SpaceLocker has launched its Out of the Box satellite, the company’s first fully owned and operated satellite, which is a 16U CubeSat carrying five European customers.
The company said the shared infrastructure model allows companies to have access to space without building a dedicated satellite.
The core of the satellite includes its universal space port plug-and-play and payload agnostic technology that transforms satellites into a shared infrastructure that can host multiple payloads simultaneously.
“We want to do for space what cloud computing did for IT: shift from ownership to shared infrastructure,” said Théophile Lagraulet, CEO and co-founder of SpaceLocker. “In the future, sending an instrument to orbit won’t require building a satellite. Access to space can become a standardized service.”
Space cloud
SpaceLocker said sending technology to orbit typically requires designing or buying an entire satellite.
The so-called space cloud approach allows payloads to go to space in a shared space where SpaceLocker manages the full orbital stack from integration to operations. The model reduces cost and cuts time-to-orbit in half, the company said.
Additionally, it cuts back on the environmental impact through resource sharing.
The customers on board the Out of the Box satellite include EDGX, which will demonstrate edge computing capabilities using satellites to process data onboard and reduce reliance on ground infrastructure.
Fédération Open Space Makers will fly FOSM-1, a payload dedicated to amateur radio and open communication experiments, supported by CNES. Meanwhile, Solar MEMS will operate a high-precision star tracker for satellite orientation. Arcsec will test two advanced star trackers to demonstrate high-performance attitude determination for small satellites.
