Aerospacelab, a Belgian start-up, has commenced building a factory designed to produce up to 500 satellites annually. The new company, financed in part by national and regional aid, plans to start building satellites weighing from 150 kgs each up to one tonne.

It already has eight satellites in orbit, four of which were launched on a SpaceX rocket in March. However, the company is not seeking to build its own constellation but to bid for business from the growing number of operators looking to either expand or launch satellites.

Last week Aerospacelab announced it had won a contract from Vyoma of Germany which wants to launch a series of satellites in 2025 to monitor space debris.

CEO Benoit Deper, speaking during a webcast from Space Tech Expo Europe, said that the new facility would be the world’s third-largest satellite manufacturing plant. He explained that investment and cashflow were key to the project’s success.

“The way we set up the next factory is to make sure that we can sustain the operational costs and absorb the first tranches of capex with a reasonable assumption on the market share we should get. Indeed, it would be pretty scary to make market assumptions that are too big because of the capex we deploy.”

His target were low Earth orbit constellations, Internet of Things craft, Earth observation satellites and other related projects.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Project Kuiper seeks India licence
2. FAA suspends SpaceX launches
3. SpaceX vs AST SpaceMobile 
4. Eumetsat explains Ariane 6 cancellation
5. AST SpaceMobile examines emergency call obligations
6. AST SpaceMobile promises US commercial services
7. Starlink “transformative” in shipping
8. Rivada Networks funding explained
9. EU satellites disrupted by Russia

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: aerospace, Belgium, Internet of Things, Low Earth Orbit, satellite