SAN FRANCISCO – Space logistics firm D-Orbit introduced a $2 million contract June 9 with the European Space Agency to improve manufacturing of its ION Satellite Carrier.
It was the newest win for the Italian agency with ambitious plans to supply a variety of satellite tv for pc providers from lively particles elimination to space-based cloud computing.
Under the contract, ESA will fund D-Orbit’s marketing campaign to enhance the efficiency and scale back the price of ION, the car that transports cubesats and microsatellites from the purpose the place a big rocket drops them off to their desired orbital locations.
The rising recognition of rideshare flights like SpaceX Transporter missions is predicted to spur demand for last-mile supply. Euroconsult’s Space Logistics Markets report launched in May forecasts 120 orbital switch autos in operation by 2031.
About a dozen firms around the globe are designing, growing and testing orbital switch autos. For now, D-Orbit is the one firm with a business flight-proven car, Renato Panesi, D-Orbit founder and chief business officer, advised SpaceInformation.
D-Orbit first demonstrated its last-mile supply service in 2020. Over six flights, D-Orbit has transported greater than 80 payloads in orbit, together with 60 satellites deployed from ION and extra payloads hosted onboard.
D-Orbit additionally maintains a line of services and products for different space firms.
Beyond Gravity, for instance, previously referred to as Ruag Space, awarded D-Orbit a contract in April to produce carbon fiber-reinforced polymer instruments and metallic structural elements for ESA’s Space Rider. Thales Alenia Space is the prime contractor for Space Rider, an uncrewed laboratory designed to accommodate expertise demonstrations and science experiments in low-Earth orbit, earlier than returning payloads to Earth. The Space Rider car will then be refurbished, refueled and loaded for one other flight.
The Space Rider mission “is perfectly in line with our vision to enable profitable business and human expansion in a sustainable space,” Panesi mentioned.
Over the long run, D-Orbit seeks to dominate the space logistics market.
“The idea is to take care of the customer’s journey from mission analysis to launch to decommissioning,” Panesi mentioned. “It’s about having your assets correctly positioned when you want.”
D-Orbit intends to supply satellite tv for pc providers together with inspection, refueling and small repairs.
“Maybe we can consider active debris removal as part of the service, today in low-Earth orbit, later on in geostationary orbit,” Panesi mentioned. “In the far future, we do for see potential markets for recycling and in-orbit manufacturing.”
In the meantime, D-Orbit is laying the groundwork for a space-based cloud computing business.
“If we manage to have an ION equipped with its own cloud computing suite and intersatellite links, we can have a small constellation of nodes processing information,” Panesi mentioned.
D-Orbit labored with Sweden’s Unibap to display a radiation-tolerant computing module onboard ION in 2021.
“One of the things we’re going to test later this year or the beginning of next year will be the intersatellite links, both optical and radio frequencies,” Panesi mentioned.
On the monetary facet, D-Orbit is getting ready to merge with Breeze Holdings Acquisition Corp., a particular function acquisition firm, or SPAC. The merger is predicted to conclude within the third quarter of this yr.
While SPACs should not as fashionable within the space sector as they had been in 2021, Panesi stays assured the deal will profit D-Orbit.
“On one side, we are securing capital,” Panesi mentioned. “On the other side, we have a valuable partner to help us enter, one step at a time, the big U.S. market.”
D-Orbit employs about 200 folks, with the bulk based mostly close to the agency’s Como, Italy headquarters. In addition, D-Orbit has places of work in Portugal, the United Kingdom and Falls Church, Virginia.