ReOrbit will perform in-orbit demonstration of secure space-to-space and space-to-ground data transfer for Earth Observation, part of ESA InCubed Programme

ReOrbit, a Helsinki-based leading provider of software-first satellites, proceeds to the next phase of the European Space Agency (ESA) InCubed (stands for ‘Investing in Industrial Innovation’) programme. As a continuation of the InCubed activity UKKO - Development and Demonstration of Technologies for Future Earth Observation (EO) Satellites, ReOrbit is planning an in-orbit demonstration (IOD) as an independent standalone flight opportunity. It will showcase the capabilities developed in the avionics architecture and the software stack in space, namely an end-to-end EO value chain between EO payloads and the end users, as well as satellite to satellite and satellite to ground communication. The launch is scheduled for the second quarter of 2025.

ReOrbit will achieve this by onboarding a commercial EO customer optical payload with full operational capacity. ReOrbit will perform the commissioning and validation of end-to-end operations including imaging, onboard data processing and data transfer to customer location. Another important part of this mission is equipping the IOD bus with the optical terminal, accompanied with the necessary autonomy, storage, and data transport capabilities to ensure secure, seamless data transfer from satellite to satellite, or from satellite to ground.

The IOD phase allows ReOrbit to validate its vision of the future of space applications where the transformation of satellites into truly intelligent, inter-connected platforms requires satellite systems to be defined by software, which facilitates a complete network integration – from space to ground. ReOrbit envisions the satellite design philosophy to revolve around the idea that data sharing and communications shall take place not only from space to ground, but also from space to space - enabling satellites to network, communicate with each other and thus improve mission efficiency. It is possible to achieve this thanks to a flexible software-first architecture, where all these aspects are dealt with upfront in the mission concept, as integrated functionalities.

“We are thrilled to have partnered with the ESA InCubed Programme, which has helped to accelerate our commercial success. ReOrbit aims to become a leading player in the next generation of more modular, inter-connected missions, using software systems and satellite platforms with capabilities including: in-orbit autonomy, inter-connectivity, and reconfigurability. 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's 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 SystemEngineer 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's 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.  

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