On 6th of February Primomiglio SGR and ESA signed a Letter of Intent aimed at improving access to venture capital for promising European Companies in Italy and across Europe.

Primomiglio SGR is the management firm behind “Astra Ventures”, the first Italian Venture fund focused on Space technologies and applications in partnership with Fondazione E. Amaldi and the Italian Space Agency, ASI.

With “Astra Ventures”, Italy joins the group of ESA Member States willing to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the fast-growing “New Space” ecosystem, with a focus on rapid innovation, new business models and novel applications of space technology. “Astra Ventures”, backed by ASI as cornerstone investor, is currently raising €80m and intends to start operations in Q2 2019.

“We are really excited about the partnership with ESA,“ said Gianluca Dettori, Chairman of Primomiglio SGR, “…we are working together with our advisor Fondazione E. Amaldi to start operating our dedicated space fund by this year. This partnership allows us to start operating in this sector with our current investment operations.”

ESA was also very positive on the partnership with Astra Ventures. Magali Vaissiere, ESA’s Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications stated,  “Today’s event illustrates how much further our partnership models have progressed. Our commercially oriented applications projects now attract equal investment from ESA, industry and private third party investors: we anticipate that “Astra Ventures” will reinforce this picture.”

“Space industry is changing. For the first time in history, even small companies can build and launch their own spacecraft with the help of private investment, and generate commercial returns from customers,”  added Nick Appleyard, ESA’s Head of Downstream Business Applications. “With the public investment and the expertise that ESA can add, we can work in partnership to energise innovation and economic returns.”

About Primomiglio SGR:

Primomiglio is an Italian based investment company focused on early stage technology venture capital. It is currently operating with Barcamper Ventures’ seed to early stage fund, focused on digital technology.

About E. Amaldi Foundation:

Edoardo Amaldi Foundation (F.E.A.), aims to promote and support scientific research in order to offer a new way to better understand applied research and to transfer technology. The E. Amaldi Foundation takes the aerospace sector as a fundamental tool for Italian economic growth and as a source of innovation for the improvement of competitiveness, productivity and employment.

About ESA Business Applications

ESA’s programme of Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES), transforms research and development investment into commercial products that benefit our daily lives.

As the core applications programme within ARTES, ESA Business Applications is the mark of the best European ventures powered by Space. ESA Business Applications focuses on the development of space applications and services that exploit 50 years of investment in space by ESA, in addition to space technologies developed by other agencies and organisations.

ESA Business Applications and ARTES programmes currently oversee more than 500 projects across healthtech, fintech, agritech and many other commercial sectors.

Further information on ARTES Applications can be found at: business.esa.int

In response to growing challenges and opportunities in the realm of safety and security, ESA is proposing an evolution of its support to related European industrial efforts and EU initiatives.

The new Announcement of Industrial Opportunity is part of ESA’s overall programme for Secure Satcom for Safety and Security, known simply as “4S”. ESA aims to consolidate and increase its efforts under a new 4S ARTES thematic framework, inviting Outline Proposals that exploit synergies between the existing ARTES elements such as Core Competitiveness, Business Applications and Partner Programmes.

ESA’s approach is to use dialogue with industry to support the preparation of consolidated 4S proposals for ESA Space19+ (the next ESA Conference at Ministerial level, to be held in Seville in November this year).

Magali Vaissiere, ESA Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, commented that, “ESA considers secure Satcom to be an attractive and growing market opportunity. This announcement addresses activities covering the full lifecycle of innovation, from preparatory R&D and product development to infrastructure projects, services and downstream development. ESA expects industry to define its own priorities in line with its own business plans, which may include opportunities emerging with EU GOVSATCOM.”

The deadline for industry to submit a Notice of Intent to ESA is 8th March 2019. This will be followed by an ESA-Industry workshop in Bucharest on 4th April, after which the deadline for submitting Outline Proposals will be 10th May.

Click here to watch the ESA 4S video

Satellite technology could change the landscape of landmine clearance – saving countless lives

Approximately 2,000 people are killed or injured by landmines every month according to the UN. But clearance operations are notoriously complex and risky – it’s estimated that one deminer is killed and two injured for every 5000 successfully removed mines. Cobham Antenna Systems has been working with ESA Business Applications on a set of tools using space-based assets and Virtual Reality to improve demining operations, with potentially far-reaching humanitarian consequences. 

‘MIDAS’ or Mine and IED (Improvised Explosive Device) Detection Augmented by Satellite is an Integrated Application Project developed by the UK arm of Cobham Antenna Systems. MIDAS includes  a number of innovative product lines using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Earth Observation imagery. These products aim to digitise demining in a way that improves efficiency as well providing unparalleled access to the actual process in real time.

Demining – a delicate operation

Mine clearance has always been a painstakingly slow and expensive process heavily reliant on large numbers of skilled operators with handheld detection systems. With MIDAS training is enhanced by using a risk-free fully immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment, in which the student uses a VR headset and a real detector which is tracked in 3D and modelled in real time in the virtual environment.

But the jewel in MIDAS’s crown is a software tool that captures the ‘physical nature’ of the minefield on a map using common systems such as Bing maps, augmented using Earth Observation imagery. This tool captures the shape and boundaries of the minefield, and by using the detector tracking hardware, shows the live location of each mine detector in the operation to an accuracy of 3cm. The tracking hardware can also be used on robotic, vehicular or drone-based sensing systems. 

Also under development is the ‘Amulet system’ using a small Unmanned Air System (UAS) to deploy a Ground Penetrating Radar sensor. Amulet makes a map of the minefield as it operates, reporting in real time. The system is deployed remotely – critically removing the human from harm’s way. It can also search minefields that are otherwise inaccessible by road, for example due to flooding or landslide.

“MIDAS represents a real leap in the evolution of mine clearance. The tools are more efficient, lower cost, more auditable – not to mention the impact of the safer, humanitarian angle,” says Roberta Mugellisi Dow, Senior System and Data Systems Engineer, European Space Agency.

Paul Curtis, IED Product Manager at Cobham Antenna Systems adds: “This innovative new technology will yield a higher rate of land release for a fixed clearance budget. Through electronic mapping and reporting, through more timely and cost effective training, and by automation of search where there is value to do so; we can achieve a quicker return of land to vital local needs including farming and industry, to help mine affected countries return to a stable and prosperous state.”