SATLANTIS and SPACE BD sign an alliance to put iSIM in the International Space Station JAXA module
This is the first time that a non-Japanese technology is accepted under the JAXA module.
Last 25thJanuary. Mr. Masa Nagasaki, CEO of Space BD, and Mr. Juan Tomás Hernani, CEO of SATLANTIS signed an agreement for the first flight of iSIM.
Only 3 weeks after SATLANTIS passed the TRL6 tests for its binocular microtelescope, the flight contract has arrived, in a hard competition where other carriers and technologies were considered.
The fact that this is the first time that JAXA accepts a non-Japanese technology to be operating in its ISS module, reflects the uniqueness of the opportunity.
The camera offers an unbeatable performance of 55cm GSD resolution with only 15kg weight, the most competitive proposition for the EO market, not only micro satellites.
The challenges that had to be overcome, before the contract was awarded, referring to the alignment process, the micron precision demanded for each of its subassemblies and the thermal stability, which was achieved through an innovative procedure called “smart heater”.
The processing hardware embeds FPGAs, GPUs and system on chip technologies that cope with hundreds of Mb/second of calculus capacity.
The SATLANTIS technology roadmap is pushing hard, with new challenges coming in in terms of further miniaturization, further band expansion and larger processing capacity towards higher super resolution rates.
The fact that NTT-DATA/EVERIS is a reference shareholder SATLANTIS, is reflecting the relevance that the Spanish-Japanese ecosystem has for the success of the New Space sector.