With demand for smaller satellites soaring and space tourism getting closer to realising promises of a lucrative new industry, one company is planning to tap both markets by shunning traditional rockets. Headquartered in Barcelona, Zero2infinity is…
With demand for smaller satellites soaring and space tourism getting closer to realising promises of a lucrative new industry, one company is planning to tap both markets by shunning traditional rockets.
Headquartered in Barcelona, Zero2infinity is flight testing a balloon-based launcher that will be capable of lifting tourists into near space as well as small satellites into orbit.
According to founder José Urdiales, who plans to commercially offer its ‘bloon’ capsules this year, the advantages of using balloons over rockets are not just financial.
Because the nanosat launcher will first be carried on a ship matching the speed of the wind, it is able to avoid territorial issues. The rocket can also be released only once the balloon is above controlled airspace, meaning it can be far lighter than its counterparts.
Technological advances are behind the growing demand for smaller and more capable satellites, and companies such as Switzerland’s S3 or Virgin Galactic are also looking to avoid full rocket-based systems to orbit them by developing plane-based launchers.
However, Urdiales said his balloons also have a number of advantages over these market entrants too.
“Our capital requirements are reasonable, whereas the capital involved in developing a brand new aircraft type – or re-certifying a heavily-modified one to carry tons of propellant – puts a lot of pressure on most financial models,” he said.
“Only hyper-optimistic assumptions, or significant government intervention, can lead to funding such projects. Our approach is much more scalable and can be truly funded with private capital.”
He said Zero2infinity lacks the government support of its peers and is instead fully supported by Spanish private capital from a mix of business angels, venture capitalists and an industrial investor – the world’s largest manufacturer of human-rated balloons. Since founding the company in 2009, it has closed a Series A round of about €2m and is working towards a Series B with commitments currently totalling €8m. Deloitte is managing the process.
Notably, the venture is already generating an income from experimental test flying, using its existing platforms to validate the space technologies of other companies. It aims to grow under a ‘spiral plan’, where it is a functional company at each stage of development to sustain itself.
With relatively small capital requirements, Zero2infinity is targeting space tourism trips that will be 20-times more affordable than rocket-based entrants.
“Concerning small satellites, we are not in this to bring the prices down, but to enable the precise inception of satellites in the orbits that make their businesses viable and more profitable,” he said.
“Our pricing is not unlike secondary rides on existing launchers, however, the client gets to pick the date, the orbit and the components of their satellite, no insurer of the primary mission is going to complain this time about non-space rated components. I’ve never seen a successful business model built around hitchhiking.”
As for whether being able to fly only as high as 44km – compared with Virgin Galactic’s target of flights at just over the 100km Kármán line definition of space – would be enough for aspiring space tourists, Urdiales was bullish.
He said: “Arbitrary definitions do not concern us, value to customers does. If an individual wants to see what astronauts see, then 36km of altitude is the right altitude to reach. Going higher, while within our capabilities, only makes the operation a whole lot riskier – supersonic re-entry, high G-forces.
“The sky is not going to get blacker once it’s black. The time at altitude – black sky time – matters much more than the actual distance from the ground, once you are above the blue and into the black. We do not promise a handful of minutes of such a view, we deliver two hours.
“If a company wants a launch in sun synchronous polar orbit at 600km, we’ll fly the balloon to about 25km, enough to get rid of the hindrance of the dense parts of the atmosphere. Going higher only means less precision in the orbital insertion and more cost to the customer. I am not aware of any factual requirement to spend an instant at 100km, besides saying it.”
He added: “The rationale behind our plans is simple logic. The finance and the physics are what they are. I would like to inspire the nascent space industry to be more fact based, as opposed to faith based. Our plans just come from looking at the numbers in an agnostic fashion, without any of the hype of the space geek. This approach is needed in the industry to make progress and become fully fledged. We are working towards a netscape moment for our investors. That will have an impact.”
