#129 Anatolii Papulov

If you have the same camera flown three times closer to ground, You will get nine times more pixels. So because you can see more details... ...you can recognize everything much better. The same about telecommunication. The problem why starlings today require this huge antennas to mount outside of building is that signal from phone isn't strong enough To reach satellite.

so it has to be amplified. But if you are three times closer, your signal becomes about nine times better which allows use cases in direct-to-device connectivity. Basically internet, satellite Internet to any phone anywhere.". Thank you for listening! To sprint the podcast of The Federal Agency For Breakthrough Innovation Of Germany.

I am Thomas Ramgend and very much looking forward to our guest today Anatoly Papulov. he's a co-founder A space startup based in the UK that aims to place satellites much closer to Earth than it is usually done, how much closer they're installing and rest of does. Very low earth orbit. VLEO is search word here hence VLEo both a very promising and tricky space for a space start up.

Anatoly welcome to The Sprint Show! Yeah, thank you. It's very exciting. Thank You so much for inviting me Thomas Sure. So first principle First how low is Very Low Earth Orbit? it's about two hundred to three hundred kilometer altitude. So he's basically if you look at What what do can see in the sky today Is the planes are ten kilometers and then usually satellites at five to six hundred kilometers.

So be a new orbit aim to fly at about two hundred kilometer altitude. And why is this tricky? I mean, if it there must be reason why Elon puts his satellites three hundred kilometers higher than you intend too. yeah It's an interesting question. so the simplest way to explain that If u on top of ever since very hard to breathe because the atmosphere is very rarefied.

But once you start to go down, your atmosphere becomes denser and denser which become a big problem for satellites. if You Go from five to six hundred kilometer altitude Down To two hundred your atmospheric density starts to increase And Your lifetime before you re-enter The Atmosphere and you know disintegrate Is not twenty years it's couple of weeks.

And if you want to make use of that satellite that costs millions of dollars, You need to make sure it flies for close to five years. This is exactly the problem we've solved inside new orbit. Why did you go there at first? If it's much easier to put them higher cameras seem very good today so why do you wanna go low?

But they can become better. If you have the same camera flown three times closer to the ground, You will get nine times more pixels. So let's say if you can see buildings from Conventional Leo... ...you would be able to see maybe cars flying at V-Leo. So because you can see more details, you can recognize everything much better and the information is everything.

The same about telecommunication that problem why Starlings today require this huge antennas to mount outside of building. it's becuase signal from phone isn't strong enough so you have to amplify. But if you are three times closer, your signal becomes about nine times better. Which allows to unlock entirely new use cases in direct-to-device connectivity basically internet satellite Internet to any phone anywhere which is a dream and many other things.

so that the thing Is That If You Can What Satellites Do? They just take the data which come from Earth, and the closer you are to this data... ...the better data you can get. This is why these altitudes are exceptionally useful for many different applications.". Makes total sense! So… Why it's so exceptionally challenging to put them there?

Yeah.. The atmosphere becomes a big pain and a big problem that you have to solve for. It's not only about the single subsystem, like for example propulsion system we developed in House of New Orbit but also your materials, attitude control or payload structure. what was found is basically a new vehicle to operate at these altitudes.

The major three problems is the aerodynamic drag, you have basically very short lifetime that you need to use specific propulsion systems. You cannot use chemical engines because the amount of fuel and oxidars it needs to bring will be way too large to fit within spacecrafts. Then you also need to have a very specific attitude control software because the atmosphere starts to impact your satellite and it's start behaving in completely different way.

Also materials, just atomic oxygen is I think second most reactive substance of universe which was discovered and binds with everything. so we had protect all parts of the satellite including payload. So let's go to the solutions. I mean, that sounds challenging. what do we come up with? Because obviously you've not been the first one thinking about it putting in there.

The advantages are obvious. how did he came into the idea of yeah... We're gonna solve these technical challenges. so i was looking at this idea for some time within my master studies And I have a ground in physics and didn't find any subsystem that breaks the laws of physics or doesn't allow you to operate at this orbit.

two satellites that actually flown below three hundred kilometers. There is one very famous gotcha from European Space Agency, they've flown more than four years close to five years at this altitude for to forty to sixty kilometers which was also exciting. and there's Subameh from JAXA. so it has been already done before but not on the commercial scale.

you need to develop very specific technologies, so that it works on a commercial scale. So for example one of the biggest advantages we have is our propulsion system. We are using an iron propulsion system which allows us high propellant utilization efficiency. What I mean by this is if you use chemical propulsion you will run out the fuel very, very fast within basically a month of operating at this orbit.

