In the era of commercial aerospace, the construction of constellations is accelerating the commercialization process of the industrial chain.
In January this year, the core team from Tsinghua University's "Tiange Project" satellite measurement future successfully launched its thirteenth satellite payload from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
This launch is also a new development node for startups founded in 2020. Compared with the initial period of entrepreneurship, the future of Star Measurement at this time is no longer simply excited about the launch of rockets. At present, the focus is to accelerate the mass release of products.
The future business of Star Measurement focuses on the development of detection payloads for data acquisition at the edge end of satellites and payloads for high-performance processing. Based on high-performance spaceborne heterogeneous computing and software and hardware collaborative optimization capabilities, it provides high-performance space-based computing platform solutions to empower the entire aerospace industry chain such as communications, remote sensing, and scientific experiments, as well as other high-end equipment fields in aviation and ground scenarios.
Since its establishment, the future has not only been concerned by scientific research institutes and commercial satellite customers, but also favored by the capital market. Up to now, Star Measurement Future has completed the Pre-A round of financing, and the investor camp includes well-known institutions such as Zhenge**, TusStar, MiraclePlus, Tongchuangweiye, Shuimu Tsinghua Alumni**, UFIDA Happiness Investment and other well-known institutions. It is reported that a new round of financing is underway in the future.
Cao Dezhi, co-founder and COO of Star Measurement Future, said, "The big goal of Star Measurement Future is to integrate computing power into the construction of constellations as a basic element. ”
The establishment of Star Measurement Future dates back to 2016. At that time, Tsinghua University launched a plan to carry out space gamma burst detection based on CubeSat, which gradually grew into Tsinghua University's well-known student-led science and technology project - "Tiange Project".
The "Tiange Project" was originally composed of students from the departments of engineering, physics, aeronautics, electronics and mechanics, and several co-founders of Star Measurement Future, Cang Jirong and Cao Dezhi, also directly or indirectly participated in it.
Being able to make the choice to start a business is a natural outcome for them. In 2018, the first satellite payload of the Tiange program was launched. In 2019, the founding team realized that commercial aerospace "is a long-term, five- or ten-year industry with room for growth in the future." Under the "stimulus" of the successful launch of Musk's Star Link, several brothers in the Department of Engineering and Physics officially started their entrepreneurial journey.
At that time, it was still the scientific research task of universities and engineering institutes to make satellite payloads, and the satellite constellation was still a long-term task in the eyes of the outside world, and the future of satellite surveying was inevitably questioned. However, with the affirmation of customers and the launch of Starlink, there is a very high feasibility of commercialization and industrialization of satellite edge computing payloads.
Relying on the low-cost space-ground integrated component screening system and leading on-orbit edge computing technology, Xingsc Future has built a space-based intelligent brain, accelerated the technological transformation of functional satellites into intelligent satellites, and promoted the overall cost reduction and efficiency increase of the satellite industry from the three dimensions of chip screening, payload development, and on-board intelligent application.
The intelligent upgrade of satellites can be more intuitively felt in actual business scenarios. Cao Dezhi said that if the processing power of remote sensing satellites is used to measure the level of intelligence, it can be divided into the following three layers: the first layer is the compression of the original data, and the value of the data is condensed under the condition of bearing a certain loss, so as to accelerate the information transmission of the satellite; The second layer is the screening of information, some data is not valuable on the ground, if it can be screened in advance on the satellite, the value of information can be enhanced; The third layer is the application of data, if the satellite can capture the specific cognition, the data has been processed on the satellite, and the intelligent application of key information or intelligence can be realized.
It is understood that Star Measurement has three core products in the future: Star Measurement, Xingxi and Haiyue. Based on the self-developed ECU series data acquisition and control unit, the "cage drawer" scalable architecture design and highly versatile technical solutions, the satellite survey is a product series for the purpose of measurement, which adopts the low-cost mode of scientific payload and satellite mounting, and flexibly adapts to a variety of space experiment services and provides full-process payload solutions to build a highly reliable and low-cost space experiment platform.
Xingxi, which has the same homonym as "information", is positioned as a space-based computing intelligent payload, and through the innovative ultra-heterogeneous computing system and software and hardware collaborative acceleration technology, the satellite has the ability of efficient data processing in orbit.
Haiyue is a space-based computing platform product, taken from the ancient poem "The Moon on the Sea", focusing on on-board intelligent processing scenarios, providing a space-based computing ground platform for full-link simulation of on-board processing such as on-board payload control, data transceiving, and software processing, helping customers to carry out pre-launch ground verification and scientific research and teaching at low cost and short period.
However, the intelligent upgrade of satellites is also a process, and the products of the future have been implemented in space experiments, remote sensing observations, ground tests and other scenarios, and there are currently 13 satellite payloads in orbit, and it is expected that the number of intelligent payloads in orbit will exceed 300 in 2025. In terms of commercialization progress, Star Measurement Future has achieved revenue of more than 10 million.
Satellite edge computing is at the cross-cutting edge. Cao Dezhi said, "On the one hand, to have an essential understanding of this attribute of spaceflight, no matter what is launched from the ground into space, and let it work normally and smoothly in space, it needs to overcome the necessary experience including high and low temperature vacuum experiments, including vibration experiments, anti-floating noise reinforcement, etc." ”
Of course, technology is only the most basic threshold, and for satellite edge computing, there are still more challenges from the commercialization dimension. According to Cao Dezhi, the path of commercialization of the industry at this stage is to first be dominated by military users, and then gradually spread to the institutional side, and then to the civilian side. In the delivery process, it is also necessary to consider issues such as risk assurance, post-operation and maintenance, etc.
However, the commercial space track is taking off, and the performance opportunity of Star Measurement Future as a third-party satellite intelligent payload developer has come.
China's satellite constellation construction is accelerating. According to relevant reports, the China Satellite Network Group, established in 2021, will build a satellite network group composed of 1A network of 30,000 satellites, Shanghai Yuanxin Satellite has also undertaken the "G60 Starlink" satellite Internet project, which is planned to exceed 120,000 satellites were put into orbit.
Cao Dezhi said that to start a business, the time, place, and people should be complete. The goal of the current business of the future is to provide exploration equipment related to space environmental scientific research for university scientific research user groups, and the other is to provide value mining of satellite data at the edge based on high-performance processing for satellite companies and downstream application customers in the wave of satellite constellation construction.
In the infrastructure construction period of China's commercial aerospace, the commercialization opportunity of the satellite industry lies in helping to reduce costs and increase efficiency. During the operation period of commercial aerospace, it is necessary to deeply integrate technologies and scenarios in order to find more commercialization opportunities in it.
Satellites will be sent into space in droves, and the commercialization scenario of the satellite industry is not far off. The next stage is to carry out on-board processing and service applications based on the products that have been launched and will be launched, so that users can perceive that intelligent computing can truly support customer services.