Skynopy has won a new contract from U-Space, a Toulouse-based next-generation small satellite manufacturer. Skynopy will be U-Space’s ground station service provider for the operation of its two satellites in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), SOAP and PANDORE. The two companies announced the deal, May 18.
SOAP is dedicated to space surveillance aiming to demonstrate the added value of the space-based situational awareness (SBSS) and to improve the volume and accuracy of the data gathered while cataloging the small debris.
PANDORE is an in-orbit demonstration (IOD) mission carrying Safran Space’s Synchrocube payload, which validates LEO-based positioning and synchronization services capable of complementing or backing up degraded or jammed GNSS signals.
U-Space and Skynopy are collaborating under the European Space Agency program PUSH (Providing Upstream Services for Higher-value missions, to develop and validate the implementation of dynamic modulation in X-band on U-Space’s satellite platforms. ESA and Skynopy are funding the program, at no cost to U-Space
U-Space highlighted Skynopy’s platform for giving its team access to data like signal strength, SNR, demodulation quality, data delivery latency. Skynopy’s programming interfaces and graphical supervision dashboard were also singled out for their technical depth and clarity, significantly reducing integration timelines with U-Space’s Mission Control Software and enabling greater automation of day-to-day operations.
“Skynopy became the obvious choice once we seriously compared what was available on the market. The depth of their interface, the quality of real-time metrics, and above all the ability to adapt the modulation rate during a pass fundamentally change how you operate a satellite in LEO. With X-band and VCM on the horizon, we are positioning our future satellites to deliver download performance our customers simply would not expect from a small satellite,” Antoine Ressouche, general manager and co-founder, U-Space, said in a statement.
