Satellite startups

Well, you are a space enthusiast! Now how you can turn your space dreams into reality? Or at least how to get closer to realizing your dream? A dozen of us only may become martians in the near future.

You are certainly not a prosperous country with a billions dollar budget program, so what can you do? The good news is that it's not a crowded field, it's not like the grocery store business where you are one of ten other shops in the same street, there is still very very large place for every one in space!

Investors and real estate developers are in search for vacant or raw land, well you can have a planet just for you, there you will be more than a landlord, we will call you planet Lord. you just have to find it, go there and make it bearable.

The wild wide space where space-girls and space-boys can start something really new.

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Brief : 

- Service provider business model is on it's way offering ground and on-orbit services to satellite operators,

- Access to space data for software developers is affordable through free APIs offered by space agencies, 

- Satellite imagery is the heavy trend, where startups are integrating automation, analytics and predictive modeling to bring value to customers,

- Cost reduction : replacing specific with standard components with plug and play feature. A startup is also developing a cheaper propulsion systems to cut launch operations costs.

- SaaS to manage a satellites constellation.

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Affordability through nano-satellite

Small satellite

On the 10 March 2021, MIT enterprise forum Saudi Arabia published an article announcing SARsat as the idea track first place winner. SARsat design and build small satellites and launch them to space, observe earth regularity and sell images to multiple sectors, such as: security & defense, oil & gas, vessel tracking, agriculture, urban & city planning, and environment & ocean monitoring.

The free ride

If you are really a space enthusiast but have no money, you should know that Arianespace has a competition in which you can win a free launch, you just have to have an interesting mission.

On the 18 June 2021, ARIANESPACE twitted LUNASONDE as the winner of arianespace free nanosatelite launch competition, LUNASONDE developed a system to locate, in a more efficient and effective way groundwater, mineral deposits, and other geological resources over a mile underground.

Software and data

Open API

On 2021, KATAPULT published a list of her 2021 portfolio companies announcing WEGAW as a 2021 KATAPULT climate accelerator cohort member, WEGAW is a clean energy trading optimization through remote sensing satellite and data analytics.

It's made for big energy private or government corporations, state or national governments. It's the world of trading rooms. Let's simplify this through a game.

let's imagine you are a government corporation that own a lot of assets:

Renewable energy assets

Hydro : a water dam, you will turn it on if you can predict a flooding or shut it down because there is a water shortage after years of drought.

solar : you want to use at max when ever it's sunny to keep your carbon right to pollute or because you have SDG goals.

wind : like solar you want to use it when ever it's windy.

Fossil energy assets

Gas : you want to insure a sufficient supply because winter is very cold in your region and your local population use gas for heating.

Oil : your biggest risk because you are an oil importer and you do not know when the next middle east crisis will affect the prices.

Coal : you will use only if you do not have any other alternative, because it's very polluting or in financial terms you want to sell your excess right to pollute in the carbon market.

Other

Carbon: the right to pollute, you want to take advantage of it by reducing you carbon emissions, so you can you sell excess right to pollute on the carbon market.

Nuclear : you can not shut it down, so you will keep producing electric power even if the prices are low.

Future market : you can buy and sell energy for a delivery in six months, a year or more for example but you do not know about your local currency exchange rate because energy is traded in US$ for example.

Data

You will need a market data provider like Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters to manage your portfolio. Let's say for example that $100,000,000.00 are at stake every month, now let's say it's the spring season, water dams are full but you do not know if it's gonna rain the next year, so you want to keep them full and temperatures are rising, the snow is melting. You gonna need to discharge your dams to avoid flooding but keep them full enough to fulfill your drinking water needs for example.

If you have a small coal power plant, you may shut it down because you know that your are discharging the dams and hydro electric power will be available, now you can see that WEGAW is an excellent  tool.

WEGAW monitor water and snow, they use AI and algorithms to predict how much water will be discharged. You may ask where they got the data? We do not know exactly but apparently they use API data from space agencies like NASA, ESA and JAXA...... this is a software development field, programmer access online databases using languages like JavaScript or python, if they partner with other professionals like mathematicians or data scientist they can develop predictive modeling algorithms and increase their customers ability to predict accurately and so they can become more profitable.

SaaS for satellites constellation management

On the 28 September 2021, CAPITAL INNOVATORS published a post announcing COGNITIVE SPACE as a nga accelerator 2021 cohort 2 member, COGNITIVE SPACE helps organizations fly their satellites by revolutionizing satellite operations with the power of Artificial Intelligence for mission operations, collections planning, and communications link coordination, dramatically improving the way earth is monitored for economic, environmental, and national security understanding.

Computer vision for analytics

On the 28 September 2021, CAPITAL INNOVATORS published a post announcing OMNISCIENT LABS as a nga accelerator 2021 cohort 2 member, OMNISCIENT LABS is building automated satellite and aerial imagery analytics capabilities using computer vision to enable persistent monitoring of areas of interest for defense and commercial markets. Its Geo-spatial analytics platform fuses this data with user-provided and third-party datasets for easy integration with users existing software, helping them monitor status, visualize trends, and achieve enhanced situational awareness.

Specialized service providers

Ground service provider

On the 27 October 2021 Q STATION twitted LEAF SPACE as a SOFT LANDING 2021 cohort member, LEAF SPACE simplifies access to space through disruptive ground segment services for micro-satellite operators and launch vehicles.

On-orbit services by space robots!

On the 27 October 2021 Q STATION twitted ROGUE SPACE SYSTEMS as a SOFT LANDING 2021 cohort member, ROGUE designs orbital robots to provide on-orbit services to satellite operators.

Cost reduction

Just to have an idea of costs, for example according to a 25 August 2015 document "ames micro/ nano-satellites cost model" published by nasa.gov, those are the approximate cost of a nano-satellite:

(the amounts are not precise)

Project level cost : $13,616

Hardware cost : $1,193

average annual cost : 13,616/5= $2,723

Cheaper deployment

On the 12 November 2021, FUTURE WORLDS published an article announcing OHMSPACE as future worlds founders cohort 2021 member, OHMSPACE is commercializing a resistojet propulsion system that enables the faster cheaper deployment of low earth orbit satellites.

Standard satellite components

On the 27 October 2021 Q STATION twitted SPIN TECH as a SOFT LANDING 2021 cohort member, SPIN TECH offers MA61C, the first satellite subsystem adapter with plug-and-play functionality that allows connecting any satellite subsystem with the main on board computer without installing any additional software or adapting hardware connectors. It adapts and integrates existing standard connectors and software.