Loft’s next satellite program, YAM-8, is ready for its upcoming launch. While YAM-8 is indeed ‘Yet Another Mission’ for Loft, it also represents a new era of enhanced capabilities for Loft’s customers as we begin deploying another standardized satellite platform: the Longbow.

As the very first Longbow headed to space, YAM-8 is hosting several unique customer and Loft-owned payloads on one of our hallmark rideshare satellites. The increased size, weight, and power (“SWaP”) of the Longbow platform allows us to fly larger payloads and more bandwidth- and compute-intensive missions. This gives customers access to all of the on-orbit resources they need while also delivering the capital efficiency of shared infrastructure.

In 2017, Loft was founded on a core value of being bus and payload agnostic. From Day 1, we decided to partner with multiple bus partners rather than build our own – instead, we focused our efforts on developing proprietary hardware (Hub) and software (Cockpit) abstraction layers. These abstraction layers allow us to rapidly integrate and operate any customer mission with minimal non-recurring engineering. The Hub provides a universal payload interface and Cockpit provides a highly flexible mission operations platform – with both abstraction layers remaining consistent regardless of the bus platform used.   

As a result of these abstraction layers, while the Longbow platform unlocks new capabilities, it still maintains the same easy-to-integrate architecture our customers have grown accustomed to. Integrating our Hub universal payload adapter with another standardized bus exemplifies Loft’s commitment to supporting customers through simple, rapid, and reliable payload deployments.

The Longbow platform is delivering on that commitment through three key areas:

1. Enhanced On-Orbit Capabilities: The Longbow’s increased size, weight, and power allow Loft to accommodate customers with larger, more demanding payloads across a broad spectrum of LEO missions. Whether customers are deploying power-hungry sensors, or need high-powered compute to run AI applications at the edge, Longbow provides the infrastructure required to rapidly collect and process data at a scale.
2. Faster Speed to Orbit: Loft is eliminating the traditionally lengthy satellite procurement process and dramatically reducing mission timelines by batch procuring Longbows so they are “on the shelf” when the customer is ready to fly. The Hub acts as an abstraction layer between customer payloads and the satellite bus, providing standardized interfaces for power, command & control, compute, and communications. By eliminating bus-level non-recurring engineering, customers avoid the lengthy design, development, and testing cycles associated with bus-level design changes – ultimately helping them get their payloads to orbit sooner and with less risk.
   
3. Highly Reliable Hardware: The Longbow satellite platform is based on the robust, flight-proven Airbus Arrow bus platform, which currently has over 600 copies in orbit today. Leveraging this proven bus platform allows customers to benefit from the reliability and economies of scale achieved through large-scale production – in turn reducing hardware risk on orbit and reducing total cost of ownership for Loft’s customers.
   

We have now integrated our technology with multiple bus providers and we intend to continue giving customers more off-the-shelf satellite options that will meet a wider range of mission requirements across the smallsat spectrum.

It’s an exciting time here at Loft that would not be made possible without the tireless effort of our team and our partners. We look forward to sharing more details about the customer missions onboard YAM-8 as we commission the satellite and begin delivering data to our customers.