Heading back from this year’s Space Symposium – full of impressions and great insights. I’ve summarized them below in this article. Many thanks to all partners and customers!

After spending an intensive week at the Space Symposium, I am heading back home full of impressions. Mostly from discussions with customers and partners, but also from seminars and panel discussions.

Unibap’s Game-Changing Endeavors

I had the privilege of participating in a panel in the Game Changer Track. Game Changer feels like a perfect description of Unibap AB (publ), but more on this later.

Cloud and AI was obviously a prominent topic. There is no way around this. General Clint Crosier stated the opportunity for #CloudComputinginSpace very succinctly. From Unibap’s side we are proud to have been the first to demonstrate the Amazon Web Services (AWS) framework in space together with D-Orbit.

A Spotlight on Real-Time SAR in Space

We participated together with our distributor and license partner Moog Space and Defense Group. Our joint star attraction was the demonstration of #RealTimeSARinSpace, which gathered significant interest from both commercial and defence customers. SAR (synthetic-aperture radar) is a hot topic, since it can see through clouds, which is ideal for intelligence and surveillance purposes. Our new raw-data processing pipeline, running on our #SpaceCloud #iX10 edge computer, demonstrates 3 x faster execution than required for live Sentinel-1 SAR data, leaving plenty of time do object identification, such as vessels or military ground objects, for low latency response to threats. No need to wait for downlink of raw data anymore.

Transforming Acquisition Approaches

A non-technical but probably critically important topic was the new acquisition (procurement) approach from mainly US agencies, spearheaded by Space Development Agency(SDA). SDA is driving short lead-times (30 months from contract to launch) and actual fixed price contracts, awarding multiple competing suppliers in parallel in incremental cycles. Two obvious advantages of this approach: Ukraine has demonstrated the advantage of rapid deployment of commercially available technology, like commercial drones. Secondly, LEO is becoming crowded, increasing the risk for unintentional or even intentional collisions, due to the increasing military threats to space assets. This requires rapid replacement of assets. Thus, short lead-times and rapid innovation cycles.

The Drive for COTS, Standardization, and Modularity

Many agencies and companies discussed the impact of this new approach on the satellite supply chain, and most agreed the drive will be for commercially available technology (#COTS), standardization and modularisation for LEO. As a Game Changer, Unibap is well positioned. Our solutions are based on COTS, made radiation tolerant through design and software. The hardware is standardized with short lead-times (down to 1 month for flight units), with software configuration and modularization. This software-first approach allows #HighPerformanceComputinginSpace with short lead-times.

Strengthening Alliances Across Borders

As coming from the newest NATO member country, it was impossible to miss the push for collaboration among #AlliedPartners within national security and defence. Unibap is pleased to support Scandinavian defense through Swedish FMV – Försvarets materielverk and Danish Forsvarsministeriets Materiel- og Indkøbsstyrelse in the #Bifrost Project. Equally satisfying is our collaboration with the major defence and aerospace company Moog in the US. Moog has licensed our technology for Radiation Hardened solutions, and Unibap is also delivering part of our iX10 solution into Moog’s projects.

I am looking forward to next year’s Space Symposium, but for that there will be many more opportunities to meet Unibap. Follow  us on LinkedIn for the latest news. Thanks to all customers and partners for this time.

Best regards,

Johan Åman

CEO, Unibap