Satellite Traffic Management Solution Announced by Neuraspace
Portuguese start-up Neuraspace has launched a smart satellite traffic management solution after having raised €2.5 million (≈$2.56 million) from investors in Portugal.
"This is a very important step as we are validating in the market a technology that was developed to help unlock the extraordinary value of the Space economy, which will become more efficient and sustainable."
Chiara Manfletti, Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Neuraspace.
There are currently around 8,000 satellites in orbit. of which only ≈6,000 are operational. In 2021, 1,778 satellites were launched into space. This number will only increase, meaning space traffic and space debris will become an obstacle to space technology evolution. ESA estimates that about 31,380 debris objects are currently being regularly tracked, and that more than 630 break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events have led to serious fragmentation.
Current solutions for collision probability identification and classification, and for avoidance maneuver definition rely heavily on manual processes. With the growing number of space objects, both active satellites and debris, the need for collision avoidance solutions increases exponentially, making operations costly and increasing the risk of a wrong classification and human error. The traditional approaches face several challenges: insufficient data; a high number of false alerts and a large uncertainty, and the lack of scalability.
This all leads to unnecessary costs that derange operations and business viability. A Euroconsult report of 2020 found that an emergency maneuver in LEO can cost €25,000 (≈$25,600) for one satellite alone. A 300-satellite constellation may receive about 580 alerts per year requiring human intervention and satellite maneuver, costing €14 million (≈$14.33 million) per year in staff costs, analysis work, infrastructure, and more. The same Eurocosult report states that "[a]n Iridium satellite was involved in a collision in 2009, leading to complete satellite loss. A replacement satellite was in orbit, but when two Iridium satellites were damaged in 2014, the full constellation was not operating at full capacity for over 400 days, resulting in over $8 million in revenues being lost." [Commercial Space Surveillance and Tracking, Euroconsult Report, March 2020].
The Neuraspace satellite traffic management solution is an SaaS (Software as a Service) end-to-end automated solution built on three key pillars enabling satellite higher accuracy in detecting high-risk collisions and reducing human intervention by up to 75%.
Data Fusion: a persistent and reliable data source for better characterization of conjunction events by reducing uncertainties relies on large quantities of data from different sources being collected and fused into a coherent data warehouse. This warehouse includes: space debris images, CDMs, ephemeris files, state vectors from established catalogs and satellite owners, space weather nowcasts and forecasts, as well as information about the assets being managed.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): ML models can automatically detect patterns from complex data, and learn how the data is related. Artificial intelligence leverages big data to provide better predictions for risk mitigation.
Maneuvering Automation: an end-to-end automated 24/7 AI-enabled collision risk prediction with informative insights and intelligent maneuver suggestions based on operator constraints and priorities provides operators full support throughout the full process of risk mitigation
With the space economy growing from more than $300 billion to $1 trillion in the coming years, the satellite traffic management solution developed by Neuraspace can be a key component to secure this growth, the company says.
"This is a very important step as we are validating in the market a technology that was developed to help unlock the extraordinary value of the Space economy, which will become more efficient and sustainable," said Chiara Manfletti, Chief Operations Officer (COO) at Neuraspace. "We believe Neuraspace's solution will be a benchmark in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology in the aerospace market worldwide."
(Image provided with Neuraspace news release)