Spaceflight Industries, Inc. today announced the finalization of the sale of its rideshare business, Spaceflight, Inc., to Mitsui & Co., Ltd., in partnership with Yamasa Co., Ltd. following the completion of the review process by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). BlackSky Global LLC (BlackSky) was not part of the Mitusi transaction and continues to operate as private U.S. company.
“The sale of the Spaceflight rideshare business to Mitsui reinforces the value and success of our rideshare business and its incredible team,” said Brian O’Toole, president of Spaceflight Industries and CEO of BlackSky. “It’s an exciting time for both Spaceflight and BlackSky as each company continues to focus on the execution of their specific missions and strategic goals.”
O’Toole continues, “Our collective teams have been instrumental in leading innovation across the space industry. In essence, with BlackSky, Spaceflight rideshare and LeoStella LLC, we’ve established three successful space companies since our inception.”
BlackSky’s smallsat constellation is designed to offer high cadence and revisit rates in order to capture and analyze rapid changes and pattern-of-life insights. BlackSky’s customers include more than 30 defense and intelligence organizations throughout the world as well as commercial entities across a variety of industries including financial services and the energy sector.
BlackSky will continue to work closely with Spaceflight rideshare to manage the launch of new satellites as it builds out its constellation. BlackSky has four satellites on orbit and plans to launch an additional eight satellites in 2020. LeoStella, a joint venture between Spaceflight Industries and Thales Alenia Space, is contracted to design and manufacture 20 satellites for BlackSky’s constellation.
“The funds secured through this transaction will be reinvested in BlackSky to capitalize on what we see is an expanding market opportunity in global monitoring,” said O’Toole.
About BlackSky LLC
BlackSky is a global monitoring company. We monitor activities and facilities worldwide by harnessing the world’s emerging sensor networks and leveraging our own satellite constellation. We process millions of observations daily from space, air, environmental sensors, asset tracking sensors, Industrial IoT, and Internet-enabled narrative sources. BlackSky’s on-demand swarm of satellites can image a location multiple times throughout the day. We monitor for pattern-of-life anomalies to produce alerts and enhance situational awareness. Our monitoring service is powered by cutting-edge compute techniques including machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and natural language processing. BlackSky’s global monitoring is available via a simple subscription and requires no IT infrastructure or setup. For more information visit www.blacksky.com
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