Solenix

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, 30^th May 2018 – Under the aegis of the Swiss Space Center, a new working group focusing on software for satellite operations was created by four of its members: Astrocast SA, the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW, the Haute-Ecole Arc and Solenix Schweiz GmbH. The objective of the working group is to connect the Swiss academy and industrial actors and to provide a platform for promoting common projects, enabling the industrial partners to increase their competitiveness and therefore increase the impact of Swiss software contributions in the space sector.

Software technologies are an integral part of any space mission from on-board software to ground control systems and data processing facilities. The Working Group Software for Operations addresses these topics from the perspective of satellite operators, and their instruments with the aim of increasing efficiency, safety, and cost-effectiveness. This requires innovating in data analytics, data management, and human-computer interaction. This innovation effort can be applied, on one hand, to monitoring tools, constellation management, procedure management, and procedure execution, and on the other hand, to the analysis, understanding and interpretation of payload data.

Indeed, the massive increase of data produced by both platforms and payloads of modern satellites calls for new software developments. Under the term “Big Data Analytics”, various aspects of these missions are impacted over the entire data value chain: from acquisition to storage, processing, analysis, and visualisation.

For example, the upcoming constellations raise new software challenges in terms of data management, planning and scheduling. These missions are often driven by companies exploring new operation concepts such as distributed operations based on cloud solutions.

Finally, data processing, user interaction, and visualisation techniques have tremendously changed over the past decade. As a result, there is a wealth of cutting-edge technologies that could be applied to spacecraft operations.

These are the topics of interest to the founding members of the working group. If you are interested in taking part in a Swiss response to these challenges, either as a member of the working group or as an external expert, please contact Mr. Gilles Feusier at the Swiss Space Center.

About Astrocast

Astrocast is a Swiss company based in Lausanne developing the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) nanosatellite constellation that will provide diverse global industries with a cost effective IoT and M2M communications platform. Astrocast was founded in 2014 by the developers of SwissCube, one of the longest servicing nanosatellites in space. Visit Astrocast online at www.astrocast.com for additional information.

Contact: Florian George, fgeorge@astrocast.com

About the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW

The FHNW is represented in the group by the Institute of Data Science at the School of Engineering. The research fields of the institute include instrument development, data management, and data analytics applied to the space sector.  

Contact: André Csillaghy, andre.csillaghy@fhnw.ch

About the Haute École Arc

The Haute École Arc is represented by the Data Analytics Group at the domain of Engineering. The competences of the group are related to intelligent data processing, data analytics and high performance computing applied to different industrial fields.

Contact: Hatem Ghorbel, hatem.ghorbel@he-arc.ch

About Solenix Schweiz GmbH

Solenix is an international company providing engineering and consulting services in the space market with a focus on delivering innovative and high-quality software solutions and services.

Contact: Alex Baumgartner, alex.baumgartner@solenix.ch

About the Swiss Space Center

The purpose of the Swiss Space Center is to federate needs, resources and opportunities in the Space domain in Switzerland. It supports the Swiss space policy determined by the Swiss Space Office of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation. Consequently, it facilitates access to space missions and related applications for institutions, academia and industry, and promotes interaction between these stakeholders.

Contact: Gilles Feusier, gilles.feusier@epfl.ch