Innova Space enters rideshare agreement with Alba Orbital to launch 1st of 100 IoT PocketQube satellites via SpaceX in Q4 2021.
Latin-American new-space startup team up with Alba Orbital to launch a pico-satellite designed to provide greater Iot connectivity to Latin America’s growing Agriculture, Mining and Oil & Gas sectors.
Fri 19th March 2021 -- Glasgow, UK -- Alba Orbital and Innova Space today announced a rideshare agreement to launch an in-orbit technology demonstration of ‘MDQube-SAT1’ aboard Alba Cluster 4 in Q4 2021. The mission is scheduled to launch via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket using Alba Orbital’s flight proven AlbaPod to deploy the satellites in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
MDQube-SAT1 is a 2P PocketQube satellite measuring at just 5x5x10cm, and is one of the first spacecraft of its kind in Latin America. MDQube-SAT1 will serve as a tech demo of Innova Space’s new pico-satellite platform, designed to provide greater Internet of Things (IoT) communications to Latin America’s growing agriculture, mining, oil & gas sectors as part of a wider constellation of satellites.
Innova Space Founder & CEO (Alejandro Cordero) posing alongside his team with the MDQubeSat-1 PocketQube in hand.
Argentinian Undersecretary of Knowledge (María Apólito) and Secretary of Industry (Adrián Schale) viewing an engineering model of MDQubeSat-1 as they tour Innova Space’s headquarters based in Mar Del Plata, Argentina.
“Our idea is to offer communication through our pico-satellites for a wide implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) services. The purpose is to make its business model more efficient with early warnings for weather, irrigation, security issues, among others” says Alejandro Cordero, CEO & Founder of Innova Space.
The market Innova Space are set to capture has shown great demand within Argentina and wider Latin America, as Cordero explains that “70% of fields throughout Argentina are without coverage, without communications, so we have to take the technology there and that is why we focus on the agricultural business."
Based in Mar Del Plata (Argentina), Innova Space was born from an educational project led by Alejandro Cordero, to his seventh-year students of the School of Technical Education No. 5, where they developed a tiny 1P PocketQube satellite named ‘SatDuino’.
Innova Space team member presenting ‘SatDuino’, a 1p PocketQube (5x5x5cm) satellite developed by a student group led by Alejandro Cordero at the School of Technical Education No.5., in Argentina.
The fast growing new-space start-up now look forward to developing a large constellation, called “Libertadores de América”, of 100 IoT pico-satellites once they have successfully demonstrated the MDQube-SAT1 platform in-orbit via Alba Cluster 4 in Q4 2021.
MDQubeSat1 being held in hand for scale.
“We are proud to be working with a team like Innova Space on the Alba Cluster 4 mission. Their work demonstrates how PocketQubes can serve critical use cases, like benefitting agriculture and improving life on earth long-term, by enabling new space-based applications” says Tom Walkinshaw, Founder & CEO of Alba Orbital. “This launch also marks an important milestone in Alba Orbital’s history as Innova Space are now our 25th customer, and we are excited to continue supporting them on their journey to orbit.”
Alejandro Cordero, Innova Space Founder & CEO adds ‘‘As we prepare to launch our first satellite with Alba Orbital & SpaceX, we are very excited at the prospect of taking Mar del Plata to conquer space!”
Alba Cluster 4 builds on Alba Orbital’s Cluster 2 launch in 2019 with Rocket Lab, which successfully deployed six PocketQubes in-orbit from Mahia in New Zealand. The sold out Alba Cluster 3 campaign, scheduled to launch with SpaceX in Q2 2021, will see the Scottish satellite pioneers break their previous launch record and deploy a further nine PocketQube satellites in-orbit.
Limited slots for Cluster 4 (Q4 2021) and Cluster 5 (Q1 2022) are still available, with prices starting from 25k euro for a 1P PocketQube launch slot. Alba Orbital provides the lowest price to launch a satellite to orbit on a reliable flight proven launch system. For more information on procuring and launching your own satellite, please visit www.albaorbital.com/launch or get in touch at contact@albaorbital.com.
Three fully integrated AlbaPod pico-satellite deployers ready for launch.
Three fully integrated AlbaPod pico-satellite deployers ready for launch.
About Alba Orbital
Founded in 2012, Alba Orbital (Glasgow, Scotland) is the world’s leading PocketQube satellite manufacturer and launch broker. To date, the company has successfully deployed more PocketQube satellites in-orbit than any other organisation worldwide. Alba is a vertically integrated new-space company who are ‘democratising access to space’, providing turnkey solutions from advanced pico-satellite platforms, low-cost launch opportunities, ground station services and much more. Alba has worked with over 20 customers across three continents, including prestigious clients such as Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon Uni and TU Delft. For more information, please visit www.albaorbital.com or get in touch at contact@albaorbital.com.
About Innova Space
Based in Mar Del Plata (Argentina), Innova Space designs and develops the future using pico-satellites and PocketQubes. Innova Space proposes to change the world with greater IoT connectivity. Their upcoming constellation of 100 PocketQubes optimised for IoT communications, will provide a highly secure, bi-directional connection to any IoT device on Earth in just a few minutes. The tech demo of their pico-satellite, ‘MDQubeSat-1’, is due to launch in Q4 2021 via Alba Cluster 4 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. For more information, please visit www.innova-space.com or get in touch at info@innova-space.com / +5491133647098.