The start-up culture is alive and well in the small satellite sector. As more-affordable and quick-to-build SmallSats take off for commercial and government purposes alike, new businesses are staking their claim in the industry.
There are more ways than ever before for entrepreneurs to get introduced to the space business. An ever-growing number of universities have students building CubeSats before they graduate. Government organizations such as NASA are partnering with academia on more projects every year, while the European Space Agency (ESA) is setting up incubation centers to support entrepreneurs in turning space-connected business ideas into commercial companies.
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NASA has identified the advantages of working together with universities and has launched efforts to collaborate with colleges across the world in conjunction with the organization’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program. The SmallSat Technology Partnerships program has issued three calls for proposals to universities in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Selected university teams are awarded up to $100,000 each per year.
“We decided to reach out to universities with the SmallSat-university partnerships because the universities were already heavily involved in designing and building small spacecraft — particularly with CubeSats — and we recognized that,” Andrew Petro, program executive for NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program, tells Via Satellite.
Indeed the partnerships are sprouting new satellite technologies that, in turn, spawn small businesses and start ups in the space industry. The first iteration of the SmallSat technology partnerships resulted in 13 projects across many technical disciplines. 11 of those projects continued at least into a second year while two were selected for NASA-sponsored rides into orbit.
One that will result in spaceflight is the agency’s first foray into a university SmallSat partnership. In November, the University of Michigan, in conjunction with NASA, is scheduled to launch a constellation of eight microsatellites for use in NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission, which aims to improve hurricane forecasting. The mission will be the first in NASA’s history to make use of a constellation of small satellites.
Chris Ruf, CYGNSS principal investigator at the University of Michigan, says that CubeSat science is particularly amenable to “things that change quickly,” because you can fly several at once. “The impact on our university and students is huge. We are defining the cutting edge of a new type of space mission and our students are working in the heart of that development,” explains Ruf.
SmallSats are particularly adept to these types of partnerships because the spacecraft are less complex, less time intensive and have a much shorter timespan from concept to orbit. This allows all stakeholders to reduce the cost of the missions, thus allowing them to take more risks and launch more often, shortening the learning curve on new tech significantly.VS
