Capella Space, an American space tech pioneer with data and satellite solutions for government and commercial use, and a leader in the Earth observation industry, announced that two Acadia satellites, Acadia-4 and Acadia-5, will launch with SpaceX in 2024.
The Acadia-4 satellite will be launched to a 45-degree mid-inclination orbit (MIO) during SpaceX's Bandwagon-1 mission no earlier than April 2024, while the Acadia-5 satellite will be launched no earlier than June 2024 to a 97-degree sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) during SpaceX's Transporter-11 mission via Exolaunch, who will provide mission management and integration services for this mission.
"Working with SpaceX to launch our Acadia satellites into a variety of orbits is a huge win for Capella and will enhance our ability to bring greater coverage and higher revisits over key areas of interest across our customer spectrum," said Frank Backes, CEO of Capella Space. "With an advanced system design providing up to 5x more on-orbit imaging time per satellite relative to other commercial SAR providers, Capella is proud to serve customers in governments, academia, and commercial sectors with reliable information that enables deeper understanding for better decision-making – these rideshare missions double down on the quality and breadth of the insights we can deliver."
SpaceX announced the Bandwagon service in early August as a means of launching satellites on rideshare missions into mid-inclination orbits. Capella Space is one of the first to take advantage of this program. Launching Acadia-4 and Acadia-5 into MIO and SSO orbits further enhances Capella's unmatched orbital and temporal diversity which allows the highest revisit over key regions and enables the Capella constellation to collect imagery at irregular times that bad actors cannot predict.
In addition to the upcoming launches with SpaceX, Capella will also continue working with Rocket Lab to launch satellites into orbit.
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