Posted: Sat, Nov 7 12:14 PM ET (1714 GMT)
CesiumAstro has raised $730 million to fund work on its satellite constellation. The company announced Thursday it closed a Series D round that included $630 million in equity led by investment firm Janus Henderson and $100 million in debt from JP Morgan and the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The funds would support work on Synchronicity, a 737-satellite constellation operating in Ku-, Ka-, and V-bands. It will use onboard artificial intelligence to dynamically optimize and allocate communications resources in response to changing needs and operating conditions, targeting commercial, sovereign and defense missions. The company launched a precursor satellite, Element-1, last month.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  Bloomberg News article
•  CesiumAstro press release

Posted: Sat, Nov 7 12:10 PM ET (1710 GMT)
AST SpaceMobile, whose deployment of a direct-to-device constellation has been slowed by launch vehicle issues, is taking matters into its own hands. The company announced Friday it will develop its own rocket, Blacklift, capable of carrying five of its BlueBird satellites per launch Blacklift will be powered by Miranda and Vira engines from Firefly Aerospace. The two companies announced a $1.3 billion agreement where Firefly will provide the engines for the first three Blacklift launches along with engineering support and a license to allow AST to produce its own engines for later flights. AST released few other details about the rocket other than it is planning a first launch as soon as late 2028 and that the rocket will be "designed for reusability."

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  Wall Street Journal article
•  ViaSatellite article
•  Firefly Aerospace press release

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