Thousands of man-made satellites are currently floating in space, many of them collecting data and transmitting it back to Earth.
As government agencies and the private sector look to mine the valuable information satellites can provide, the sky has grown increasingly crowded. But some barriers remain. Satellite development, launch, maintenance and data collection is costly. And most satellites operate on their own independent mission control systems, leaving an overall lack of standardization.
“The supply chain for space is fundamentally broke,” said Ben Lamm, CEO of Hypergiant Industries, an Austin-based artificial intelligence startup.
Hypergiant is aiming to lower those barriers by building out the business of space.
Hypergiant has divisions that work on technologies used in space science and exploration, satellite communications, aviation, defense, health care, transportation and municipal infrastructure, as well as the food and beverage industry. The company has offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston, and most of its 195 employees work in the state. Hypergiant also has offices in Washington D.C. and Seattle.
Hypergiant wants to be an end-to-end provider of artificial intelligence-powered space products, Lamm says. The company wants to act as a satellite deployment and service provider, a product designer and software systems provider for space-based needs through its Galactic Systems division.
The division is working to develop services that would make space missions to be more accessible and affordable for clients, Lamm said.
Lamm said he anticipates a number of industries — such as autonomous transportation, aviation, defense, investment, finance and energy — will be interested in the products and resulting data.
“These companies now have a single company who can manage the entire supply chain as well as the data being collected including creating artificial intelligence and machine learning models to better utilize that data,” Lamm said.
Groupings of satellites are known in the industry as constellations, and Lamm said Hypergiant‘s “constellations as a service” product would handle everything from a satellite‘s design and launch through analysis. The company also is developing a mission control product to handle system communications. Other offerings will integrate as artificial intelligence and machine learning products, Lamm said.
Constellations are typically made up of lower-cost satellites, and allow companies and researchers to cover larger coverage areas, decrease risks and lower cost of operation. Lamm said this strategy gives redundancy of coverage in case one satellite is knocked out.
But the launch and maintenance of constellations can be complicated, especially when compared to a single satellite, Lamm said. Hypergiant‘s services would address many of these complexities, he said.
“Even in smaller constellations of 10 to 30 satellites, you have to look at coverage areas, orbits, decay and replenish rates. This replenish rate requires a cyclical supply chain and long-term planning perspective,“ Lamm said.
Hypergiant‘s service would design and launch multiple artificial intelligence-driven low orbit satellites that make up a constellation, Lamm said. Each satellite would be on the same mission control platform and be able to communicate together. Hypergiant would also maintain the system, and collect, interpret and analyze data.
The company‘s space division is already making progress, Lamm said. Some Hypergiant satellites have been delivered to the International Space Station to be deployed. Once launched, they will make up part of a satellite constellation. Hypergiant‘s data analysis software has also tested successfully with drones.
The company is also working with government agencies, defense contractors including Booz Allen, Nortrup Grumman and Dynetics, and commercial customers including Ubiquitilink and Spaceflight.
