Privateer unveils AI-powered hardware & software solutions to drive future of space operations & data applications

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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KIHEI, Hawai'i - Privateer Space, the space decision intelligence platform already leading tracking and visualization through its public Wayfinder app, on Tuesday revealed a bold new vision for the future of the space-based and space-derived economy: an orbital network of globally accessible and actionable satellite data, mined for advanced insights with a suite of artificial intelligence software, and powered in part by proprietary hardware set to launch into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in late 2023.

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Pono, an edge compute, storage, machine learning, and data transmission module available to satellite operators as a hosted payload, will serve as a pillar of Privateer’s approach to optimizing the space environment while bringing valuable but disparate satellite data to the Global 2K, commercial, and consumer markets. Built with off-the-shelf components and integrated with Wayfinder, Pono offers operators conjunction analysis, dynamic tasking, and autopilot capability.

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Concurrently, their assets’ high-value data streams feed into Privateer’s API-based, AI-infused marketplace, making breakthrough applications of space data available at scale and at lower cost to both a wide range of industries and individual developers and researchers. 

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“With Wayfinder as the guide and Pono as the engine, Privateer is linking ‘for space’ and ‘from space,’ data drivers and data users, Silicon Valley and space, and economics and sustainability in the orbital environment,” Privateer CEO Alex Fielding said. “This is about refining and redefining how we, as a society, can maximize the life and utility of our satellites to enable new applications – with implications reaching from ESG to insurance, agriculture to energy, and beyond – while standardizing norms of behavior in space.”

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The first Pono prototype will reach space as a hosted payload on D-Orbit's ION Satellite Carrier space tug. During a months-long series of tests on orbit, Privateer will assess the ability of its machine learning workloads to gather and process data and how radiation in orbit affects the hardware, validating the platform’s design and measuring its performance. Data from the testing will inform updates to software design and fine-tune the hardware’s fault tolerance and redundancy.

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Following this iterative development, a second prototype is planned to launch in H1 2024. Waitlist access will open in mid-2024 before Pono subsequently becomes operational and available to customers in early 2025.

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Maui-based Privateer was co-founded in 2021 by tech and space veteran Fielding, Silicon Valley titan Steve Wozniak, and renowned astrodynamicist Dr. Moriba Jah to serve as the data engine for sustainable space economy growth. Combining Pono and Wayfinder’s capabilities ‘for space’ with the APIs and microservices that fuel Privateer’s opportunities for data users and developers ‘from space,’ the company’s mission aims to not only fuel progress on Earth, but ultimately also reduce the amount of single-use satellites launched into orbit.

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”Building a data ride-sharing economy in and from space, paired with our on-orbit AI, enables Privateer to give away the safety, sustainability, and optimization technology that helps earn satellite operators more customers while giving a global user base a way to access space that traditionally has been reserved for large governments only,” Wozniak said. “This is similar to when GPS technology became available to the masses and we expect it to have a similar impact.”

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Contact:

Beau Holder

beau@privateer.com