True Anomaly’s first mission didn’t go as planned, but the space and defense startup’s CEO Even Rogers said he doesn’t consider it a failure. Providing new details about what went right and what didn’t, he explained how they were turning this anomaly into a “success story.”
While the company has yet to assign an ultimate cause to the problems that ended the mission, a timeline of events offers insight into how a startup in space responds to an anomaly in progress.
The company launched its first two satellites as part of SpaceX’s Transporter-10 rideshare mission on March 4. The two spacecraft, which the company calls Jackals, are designed to maneuver near other objects, capturing high-resolution images and video using optical and radar sensors. . The objective of this first mission, Mission X, was to demonstrate these capabilities in orbit for the first time.
Both spacecraft deployed as planned from the rocket, but the company began experiencing problems the same day: Mission controllers expected to communicate with each spacecraft within three hours of deployment, but they saw no signals from the first spacecraft, designated Jackal 2., and had only partially successful first contact with Jackal 1.
The telemetry package they received from Jackal 1 was positive: the spacecraft’s networks were receiving voltage and the data showed it was correctly positioned relative to the sun. However, mission controllers were unable to transmit the data and subsequent nighttime contact attempts for both vehicles failed.
It was a sign of what was to come. But Rogers is adamant that it would be a mistake to call the mission a failure.
“The Mission X approach is to get something as quickly as possible with the right level of complexity that we could learn from and then go from there,” he told TechCrunch in an interview. “Our mentality is that we didn’t meet our goals, but we don’t view this as a failure of a flight test – in the same way that when SpaceX blows up a rocket, everyone applauds.
“It’s only a failure if you don’t learn – it’s only a failure if you don’t give 100% and take responsibility for the design as it is, and changing the design to improve it.”
The timeline of events
The next day, True Anomaly engineers collaborated with other rideshare passengers and external space domain awareness providers to ensure they were tracking the correct satellites.
It’s harder than it seems: In rideshare missions, where dozens of passenger spacecraft are deployed in very rapid succession, it can be surprisingly difficult to actually establish which satellites belong to whom. Communications networks, like ViaSat’s high-latitude ground stations and geostationary satellites, are also becoming congested as operators rush into their services.
The company received photos of Jackal 2 on March 7 from an unnamed non-Earth imagery provider, which confirmed that it had also deployed its solar panels and had oriented correctly; photos of Jackal 1 the next day. Mission controllers carried out additional ground station integration on March 9 and finally confirmed, six days after launch, the orbital states of the two satellites. But Jackal 2 remained silent and they were unable to make further contact with Jackal 1.
The engineers continued to work; Throughout the mission, they added functionality to the internal Mosaic command and control software platform and continued to send commands to the two Jackals. Ultimately, the company announced on March 21, the team was unable to verify whether Jackal is still functional, nor any information on its condition.
Root cause analyzes can take some time, but that’s especially the case when you don’t have a lot of data to work with, Rogers explained.
“What we know for sure is that the spacecraft was, when we received the last batch of information about its status, the spacecraft’s solar panels were deployed and it was pointing toward the sun,” did he declare. “The startup sequence behaved at least partially nominally…We just couldn’t communicate.”
That said, he said he was convinced that it was not just a radio problem, but “probably upstream of communications.”
“Steal, repair, steal”
Many eyes were on True Anomaly’s first mission. The company has generated a lot of buzz since it came out sneakily a year ago with ambitious plans to build intelligence-seeking satellites to bolster national security and defend U.S. assets against adversaries in orbit. True Closed Anomaly a $100 million Series B round last year to accelerate these projects.
True Anomaly’s four co-founders named the blog post announcing the mission’s results “Fly, Fix, Fly,” which is a direct reference to the company’s emphasis on rapid design cycles. With this in mind, the engineers introduced a number of changes to Jackal and Mosaic before the second mission – but some were going to be introduced regardless of the outcome of Mission X.
One of the biggest changes is to the satellite design: The next Jackals will be 100 pounds lighter, a design change that improves maneuverability and increases payload capacity. The company is also modernizing the satellite’s power architecture and improving ground test infrastructure. They also change how flight software weights multiple “out-of-bounds inputs” – signaling that something is wrong – against each other.
Clearly, the outcome of Mission
“The success of Jackal Mission X is twofold,” Rogers said. “The first is that a variety of partners and other members of the Transporter-10 mission are coming together to help each other. The second is that our team reacted very quickly and rehearsed very quickly.
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