No, nothing my friends told me gave me the feeling that the customer was established. One friend did mention that the customer was pretty open and up front with SpaceX about their financial situation to give them an idea on how extremely crucial this flight was for them. I guess it was enough for SpaceX to squeeze them in risking the ire of their backlogged customers.
Ok, an interesting comment from the reddit user ASTRALSunderQuoteNo, nothing my friends told me gave me the feeling that the customer was established. One friend did mention that the customer was pretty open and up front with SpaceX about their financial situation to give them an idea on how extremely crucial this flight was for them. I guess it was enough for SpaceX to squeeze them in risking the ire of their backlogged customers.So sounds like a new upstart company, assuming ASTRALSunder is correct (and from what he has posted, it seems consistent to me)Edit: Going to try to find some startups without announced launches that might meet this window1. Capella SpaceQuoteCapella has not yet revealed the launch vehicle for its first satellite, but Banazadeh said by email the launch will occur in six months. Eventually, Capella plans offer customers access to global one-meter resolution SAR imagery, updated hourlyhttp://spacenews.com/with-cash-infusion-capella-prepares-its-first-sar-cubesat/
Capella has not yet revealed the launch vehicle for its first satellite, but Banazadeh said by email the launch will occur in six months. Eventually, Capella plans offer customers access to global one-meter resolution SAR imagery, updated hourly
Yeah, as much as I'd like to believe a startup has found a killer app for space and will surprise everyone by starting to rake in money and buying lots of launches I have to say the much more mundane option: that the DOD had bought three super light comsats from boeing and will launch one of them to read through the spam I'm getting in my inbox sounds more believable.
Well I don't think any of the comments we have seen so far suggest government, so just going to keep on guessing commercial upstarts.ConnectX seems interesting, and made a bunch of noise back in 2015 about building a constellation of satellites for secure server storage. Haven't heard anything recently, but maybe that is the point (too busy building, went quiet once they got funding) http://fortune.com/2015/01/29/connectx-space-data/
I really don’t why you think this is going to be a commercial satellite when it has a strong smell of a classified government launch.
When has a commercial launch ever been secret? Commercial space operations come with a lot of paperwork (FCC, ITU...) that we haven't seen. Secrecy comes with a cost. You would need a pretty solid business case to justify it.
Sounds like it’s poll time. Is it even possible for a Block 4 (or 5) F9 to loft a Lunar XPrize to the moon? If so that’s my bet...
- If the satellite is for any kind of Earth observation, then it would most likely fly from the West Coast instead. There are still chances that the payload will focus on observing low latitude places only (e.g. most Planet Lab cubesats, or RazakSat as an extreme case) but I think the chances are negligible.
This application uses information from previous grant, 1302-EX-ST-2017. This STA is necessary to authorize launch vehicle communications for SpaceX Mission 1390, from Complex 39a, Kennedy Space Center. Includes sub-orbital first stage, and orbital second stage. Trajectory data will be provided directly to NTIA, USAF, and NASA. All downrange Earth stations are receive-only. Launch licensing authority is FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
I haven't noticed this before but https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=current&application_seq=80568&RequestTimeout=1000 statesQuoteThis application uses information from previous grant, 1302-EX-ST-2017. This STA is necessary to authorize launch vehicle communications for SpaceX Mission 1390, from Complex 39a, Kennedy Space Center. Includes sub-orbital first stage, and orbital second stage. Trajectory data will be provided directly to NTIA, USAF, and NASA. All downrange Earth stations are receive-only. Launch licensing authority is FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation.I think this pretty much rules out any secret government payload, since they definitely do not need a launch license from FAA, you can browse the FAA licensed launches here: https://www.faa.gov/data_research/commercial_space_data/launches/?type=Licensed, where you can find ULA's commercial payloads such as Morelos-3, but you won't find PAN or CLIO there.As for how the company can be low-profile while having enough cash, first this may not be a low-profile startup at all, it may be a big player switching payload at the last minute. Second we don't track commercial satellites as closely as launch vehicles at this site, there may well be well funded startup out there that are quite open, it's just we're not aware of them.Also the reddit user in question has a long history, if you check his past comments, there's no doubt he is a former SpaceX employee who is in the know.
Note that however Orion EFT-1 and the U.S. Air Force Operationally Responsive Space Office's ORS-3 and ORS-5 are on the list.