ESA Startup competition announces four winners

In a session led by Eric Morel de Westgaver, ESA Director of Trade, Procurement and Authorized Providers, every startup outlined their proposal and answered questions from Member State delegates.

The 4 successful startups had been chosen from a complete of 101 candidates. Over a interval of two months they had been judged on the group, enterprise mannequin, societal affect of the undertaking and usefulness, and high quality of the proposal. This course of concerned Member State Enterprise Incubation Centres, ESA scientific, enterprise and authorized specialists, and ESA’s Inspector Basic. All 22 Member State delegates voted unanimously on the ultimate winners. Such was the standard of the entries that third place was shared by two startups.

The winners will obtain knowledgeable recommendation via a mentoring grant tailor-made to their particular wants. ESA additionally invitations the winners to current on the International Area Congress to be held in Abu Dhabi in Might 2021. 

“Every proposal makes sound enterprise sense and can have a really constructive societal or environmental affect,” Eric defined. “The folks behind these concepts are specialists of their fields who’ve noticed alternatives out there. Their dedication and dedication teamed with ESA’s recognition and assist provides them the enhance wanted to carry these concepts to fruition.”

Water is essential to life on Earth however hundreds of thousands of cubic metres are wasted yearly by way of leaks alongside buried pipelines.

Cosmic Srl in Italy is total winner of the ESA Startup competitors. They suggest to additional develop their neutron detector-based idea to make a low-cost machine that’s simple to put in on any car to measure the water content material of the bottom round pipelines and determine leaks.

The know-how works on the premise that cosmic rays that continuously bathe Earth are absorbed by hydrogen, a part of water. The concept relies on measurements with a detector that counts cosmic rays in a sure power band. The depend will lower if the rays are absorbed by a physique of water. Knowledge collected are cross-referenced with GPS positioning supplied by satellite tv for pc navigation and constantly despatched to a server for realtime knowledge evaluation based mostly on synthetic intelligence to detect water leaks.

Hawa Dawa got here second place, and joint third got here Orbital EOS and ConstellR.

Hawa Dawa in Germany has created a worldwide air high quality administration platform pushed by Earth remark satellite tv for pc knowledge, ground-based measurements, the Web of Issues, synthetic intelligence and machine studying know-how.

Bettering air high quality is an important a part of creating sustainable and resilient cities. Hawa Dawa’s modelling system supplies data that may assist decision-makers to think about implications for air air pollution in visitors administration, city growth and healthcare.

About two million tonnes of oil is spilled into our seas from oil platforms and ships, most of which fits undetected. Orbital EOS in Spain have developed the primary industrial platform known as ‘EOS Viewer’ which mixes synthetic intelligence with Earth remark radar and optical satellite tv for pc knowledge from the EU’s Copernicus programme to detect and characterise these oil spills.

Orbital EOS presents a 10–50% value discount in total monitoring and extra evaluation knowledge on the traits of any spill. By working with oil firms and authorities, this firm hopes to create a extra accountable method to marine air pollution.

With the primary demonstrator in orbit subsequent 12 months, ConstellR in Germany will begin constructing its thermal infrared CubeSat constellation which is able to complement knowledge from the Copernicus programme to offer a high-resolution land floor temperature monitoring service. At three% of the price of conventional methods it is going to monitor the well being of crops globally, day by day, and on the extent of a single area.

This method will help farmers improve crop yield whereas decreasing water and fertiliser utilization and helps governments in addition to industries in recognising and getting ready for the consequences of environmental modifications.

To study extra about these winners, be a part of the opening session of the digital ESA Industry Space Days on Wednesday 16 September 2020, the place they’ll introduce themselves and will probably be obtainable for digital appointments with business and area company representatives.