Two of four nanosatellites, made by Spire Global UK and
backed by over £6m of Government investment, will take
off on the Russian Soyuz launcher on 24 September. The
other two nanosatellites will be aboard an Indian PSLV
launcher, due for launch on 1 November.
The Spire nanosatellites have onboard intelligent
machine-learning algorithms that can predict the
locations of boats, track their whereabouts and their
estimated arrival times at ports, allowing port
businesses and authorities to manage busy docks safely.
Spire staff design and build all the sub-systems, and
integrate and test the whole spacecraft in the
company’s Glasgow headquarters.
Like mobile phones, satellites are also getting smaller
and smarter and nanosatellites are roughly the size of
a shoe box. Despite their size, they can do almost
everything a conventional satellite does.
Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency,
said:
Nanosatellites weigh less than a piece of cabin
luggage, but are enormously powerful in what they can
do. These four Spire satellites are aimed at making
trade hyper-accurate, with technology that makes
business more cost effective and efficient.
Scotland’s space sector is booming. Our membership of
ESA is benefiting companies across the UK, and we are
committed to supporting the space economy in every
region.
Spire Global UK is a satellite-powered data company
that provides predictive analysis or global shipping,
aviation and weather forecasting.
These services have been developed under an ESA Pioneer
programme, which is a partnership project co-funded by
the UK Space Agency.
Peter Platzer, chief executive and co-founder of Spire
Global.
Spire is all about helping our customers know what is
next, so they can make better decisions. This month
we are moving this forward by launching a true
super-computer into orbit – 1-2 teraflops! – so that
we can analyse data right in orbit, using smart
algorithms and machine learning.
This will allow us to get better, smarter and faster
analytics to our customers for their business
decisions.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, work has progressed
with full support from the UK Space Agency who, working
with the European Space Agency, have extended
exceptional financial support to small and medium-sized
enterprises working in the space industry.
Elodie Viau, Director of Telecommunications and
Integrated Applications at ESA, said:
These are yet another example of innovative services
provided by Spire under the ESA Pioneer programme
that maximises benefits to industry thanks to an
efficient co-management approach tailored to
commercial best practices.
ESA’s Pioneer programme is one of the partnership
projects that is aimed at de-risking partners’
investments, answering market needs. It is part of
ESA’s programme of Advanced Research in
Telecommunication Systems (ARTES).
Pioneer supports the emergence of commercial European
entities with the ability to offer fast and affordable
access to space to public and private customers in the
field of satellite telecommunications.
The programme creates new opportunities for both
established and new players in the fast-changing and
competitive satellite communications market.
