and Luxembourg, counts 80 million daily observations and forecasts more than $30M in revenue this year.