You need to have a very propellant-efficient system that allows you to extend lifetime in these orbits and we developed gridded RF ion thruster which has much about four or five times higher propellant utilization efficiency than any other engines that you can find on the market for, small side factor right now.

That allows us to basically reach five years operation even more on relatively small tank of propellants. I think this was one of the biggest innovations we did. there is also a different solutions for drag reduction, how to make sure that we can fly longer, compensate for less drag and reach lower altitudes.

There are a lot of exciting challenges there. What kind of fuel do you use? It's Xenon. We actually have two systems within the orbit a breathing system that allows us to scoop the particles right from the atmosphere and use it as propellant. But also we are using Xenon, which is basically the best propellent you can find for existing electric propulsion systems.

How did he change his design of the satellite? He becomes more dynamic which means that it becomes very easy to spin out of control and focus on a specific area if you want to make imagery. So there is different form factor, how do you need to fly? It's the way in which you mount your payloads. Your software is very different for example existing satellites.

If onboard computer goes offline for one week or two its fine. In our case If it goes off for a week or two, we might already be on our way to de-orbit and reenter the atmosphere. So basically every architectural decision had to rethink to make this happen. What's the status of startup? I've seen you have done nice round.

Get some prominent investors almost twenty million euros. We plan our first launch in twenty-eight. So, our subsystems including propulsion system is very mature like some of that already passed the vibration test on all parts of the propulsion. we did fully integrated tests with propel management systems.

that supplies for example Xenon into our thruster also have power electronics control and everything here in the lab. We are already next year moving into much larger facilities with all of the clean rooms where we'll start to assemble our spacecraft, and after that integrate it onto a launch vehicle And then go on this very low service.

Who's going to launch? So its SpaceX? Who else? I'm surprised. Hopefully there'll be competitions soon, maybe out of Munich. I thought it was a very interesting option! How come you're based in the UK? Yeah would say that... The UK has great unutilized talent and engineering Also good access to capital Very easy for anyone to move.

There are a lot of great things about our location, even specifically reading. We have hubs in Oxford then also in Harwell and Surrey or London where everyone can come here to work very easily. we're currently working on our expansion to Germany as well, which is also very exciting. To tap into your great engineers and...

No interest! We'll talk about this a little bit later. what you do with Sprint right now but tell us a little up with the idea, when did you decide? Okay. I will not...I think it dropped out of a PEG program. so why didn't he say that they're going to become full-time scientists but be founder in science?".

Yeah! My background is in physics and my bachelor's degree is in Physics. A lot of physics especially at general theory relative to Weinstein was working very complex phenomena of thermodynamics. But at some point, I realized that if you... And then went into physics because they really wanted to find and discover something new.

And I found out unless you go in quantum or kind of into space search for dark matter it's very difficult to find something. change our understanding about how our world works. And then I went to do my master specifically in aerospace engineering, go into space and actually discover new things. One of the first thing that found which was interesting is there's this very strange tendency where satellites don't fly below five hundred kilometers And I started to ask myself why and what this is, in the way that it's going.

I didn't find any technical reasons why couldn't be done? because for me as a physicist if you can get three times closer to the ground You see things better. You communicate better. Your weather sensing becomes better. If your are just closer you can't get much better data. And I start to look into this, but at some point i realized that if you really want to make this happen it cannot go through the university.

creating a company is really the only way of how you can make that work. so yeah and basically since then...I think one Inspired me to make new orbit is that when there's this very big satellite called World U- three, it's way too close. one ton half a billion dollars takes. A decade to build but makes the most precise image in world and once made an image of three ships on sea.

resolution was so good. they could recognize illegal activities there, send Coast Guard their and they found two thousand select people on board of that ships. And the rescued all them! For me this was a very interesting analogy where one satellite image could lead to rescue of like two-thousand people.

If you are flying lower You can make the satellite for not half billion dollars but only few million dollars. The impact on economy, the impact of society and all humanity is going to be significant. And what I also found that nobody was working in this back then... This has been a very challenging problem for me.

it's just an idea why you know It wasn't really important technology for everyone to work on To see or make things happen. Basically i understood Bigger than anything I would do in my life, bigger then myself. So i have to make this work and uh yeah after that i found my co-founder Ruslan who is very good on the technical side especially on propulsion.

