Spire Global

Spire Global, Inc.
Private
Founded 2012 (2012)[1]
Founder Peter Platzer, Joel Spark, Jeroen Cappaert[1]
Headquarters San Francisco, California, U.S.
Number of locations
 5 (2018)
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Peter Platzer (CEO)
[1][2]
Number of employees
 101-250[1][3]
Website spire.com

Spire Global, Inc. is an American private company specializing in data gathered from a network of small satellites.[4] It has successfully deployed more than seventy Earth observation CubeSats into low Earth orbit. The company has offices in San Francisco, Glasgow, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Boulder.

History

Spire was founded in 2012 and opened offices in San Francisco. The company later opened offices in Glasgow, Singapore, and Boulder.[4][5] Spire was founded to create ArduSat, a crowd-funded satellite, which was launched on August 3, 2013.[6][7] Crowd funding in the amount of $106,330 was raised via Kickstarter.[8] The startup was incubated at Lemnos Labs[6] and investments totaling $1.5M were made in a seed round by Shasta Ventures, Emerge, Beamonte Investments, Grishin Robotics, and Lemnos Labs.[1][9] On July 29, 2014, Spire announced an additional $25M Series A funding round led by RRE Ventures and backed by Emerge, Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, Qihoo, 360 Technology, and Moose Capital.[1][5][10] On June 30, 2015, the company announced a $40 Million Series B led by Promus Ventures with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Jump Capital.[11]

The company’s first three ArduSat satellites were named after a portmanteau of Arduino, the technology on which they were based, and Satellite.[7][12] In August 2014, it was announced that Ardusat was spun out of Spire and would focus on educational technology.[2]

In September 2015, Spire became the first CubeSat operator based in the US to launch from India.[13] In January 2016, the company announced a Boulder, Colorado office and that it had hired the former program manager of the COSMIC weather satellite constellation.[14]

On November 15, 2017 the company announced a $70m Series C and opened an office in Luxembourg.[15]

On January 21, 2018, two Lemur-2 CubeSats were part of the payload of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket, the first successful orbital-entry craft launched from a privately owned and operated spaceport (at Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand).

Satellites

Spire satellites are built to conform to the CubeSat standard. The company uses minimally adapted consumer electronics to reduce cost.[16] The satellites are placed in low-Earth orbit and are scheduled to be retired and replaced every two years.[17][18] The Lemur-1 satellite was launched as a prototype for a constellation of 125 satellites.[19][20][21] Spire designs, manufactures, and operates all its satellites in-house.

The satellites are multi-sensor. Data types such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) service are used for tracking ships, and weather payloads measure temperature, pressure, and precipitation. AIS data is meant for use in illegal fishing, trade monitoring, maritime domain awareness, insurance, asset tracking, search and rescue, and piracy.[6]

