ReOrbit Advances ESA InCubed Programme with In-Orbit Demonstration of EO Technologies

ReOrbit Advances ESA InCubed Programme with In-Orbit Demonstration of EO Technologies
by Robert Schreiber
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Apr 10, 2024

ReOrbit, based in Helsinki and a leader in software-first satellite technology, is advancing to the next phase of the European Space Agency's InCubed programme. This stage, part of the UKKO project, focuses on developing and demonstrating technologies for future Earth Observation satellites and includes an independent in-orbit demonstration scheduled for the second quarter of 2025. This demonstration will highlight the advanced avionics and software capabilities developed by ReOrbit, providing a complete Earth Observation value chain from payloads to end users, and enabling secure satellite to satellite and ground communications.

The mission will feature the integration of a commercial Earth Observation optical payload with full operational capabilities. ReOrbit will oversee all phases of the operation from launch to data transfer, ensuring seamless execution and secure data handling. The spacecraft will be equipped with an optical terminal to support robust data communication between satellites and from satellites to the ground.

This initiative underscores ReOrbit's commitment to transforming satellite technology into fully intelligent, interconnected platforms, defined primarily by software. These platforms are anticipated to enable a new level of network integration in space applications, spanning from space to the Earth's surface.

"We are thrilled to have partnered with ESA InCubed Programme, which has been instrumental to achieve our commercial and development success so far. ReOrbit aims to become a leading player in the domain of enabling the next generation of more modular, inter-connected missions, by providing software systems and satellite platforms with capabilities that are in-orbit autonomous, connected, and reconfigurable. The InCubed activity Ukko will become a trend setter for the space industry, uniting autonomy, reliability, and a strict hardware abstraction," said Sethu Saveda Suvanam, CEO and Founder of ReOrbit.

"I strongly believe that initiatives like ReOrbit's Ukko, that leverage highly advanced flight software and, hence, transform the future of technology in space, open a host of opportunities in space applications, particularly in the Earth Observation domain. ESA InCubed Programme works with companies such as ReOrbit to boost innovation and the competitiveness of the European space industry, which needs significant transformation to keep up with the growing demand for space utilisation in our society. We are looking forward to seeing the results of the InCubed activity Ukko unlocking the full advantages of EO services for the benefit of humanity - on a worldwide, European, and local scale," commented Daniele Romagnoli, Commercial EO System Engineer at ESA and InCubed Officer of the activity.

"Mini-satellite constellation deployment can also be achieved through a solid supply chain, digital twin capabilities and an end-to-end approach to satellite manufacturing. The New Space Economy needs new actors like ReOrbit able to look at the upstream segment with that perspective", says Carlos Urbina Ortega, End-to-End System Engineer at ESA in the Technology, Engineering and Quality department, and Technical Officer of the activity.

Customer validation is an important factor of ensuring the commercial viability of the product. The technology ReOrbit has been developing for ESA InCubed Programme has been already confirmed to be purchased by KaleidEO, a subsidiary of SatSure Analytics India. With this, KaleidEO aims to validate the performance of ReOrbit's Satellite platform for its needs as an outcome of the IOD phase, focusing on software-first capabilities of the platform, for different aspects such as quality, onboard processing, latency, dataflow, as well as exploring optical data relay as an enabler for EO. By performing this validation in the IOD phase, ReOrbit will establish its products usability to enable the state-of-the-art technologies in the EO domain.

"We are excited about our collaboration with ReOrbit and their software-first approach to satellite platforms. Combined with our AI models deployed on the Edge compute module, we anticipate significant value creation using EO data. This partnership will enable us to unlock the potential of intelligent tasking and onboard data processing, revolutionising the collection, processing, analysis, and downlinking of imagery and insights from satellite data. This aligns with ESA's InCubed program's aim to drive wider adoption of EO data, furthering our collective push for innovation and progress in the field," said Akash Yalagach, Co-founder and CTO of KaleidEO.