And yeah we started new orbit. What's the size of a team right now? Who was part of it? About thirty people. We have really great people. We have people coming from NASA JPL, SpaceX, Tesla and Rocket Lab all over the world. Everyone comes to Redding because it's funny enough that for example Glenn our technical lead came from Los Angeles to Reding to work on new orbit which is very rare to see...

Where's Redding? So reading is I mean, it's very close to London. It's about one hour You know door-to-door if you want to get to central London. But that's a good infrastructure in terms of who can get from London and to London? It's not as expensive as London. but yeah Who'll be your potential customers?

we're gonna pay for right i would say. anyone who is looking better imagery for the payloads, for their missions. They would look at flying on our satellites. also somebody who is looking to build direct-to-device connectivity which has a very big topic right now. whether science Because when you are flying at the South Aegis, nobody really flown there.

There were two satellites but a lot of questions that also can answer on scientific basis. Yeah I think they have plenty applications which is very important in this altitude. Spy agencies? They might be interested. Did already contact military? Not yet With it, okay. So what are the upcoming milestones?

What's the plan within the next two or three years?". It is mainly getting satellites up in orbit and also making sure that we have capacity to build all of their following satellites. so this is exciting about a new production complex that they're building. We already built bigger facilities right now with relatively small ones.

So next year it's going to be about two thousand square meter facilities with clean rooms. that can accommodate initially a few satellites per year, but we would be able to scale it very easily into ten satellites than you know. couple of satellites a week over time. Then basically next year end-of-this-year already will start receiving some subsystems for the spacecraft.

who'll start working on them and do a lot testing. Next Year We'll start doing the assembly of the spacecraft. make sure this is ready for the launch in twenty eight. And how about The Business Plan? When do you intend to sort of sell the first high resolution picture, to a commercial customer and how much money will he still need until getting there?

so our main business model is not to generate imagery by new orbit, it's mainly to provide a satellite platform that would allow our customers to generate this imagery. So what we focus on is basically selling satellite buses Because right now the challenge that we see in the entire industry is while there are about fifty entities, that can build Leo satellites for you.

There's zero that have a ready-to-fly system That will deliver to this very low Earth orbits. This what we aim at Bridges a business model we want to have you know, affordable and frequent launches through this very large orbits that allow you to test your payloads too. fly the salutes to also get benefits.

much higher resolution. Better communication on all of other exciting applications. I see if i understand it right i mean obviously there is a very empty space in. that is basically the business case of u occupying an empty space, are there any other startups you know of that? work on the approach? I mean it sounds quite obvious.

The VLEO has been interesting for everybody who knew about this for sixty years and everyone said okay we're going to avoid this because its just too expensive or complicated. so as technology evolves obviously People like you come up with the idea, maybe we get that trick. We find solutions. so are they only ones?

Are there other one's? No no... There is some companies looking at this altitudes even startups or big primes from US to Europe and India. So a lot of people who look into it. but I would say its still question whether Anyone can build the satellite reliable and affordable enough to fly this altitude.

Plus what really differentiates us from everyone else is our propulsion system. that allows you to fly lower than anyone, that gives you much better performance as well longer than anyone because we have such a high propellant utilization efficiency of our propulsion system. Okay, and now... Well first who are your investors?

Quite prominent names among them I've seen. Yeah so this round was led by Voyager Ventures. Then we also have continued support from Atlantic Labs who actually wrote the first check for New Orbit. We also have Lifeline Ventures in Finland, which was invested in ISI or Oro Ring and then different very exciting angels like David Kirk, chief science officer at NVIDIA, Lawrence from Tiermobility one of European unicorns.

We also have other very interesting family offices and angels as well. And now you're doing what we call at Sprint a validation contract? What exactly do they do with Sprint? So, we are looking right now at the fundamentals and architecture or all solutions required for our satellites. so we the systems that allow us to basically go deeper into different topics, so which one specifically it is.

communication, how communication is done and these altitudes. What are the challenges? Because you're flying a bit faster your angle roast would be faster compared to conventional Leo satellites. image stability as well as their materials which are required for this altitude for specific subsystems Which was very exciting.

