Sidus Space Joins Forces with Lulav Space to Develop Advanced Star Tracker

Written by Copernical Team Saturday, 08 July 2023 08:20

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Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Jul 08, 2023

Sidus Space (NASDAQ: SIDU), a significant player in the satellite industry, has announced a collaboration with Lulav Space, a specialist in robotics for space applications. The partnership aims to explore, develop, and showcase the potential of Event-based Star Trackers (EBST). Sidus Space intends to incorporate the jointly developed EBST into the upcoming LizzieSat mission, which is the f

Commercial UAV Expo | Sept 5-7, 2023 | Las Vegas

Sidus Space Joins Forces with Lulav Space to Develop Advanced Star Tracker
by Staff Writers
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Jul 08, 2023

Sidus Space (NASDAQ: SIDU), a significant player in the satellite industry, has announced a collaboration with Lulav Space, a specialist in robotics for space applications. The partnership aims to explore, develop, and showcase the potential of Event-based Star Trackers (EBST).

Sidus Space intends to incorporate the jointly developed EBST into the upcoming LizzieSat mission, which is the fourth of its kind. The launch is currently planned for June next year and will be facilitated by SpaceX. This collaboration forms part of the Space Florida award under the Florida-Israel Innovation Partnership, a pre-existing agreement designed to stimulate innovation and economic growth.

Carol Craig, Founder and CEO of Sidus Space, detailed the importance of the EBST technology to their operations. "An EBST can provide more accurate information on the orientation of satellites with high angular spin rate, such as our innovative, AI driven, 3D-printed LizzieSat. This technology will be particularly valuable in our emerging LizzieSat constellation as we build out our high-margin, recurring revenue, data-as-a-service business model," Craig explained.

The collaboration between Sidus and Lulav is poised to bridge a crucial knowledge gap in the development of this technology. "We believe our collaboration with Lulav Space will fill an important knowledge gap in developing this technology, and we look forward to working with Lulav on this valuable project," Craig added.

Event-based cameras, which are integral to the proposed EBST, have gained a reputation for superior performance at high angular rates when compared to traditional camera sensors. These cameras also have the advantage of lower size, weight, and power (low SWaP), making them ideal for space applications.

Star trackers are devices that capture and analyze star images to accurately ascertain a satellite's orientation in space. Traditionally, these devices use standard camera sensors and can only operate at low angular rates, which limits their performance and robustness.

With this partnership, the expertise of Lulav in vision-based space applications is set to be combined with Sidus' proven capabilities in satellite development, deployment, and operations. Together, they aim to develop and test in-orbit the first commercial EBST. This innovative star tracker would be the first of its kind to incorporate an event-based camera, promising to push the envelope of what's possible in satellite orientation technology.