T-1 Year to Launch

The Past 12 Months at Albedo

Looking Backwards: I don’t know about you, but the past year at Albedo has been a wild ride. Someone’s got to have a theory about time at a space start-up equating to 5-10x normal time — kind of how cat years are to human years.

Cats and relativity of time aside, the Albedo team has been consistently crushing it. Let’s take it from the top!

Scaling up: We started 2023 with 20 superb human beings and now have over 50 superb human beings that live, breathe, and bleed Albedo. Additionally, we officially planted our HQ flag in Denver, CO by standing up our 10,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility. This facility will not only support the construction of our first satellite but also accommodate the production of 3-4 additional satellites simultaneously.

Dual-use thesis: Commercial and government traction? Before launch? That’s a reasonable doubt to have until you have Albedo come along to absolutely smash your expectations. Over the past year:

• We have won several government contracts, two of which we’ve publicly announced: a Direct-to-Phase-2 (D2P2, say that four times in a row) SBIR to study our nighttime thermal IR imagery and a commercial imagery contract with NRO to demonstrate NIIRS 7 capabilities.

• We have a number of commercial contracts signed with companies across an array of regions and industries - stay tuned for an upcoming blog post to more details 👀 If you’re interested in ensuring your own access to our 10cm imagery in 2025, keep reading!

World-class advisors: Not only are our employees one-of-a-kind, but our advisors are too. We announced the formation of our Strategic Advisory Board in mid-2023, and more recently, it’s expansion. Presenting the absolutely stacked Albedo Strategic Advisory Board:

• Vice Admiral Bob Sharp, US Navy (Ret): Former Director of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

• Jen Stewart: Former Department of Defense Chief of Staff

• The Honorable Joan Dempsey: Former EVP at Booz Allen Hamilton; Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Community Management

• Dr. John Deutch: Former Director of Central Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology

• LTG Patrick O’Reilly, US Army (Ret): VP, Corporate Strategy, L3Harris Technologies Inc.

• Rick Ambrose: Former EVP Lockheed Martin Space

$$$: As y’all likely know, 2023 wasn’t the easiest time to raise money — actually, fact check: it was the toughest it’s been in the past 6 years. Still, powered by the monumental progress of our team and sweet mission of building a new platform for earth observation in VLEO, we successfully closed another $35M, welcoming new lead investor, Standard Investments, along with Booz Allen Ventures to our team. With a total of $97M venture capital raised, it’s time to launch this first satellite and get started on the next.

And of course, engineering progress:

• The Precision Platform (aka our satellite bus) is actively being built. Over the past 15 months, the team has architected, designed, analyzed, and matured a bus that can withstand the VLEO environment, host our large payload/telescope, and achieve precision pointing performance superior to any commercial bus that has flown to date.

• Our payload (aka big camera) is coming together: the main subsystems are in manufacturing and will soon be integrated, aligned, and tested.

• Albedo’s manufacturing facility is ready for assembly/integration/test. At our Denver HQ, the team has, in record time, stood up a functional satellite manufacturing facility with the many complexities required to build this class of space vehicles, including: a clean room, hardware-in-loop lab, solar array assembly, building modifications, hoists, and more.

• Our software teams are crushing all planned milestones. Flight and ground software have hit very aggressive goals towards building foundational systems to initialize and operate our satellite in VLEO.

Launching in less than a year: The phase at Albedo will somehow be even more wild. Metal-on-metal assembly, hardware and software integration and testing, system-level testing, launch rehearsals, launch prep — the whole shebang!

Are you excited yet? Would a steady stream of super cool photos of space hardware being progressively assembled help? If you’d like to follow along, make sure you’re subscribed to this newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Albedo Reserve

We’re thrilled to announce that our tasking reservation program is officially open to qualified commercial customers. Participating in Albedo Reserve ensures that you are:

• First to task. Secure guaranteed access to limited tasking images during our first two years on orbit.

• First to unlock new insights. Develop new applications and create new revenue streams for your company or customers. 

• First to market. Gain market advantage, accelerate internal problem solving, or be first to market.

• First to provide feedback. Influence our API features, platform development, and imagery product roadmaps.

We will have a limited supply of tasking images during mid-2025 to mid-2027, and most of our commercial regions will likely be fully booked out ahead of launch. This program offers a low-risk way for customers to reserve a set amount of tasking images in their region(s) of interest.

Fine Print: Cash deposit is required to secure a reservation.

Upcoming Conferences

Want to meet the Albedo team in-person and see our beautiful faces? See below for conferences we’ll be attending over the next few months:  

• Space Symposium: April 8th - April 11th

• GeoINT: May 5th - May 8th

Sending Good Vibes o(︶︿︶)o

We’re all about good vibes here at Albedo — make sure you subscribe for more! For now, I’ll leave you with these gems.

Until next time,

Winston & Team Albedo