The Luxembourg space tech ecosystem is bearing fruit after local firms signed two MoUs with major players in a single week.
On Thursday, Luxembourg-based space robotics firm ispace Europe announced it had signed an MoU to collaborate on joint lunar missions with Luxembourg newcomer Plus Ultra Space Outposts, a European company developing a lunar satellite constellation.
According to a press release the agreement outlines ispace Europe’s role in transporting Plus Ultra’s lunar communication satellite constellation, Harmony, to the moon. Plus Ultra, which is part of the latest Fit 4 Start State-supported incubator programme, will meanwhile offer lunar communications and navigation services to ispace. Deployment is expected in 2024. They also agreed to build on their synergies for developing commercial space resources on the moon and in lunar orbit.
Dr. Marc Serres, CEO of the Luxembourg Space Agency, said: “The moon is the next stop on the way to space exploration and space resources utilisation. We strongly believe in collaboration as a key success factor for the future of the space industry, and I am delighted to see the development of such projects with our national ecosystem.”
OQ Technology, OHB and LuxSpace collaboration
On 18 January OHB, its subsidiary LuxSpace and IoT space tech firm OQ Technology inked an agreement to collaborate on satellite-based IoT upstream and downstream activities to broaden the services offered to the energy, agricultural, defence and green economy markets, among others.
LuxSpace’s microsatellite platform, Triton-X, will host OQ’s 5G IoT payload in low earth orbit. These “cell towers in space”, as OQ calls them, are expected to offer fast, real-time data processing in remote and rural areas. Currently in development, manufacture and payload integration of the Triton-X is expected in mid-2023.
Omar Qaise, founder and CEO of Luxembourg-based OQ Technology, said: “Being recognised by OHB, one of Germany’s leading space and technology companies, and its subsidiary LuxSpace, demonstrates the strength of our technology and the potential it offers to the global IoT market.”
Qaise, whose firm launched its first commercial nanosatellite, Tiger-2, in 2021, and tested its hybrid satellite cellular user terminal in desert conditions, plans to add further satellites to its constellation in future.
