Capella Launching First Satellite This Fall

Debra Werner for SpaceNews, reporting on Capella, who is working towards the deployment of a synthetic aperture radar satellite constellation:

Capella satellites will weigh less than 40 kilograms, which means four will fit on a single Rocket Lab Electron rocket, said Payam Banazadeh, Capella co-founder and chief executive.

By launching four satellites on each rocket and sending rocket into different planes, Capella will “build a constellation of many planes and orbits with the least amount of operational and deployment complexity,” Banazadeh said. “It allows us to deploy our constellation efficiently in a shorter time frame and with less capital” than constellations of larger satellites.

…

In orbit, Capella plans to unfurl antennas made of a flexible material the company declined to specify. Once deployed, the antennas will span eight square meters, Banazadeh said during a recent tour of the firm’s San Francisco headquarters.

I’m excited to see this constellation deployed. It’s not just another imaging constellation. It’s something new and different, and something that I think will find a market.

But this is a shockingly bad take from one of their investors:

Hyatt said by email he’s backing Capella because it is “the only company with the capability to bring the cost of SAR down by 10x while still keeping the quality images the industry expects.

This comment will not stand the test of time. There is another.