Jean Zeid 06:53, January 29, 2024
Every morning, Jean Zeid delivers the best in terms of innovation. This Monday, he is interested in the startup Look Up Space, which wants to secure space activities.
This Monday morning, we look at the sky.
And like Asterix and Obelix, it's about watching if it doesn't fall on our heads. The Gallic village is called Look Up Space, a startup that wants to secure space activities. According to Euroconsult, there are 7,000 satellites currently in orbit and nearly 25,000 more will be launched over the next decade. And that's without counting the 34,000 pieces of space debris larger than 10cm, more than a third of which is not officially cataloged. A figure which is expected to double in the next quarter of a century according to the European Space Agency (ESA).
This is bound to increase the risk of collisions and, according to Look Up Space, requires precise mapping.
What does this start-up offer?
The idea of Look Up Space is to develop a surveillance network of eight radars, installed overseas and in the south of France in Aveyron or Aude, 2 in Guyana, one in Saint-Pierre-et- Miquelon, one in Polynesia, one in Reunion, and one in New Caledonia, as well as a data fusion platform, to monitor low orbit in real time, i.e. less than 2,000km from altitude, a road that looks like a ring road at 8 a.m., congested by thousands of satellites. Look Up Space also offers a double-sided solution, both civil and military, which should make it possible to identify objects just a few centimeters away.
And the idea appealed to investors.
Look Up Space, which was created in Toulouse in 2022, raised 14 million euros last June, including 7 million in private funding. A company founded by a former boss of the Space Command, General Michel Friedling, and Juan Carlos Dolado, former head of the space surveillance service at CNES
What makes it possible to become the leader in France?
Yes, even if monitoring systems like Graves from the public research laboratory Onera, the Helix system from ArianeGroup, or WeTrack from Safran Data Systems already exist. Still, Look Up Space allows near real-time monitoring with a precise point every 90 to 100 minutes. The real competitor in reality is called Leolabs, the world leader in this field, American solution. With Look Up Spadce, it is more about finding an alternative to Leolabs in order to regain French and European sovereignty in this area and prevent the American sky from falling on our heads.