Satellite list

Satellite Name[22] Configuration Launch date /
Deployment date		 Launch vehicle /
Host spacecraft		 Purpose
Ardusat-1 1U CubeSat Launch: 2013-08-03
Deployment: 2013-11-19
from ISS Kibo with NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer[23]		 H-IIB
Kounotori 4		 Public experimentation
Ardusat-X 1U CubeSat
Ardusat-2 2U CubeSat Launch: 2014-01-09
Deployment: 2014-02-28
from ISS Kibo with NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer[24]		 Antares 120
Cygnus CRS Orb-1		 Public experimentation
Lemur-1 3U CubeSat 2014-06-19[25] Dnepr/UniSat-6 Micro-Satellite Prototype
Lemur-2 #1 Joel 3U CubeSat 2015-09-28[26] PSLV-XL Commercial
Lemur-2 #2 Peter
Lemur-2 #3 Jeroen
Lemur-2 #4 Chris
Lemur-2 #5 Theresacondor Launch: 2016-03-23[22]
Deployment: 2016-05-18
from ISS Kibo with NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer[27]		 Atlas V 401
Cygnus CRS OA-6		 Commercial
Lemur-2 #6 Kane
Lemur-2 #7 Nick-Allain
Lemur-2 #8 Jeff
Lemur-2 #9 Cubecheese Launch: 2016-03-23[22]
Deployment: 2016-06-22
from Cygnus spacecraft[22]
Lemur-2 #10 Drmuzz
Lemur-2 #11 Bridgeman
Lemur-2 #12 Nate
Lemur-2 #13 Beccadewey Failed to deploy[22]
Lemur-2 #14 Sokolsky Launch: 2016-10-18
Deployment: 2016-11-25
from Cygnus spacecraft[28]		 Antares 230
Cygnus CRS OA-5		 Commercial
Lemur-2 #15 Xiaoqing
Lemur-2 #16 Anubhavthakur
Lemur-2 #17 Wingo
Lemur-2 #18 Trutna Launch: 2016-12-09
Deployment: 2017-03-06 – 2017-03-07 from ISS Kibo with NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer		 H-IIB
Kounotori 6		 Commercial
Lemur-2 #19 Trutnahd
Lemur-2 #20 Austintacious
Lemur-2 #21 Redfern-Goes
Lemur-2 #22 Jobanputra Launch: 2017-02-15 [29] PSLV-XL Commercial
Lemur-2 #23 Spire-Minions
Lemur-2 #24 Satchmo
Lemur-2 #25 Rdeaton
Lemur-2 #26 Smita-Sharad
Lemur-2 #27 Mia-Grace
Lemur-2 #28 Noguescorreig
Lemur-2 #29 Tachikoma
Lemur-2 #30 JennyBarna Launch: 2017-04-18 Atlas V Commercial
Lemur-2 #31 Angela
Lemur-2 #32 SpiroVision
Lemur-2 #33 RobMoore
Lemur-2 #34 ShainaJohl Launch: 2017-06-23 PSLV-XL Commercial
Lemur-2 #35 XueniTerence
Lemur-2 #36 LucyBryce
Lemur-2 #37 KungFoo
Lemur-2 #38 McPeake
Lemur-2 #39 Sam-Amelia
Lemur-2 #40 Lisasaurus
Lemur-2 #41 Lynsey-Symo
Lemur-2 #42 Greenberg Launch: 2017-07-14 Soyuz-2.1a Fregat-M Commercial
Lemur-2 #43 ArtFischer
Lemur-2 #44 Monsoon
Lemur-2 #45 Furiaus
Lemur-2 #46 Zachary
Lemur-2 #47 AndiS
Lemur-2 #48 PeterG
Lemur-2 #49 Dembitz
Lemur-2 #50 Yonglin 2017-11-12 Antares 230 Commercial
Lemur-2 #51 Kevin
Lemur-2 #52 BrianDavie
Lemur-2 #53 RomaCoste
Lemur-2 #54 RocketJonah
Lemur-2 #55 Liu-Poh-Chun
Lemur-2 #56 McCullagh
Lemur-2 #57 Dunlop
Lemur-2 #58 McGarvey 2017-11-28 Soyuz-2.1a Fregat-M Rocket Upper Stage Failure
Lemur-2 #59 BenYeoh
Lemur-2 #60 Harvey
Lemur-2 #61 Matthew
Lemur-2 #62 Maximillie
Lemur-2 #63 Smillie-Face
Lemur-2 #64 NRE-Metts
Lemur-2 #65 CyclonRaider
Lemur-2 #66 Ector
Lemur-2 #67 Craig
Lemur-2 #68 PW Launch: 2018-01-12 PSLV-XL Commercial
Lemur-2 #69 DaveWilson
Lemur-2 #70 McCafferty
Lemur-2 #71 BrownCow
Lemur-2 #72 Tallhamn-ATC Launch: 2018-01-21 Electron Commercial
Lemur-2 #73 Marshall
Lemur-2 #74 Kadi Launch: 2018-02-01 Soyuz-2.1a Fregat-M Commercial
Lemur-2 #75 TheNickMolo
Lemur-2 #76 Jin-Luen
Lemur-2 #77 UramChanSol
Lemur-2 #78 TomHenderson Launch: 2018-05-21
Deployment: 2018-07-15		 Antares 230
Cygnus CRS OA-9E		 Commercial
Lemur-2 #79 Yuasa
Lemur-2 #80 Alexander
Lemur-2 #81 Vu

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Spire Crunchbase". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  2. 1 2 "A Higher Education: Satellite Startup Aims to Inspire Students Through Experiments in Space". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Spire (Global) Overview". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  4. 1 2 "Spire website". 2014. Retrieved Jun 27, 2017.
  5. 1 2 "Nanosatellite Company Spire Raises $25M, Rocket Lab Unveils New Rocket". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 "From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Spire's Ambitious Remote Sensing Strategy". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  7. 1 2 "ArduSat 1,X - Gunter's Space Page". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  8. ↑ "ArduSat - Your Arduino Experiment in Space - Kickstarter". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  9. ↑ "ArduSat will let anyone conduct experiments in space for $125". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  10. ↑ "SPIRE ANNOUNCES $25 MILLION IN SERIES A TO FUEL GROWTH AND HELP FULFILL EARLY CUSTOMER DEMAND" (Press release). San Francisco. 2014-06-29. Retrieved 2014-11-21.
  11. ↑ "Spire Raises $40 Million for Its 'Listening Satellites'". 2016. Retrieved Mar 29, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Soon Students Will Be Able To Control Satellites In Space". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  13. ↑ "PSLV Rocket Launches India's 1st Astronomy Satellite, 4 Spire Cubesats". 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
  14. ↑ "Commercial Weather Data Dave Ector". 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Spire Opens a European HQ in Luxembourg, Raises Additional $70M'". 2017. Retrieved Jan 23, 2018.
  16. ↑ "NASA - NanoRacks-Ardusat-2". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  17. ↑ "Spire wants to fight sea pirates from space – using nanosatellites". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  18. ↑ "More space robots as Grishin funds NanoSatisfi". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  19. ↑ "Lemur 1 - Gunter's Space Page". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  20. ↑ "SPRSA conference 2015 - Spire final" (PDF).
  21. ↑ "Exhibit".
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 "Lemur-2". Gunters Space Page. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
  23. ↑ "Ardusat 1, X". Gunter's Space Page. 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
  24. ↑ "Ardusat 2". Gunter's Space Page. 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
  25. ↑ "Dnepr - Gunter's Space Page". 2014. Retrieved Nov 21, 2014.
  26. ↑ "Gunters Space Page". 2015. Retrieved Oct 16, 2015.
  27. ↑ Richardson, Derek (21 May 2016). "International Space Station crew deploys cubesats". Spaceflight Insider.
  28. ↑ Foust, Jeff (26 November 2016). "Spire deploys four satellites from Cygnus". Space News.
  29. ↑ Foust, Jeff (26 November 2016). "ISRO Creates Record by Launching 104 Satellites". Space News.

See Also

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