It was one of the kind of fastest contracts that we ever got. and yeah, right now. We also have the plans to expand Germany as well. What are you gonna do in germany? I think what germany is really exciting Is it's very growing market with a lot Of Very smart and passionate engineers who want To build incredible things.

You want to tap into this And over time make Germany our gateway to this very low orbits on the industrial base. So one of our manufacturing facilities are going to be in Germany, to supply all of the satellites through to the entire European continent.". So when will... This gonna start if anything goes according to plan?

when you get into... We already started to put the processes in place. We planned for about twenty-eight, twenty nine where we will open our facilities in Germany. Do you consider new orbit to be a European project? And if so why do you do it here and not in U.S., possibly many circumstances might more favorable.

two space startups. It's definitely a European one And I think it is a big achievement for entire Europe, what we do at new orbit. You know that there's lot of... For example right now race four sovereign launchers and many other things but Viliu capability It something doesn't exist in the entire world.

The fact opening this from Europe is really exciting. Europe is really good in town. When I was at MIT and US, when you ask everyone where do we want to work? You asked aerospace engineers if anyone wants to work at SpaceX. but there's no such company here in Europe that has a large pool of talent which just doesn't know what they're doing with their engineering degree who really wanted amazing stuff but they don't have the companies to actually go and build something.

This is why we see that there's a very big gap, first of all in talent as well right now because it has been a huge sovereign market where European space ecosystem will grow rapidly over the next five or ten years for us to build one of the biggest companies in space by unlocking these orbits. Yeah, so I think there are a lot of great benefits of doing this from Europe rather than US.

Did you ever want to work for SpaceX? Yes at some point This is very exciting company. yeah For sure. Of course. we're glad that you chose another path Another path too Very low Very low orbit. The last question I asked to all, to all my guests is always the same what kind of radical innovation you wish for?

What kind of innovation leap you wished for in your twenty fifty which has nothing to do with what are we doing? We'd say fusion would be great! You're still a physicist right?! It's been a topping for quite some time, but you know abundant energy can really solve so many things. For us and even right now with data centers going into space because it seems that power is becoming cheaper if we use Starship to launch it in the space.

But I think abundant energy would be great And this could create to be our next step of civilization. It would also be good to have a more rocket fuel, right? Yeah. So definitely if you look into space I think going beyond Earth is really exciting. Also harnessing power of the sun is very exciting. There are many areas that yeah i'd love to see in twenty years.

it's still very short. Twenty-fifty sounds like distant future, but obviously it's not. Do you believe in these data centers and space? do You think its feasible? is that viable? Yes I think at all. of course there lies on Starship But the thing is why It becomes very important now Is because if you want to order a gas turbine To generate power You only will have this delivered in five years, six years.

It's very hard to find power right now on the ground. and you know even Eric Schmidt bought relativity because he was saying that ninety-nine percent of all Power is going to be data centers connected to AI. when we're going into space your power goes from let's say, sixty eighty watts per square meter to thirteen hundred per square meters.

It is a twenty X difference and if you can find out the way of how you can deploy this infrastructure in very cheap ways then it makes sense for us because what is so great about Starship is that its basically fully reusable vehicle And it's basically only operational costs and the cost of fuel. But I know they're using fuel which is even cheaper than the fuel that commercial airlines are using, so if its just about the operational costs into space.

Even if you have fusion, maybe that was your wish? You want to have fusion! If we had fusion do we need still a data centers in space or can't just run them here next to the fusion reactor? Yeah I think yeah. fusion can solve this for sure. it's just. fusion has been in minds for quite some time. With fusion you get cheap hydrogen so i bring up a lot of stuff.

Anyways, Anatoly. Thank you so much for the conversation! We wish all of your luck in getting. aiming low would not be a right claim to you though. You are aiming for the orbit but if you aim high it's still high enough and we wish you all good luck with that. And thank you for partnering with Sprint.

Yeah, thanks very much Thomas. It is an honor to partner with Sprints. It was one of our best experiences ever and looking forward what comes next as well. Thank you. And thank you to your dear listeners, if you like our podcast we would appreciate it If he could leave us a rating or review. This podcast episode has been produced as all the other ones by Max Solner.

Thank You Max. As always in two weeks from now We're gonna be out with the next episode. until then as always stay curious.

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