TAMPA, Fla. — A year-old Portuguese startup has raised around $2 million to fly a payload on a commercial small satellite to demonstrate plans for a narrowband connectivity network.
Connected hopes to show it could leverage empty space aboard small satellites to provide a network capable of connecting irrigation controllers and other off-the-grid monitoring and tracking devices.
Cheaper satellite manufacturing and launch costs are pushing the space industry toward larger, higher-performing spacecraft, which Connected CEO and cofounder Tiago Rebelo says opens up more opportunities to integrate third-party payloads.
“During the design phase of these satellites there’s often some margin in mechanical and power demands, typically below 10% to 15% of the overall capacity,” said Rebelo, who previously led Portuguese Earth observation operator Geosat.
“While this may not seem substantial, it represents an opportunity for us.”
Connected aims to avoid the costs of building and launching its own satellites by paying low Earth orbit operators to host its payloads, which the startup would use to connect customers with Internet of Things (IoT) devices operating under standard 5G narrowband network protocols, or 5G NB-IoT.
Rebelo said the payload has two antennas and a volume of about 2U — the size of two cubesats — and depending on its operational mode and objectives consumes up to 30W of power.
Although the payload could be integrated with satellites as small as 6U, he said hosts that are 12U or larger are more suitable candidates.
Integration requirements range from simple mechanical attachment with a power line to full data integration, he said, where the payload becomes an integral part of the platform.
However, Connected has yet to secure any takers as work continues to prove the direct-to-device technology in the market.
While some of the payload’s hardware has already been successfully validated in orbit,…
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