The European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC) has selected five space ventures to follow the three-month pre-incubation period of the third edition of its Start-up Support Programme (SSP).
After kicking off the first edition of this unique programme in 2020 year, Europe’s leading research and innovation centre in the field of space resources is ready to go for round three.
Over the next three months, the five teams will go through a series of customised mentoring sessions, that will enable them to validate their technical concepts and align them with market opportunities.
“Luxembourg is now a central player on the international stage of space resources, thanks to its vision and its commitment towards the development of the space sector and the sustained efforts from academia, research, and business,” said Franz Fayot, Luxembourg’s minister of economy.
The programme’s first stage is a pre-incubation period of three months, after which only one of five startups will be selected to continue to the technical and market validation phase.
“We are proud to have more than 80 space companies and institutes based here and the ESRIC Start-up Support Programme is playing a key role in attracting and supporting this booming new-space ecosystem,” says Franz Fayot, Luxembourg’s minister of economy.
While the commercialization of the startups is an important part of the programme, it also aims to stimulate new research and synergies in the burgeoning sector.
“We are thrilled to witness the growing interest in space resources from such diverse start-ups. ESRIC’s mission is to become an international leader in the field, and this is the reason why we are growing our research capabilities simultaneously to supporting the development of commercial readiness for business visionaries wanting to innovate and be part of the new-space economy,” said Dr Kathryn Hadler, the Director of ESRIC.
The five selected ventures are:
Moliri Space – Estonia
The team aims to build solar power stations made from space resources in-situ. These stations would be able to produce electricity and have applications in both the terrestrial and space markets.
Open Moon – Spain
A venture with a mission to digitalise the instruments on the Moon and in space, Open Moon is targeting a complementary cloud-based product ecosystem, facilitating the communication with certain instruments, as well as continuous monitoring, maintenance, and data analytics.
Orbital Mining Corp. – USA
Seeking to become an end-to-end integrated energy company on the Moon, Orbital Mining Corporation (OMC) aims to provide electricity generation, storage, and transmission. The current offering of OMC is called MoLISC, a modular battery providing a lightweight and power efficient solution matching the needs of electronic devices and subsystems engaged in SRU Moon operations.
SolSys Mining – Norway
Lunafolia, a complete system for lunar SRU and agriculture, encompassing nutrient extraction, hydroponics, and plant-waste recycling, is the solution SolSys aims to develop. With this, the team wants to contribute to the reduction of costs to transport materials to the Moon, enabling long-term presence in space.
We Space – IsraelWe Space is targeting autonomous flying robotic systems, also known as hoppers, capable of high-speed driving on the Moon. The technology the team is developing would enable a cost-effective exploration of the lunar surface, essential for a better understanding of its formation and evolution.
