Mission Space has developed a system for monitoring the space environment and providing space weather information for many applications, from satellite operations to high-speed financial transactions. Can you tell us more?
Ksenia Moskalenko. – “We are building the world’s first commercial satellite-based system for monitoring, detecting and warning space weather.
What exactly is space weather?
“Everyone knows the weather on Earth, the wind, the rain, etc. Space weather is solar storms — anything the sun emits, like geomagnetic storms, cosmic rays, coronal mass emissions. Basically, when we talk about space weather, we’re talking about solar activity.
But space weather is actually very harmful, not only to objects in space but also to infrastructure on Earth.
How does the space mission address this problem?
Our satellite intelligence system consists of two things. First, we have our own hardware, our sensors, on the payloads we launch. Then we put it on other people’s moons and send it into low Earth orbit. This network of detectors gives us good data about what is happening in the near-Earth radiation environment.
The second thing is the intelligence system itself. It is a program that does parsing and in some models it has a lot of API (Application Programming Interface). These allow you to see what is happening in terms of radiation in space and how it can affect matter. Decisions can then be made to mitigate the risks of these storms.
The possibility of getting out of our community and meeting new people and expanding our network beyond space is interesting.
The Web Summit is a major technology conference that brings together more than 70,000 people from various sectors. Why do you participate and what do you wish to get out of it?
“When it comes to space conferences, you always see the same people because they are a very close community. Conferences are great for exchanging knowledge, but we are seeing more and more space technologies diversifying and attracting interest from other sectors.
The web summit is very welcome for startups and it is a good opportunity for us to meet investors from the United States and Canada. The possibility of breaking out of the usual community, meeting new people and expanding our network is very exciting.
Fit 4 Start is the toughest program available, but also the most useful. We go out prepared for the outside world.
“We have also been selected to participate in the stadium competition, the largest in Europe. We have reached the semi-finals of the competition! This is great news, only eight out of 105 startups have made it to the semi-finals. It will be held on the main stage of the web summit, in front of 20,000 people .
I will also take part in an orientation session for startups founded by women. We have a very small sales team and the opportunity to gain knowledge or experience from other people is amazing for us.
What does Luxembourg offer you for your business?
“We started as a Latvian startup in 2020, and that was a real challenge, because in Latvia there are not many space technologies being studied. We needed more access and connections, and after a year of trying, we discovered Fit 4 Start [le programme luxembourgeois d’accélération des start-up].
We applied and were accepted! Fit 4 Start is the toughest program, but it was very useful for us when we got out of it ready for the outside world.
Although the operational facilities and technical team are in Riga at the moment, we have opened our headquarters in Luxembourg. Currently, our commercial director is only in Luxembourg, but the co-founder and I will be moving permanently next month, and also trying to attract most of the team.
We’re really excited to spread the word about our technology and show that we’re doing something really cool.
Luxembourg is like a small community – everyone is an extension of each other. The country has a lot of resources to support aerospace startups and the support we’ve received so far is amazing.
Who are the potential Mission Space system customers?
“Our customers may belong to government departments, where they use this data for national security purposes or infrastructure resiliency. For example, they can use Mission Space for their space security program. It could also be private companies like SES, missile launchers, or even companies in the industry. energy or flight.
Besides moving to Luxembourg, what do you expect from Mission Space?
“We have worked on the hardware, our instrument will fly in May 2023, and that will be our experimental mission in orbit. We are looking for other partners who can launch us and who are interested in purchasing our equipment. People are not used to using software to predict the arrival of geomagnetic storms. We have to show that what we are doing has value.
It is also imperative that we announce the closing of our funding round, and hopefully, we will be able to carry out further launches of our payload next year. We’ve spent a lot of time developing the product itself, and we hope to have our first beta platform available early next year. We will be able to give people an idea of what it’s like to use the program.
We’ve spent a year and a half developing this technology, and next year we’ll finally be ready to launch it. We’re really excited to launch it and show that it’s a really cool thing we’re doing.”
This article was written by Delano In English, translated and edited by Paperjam in French.