SA space start-ups get a leg-up
FIVE start-ups, including a company that will relocate from NSW to SA, have been chosen as part of the state’s first space incubator program.
FIVE start-ups, including a company that will relocate from NSW to SA, have been chosen as part of the state’s first space incubator program.
Venture Catalyst Space’s inaugural participants include Ping Services, ResearchSat, Wright Technologies, Safety from Space and Tekuma.
The Venture Catalyst Space program is funded by the SA Government’s $4 million Space Innovation Fund and is run by UniSA’s Innovation & Collaboration Centre.
Ping Services founder Matthew Stead – also co-founder of SA engineering company Resonate Acoustics – said the company had developed a monitor (software and hardware) to detect damaged blades on wind turbines using sound waves.
“Our primary partner is Myriota,” Mr Stead told The Advertiser. “Our monitors will communicate with Myriota’s satellites to provide the service in usually remote wind energy locations. The company will be exhibiting its first monitor at the Wind Energy conference in Hamburg, Germany, on September 28.
Mr Stead said the company expected to a launch the product and related services in Australia early next year.
ResearchSat founder Raviteja Duggineni (Ravi Teja) is developing prototypes for testing equipment to help conduct microbiological experiments in space. Mr Teja said he had developed a 3D titanium petri dish for the purpose but was assessing other cheaper materials in the lead-up to including some prototypes in an Airbus mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2019.
ResearchSat is teaming up with SA-based Neumann Space to test its technology in space in 2020. Neumann’s chief scientist Dr Patrick Neumann wants to test its fuel-from-space-debris technology in space in 2020 as part of Airbus’s new Bartolomeo mission platform, but is using the 50+ litres of payload space for its FAST (Facility for Australian Space Testing) program.
SA-based Wright Technologies has developed Seraph, a unique system for drone registration and real-time tracking to its improve safety, security while Safety from Space is working on a safety system for remote locations.
NSW company Tekuma will relocate to SA to develop intuitive hand controller hardware or “joystick” to operate remote objects.
The start-ups will work with ICC’s Entrepreneur in Residence Kirk Drage, through his business LeapSheep and advisers for six months. ICC manager Jasmine Vreugdenburg, who was on the selection panel, said she was looking forward to supporting the businesses to become “investment-ready enterprises”.
Premier Steven Marshall said developing the space industry was a key component of building a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the state.
SA is competing with other states and has bipartisan support to host the $50 million Australian Space Agency, headed up by former CSIRO chief Megan Clarke.