Cubesats are microwave-sized satellites with a Spanish seal.

Name Jordi Puig-Suari Less well known in Spain than he should be, this Catalan aerospace engineer who made his career in the US is father of cubesats, small satellites that revolutionized the space industry. If just a few decades ago the launch of these devices into near-Earth orbit was the prerogative of large government agencies with large budgets, such as the American NASA, the European ESA or the Russian Roscosmos, today this niche has expanded to universities, private companies or even start-ups.

This is a case satellitei.e. The company is based in Barcelona and San Diego. There are just a few days left until the launch of four new satellites into space during the SpaceX Transporter-11 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (USA).

But this is only the first step in an ambitious national project that will put Spain at the forefront of this technology in the space industry. As the company founded Jaume Sanpera and Marco Guadalupi, wants to deploy a constellation of dozens of these small satellites by 2028. Its goal? Provide 5G-IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity to more than eight million devices worldwide.

Once the satellites are deployed in space, they will fly over the Earth from low Earth orbit (LEO) at an altitude of about 500 kilometers. From there, they will function as telecommunications towers. providing coverage expansion to mobile operators, through wholesale agreements so that they can offer internet of things services where terrestrial networks do not reach.

Market estimates suggest that despite the digitalization of an increasingly globalized world, nearly 80% of the Earth’s surface You still don’t have mobile coverage.. Especially in hard-to-reach or isolated rural areas, such as the open sea or deserts and forests. This is the direction in which Sateliot wants to move under the motto “A connected world is a better world”.

From his office in Sateliot’s Barcelona office, Sanpera comments: “We are going to provide near real-time connectivity to 100% of the planet once the constellation is fully deployed. This represents a huge leap in quality compared to current technology. And these words make sense in this era. “democratization” of space and the New Cosmos. When the aforementioned major agencies were the only ones launching satellites, they had a completely different concept: decades of development, millions of dollars in costs, the size of a bus and tons of weight. On the contrary, Sateliot’s technology allows each device to be ready in 18 months, cost less than half a million, be the size of a microwave oven and weigh about ten kilograms.

The useful life of these devices has also decreased. It is no longer decades of use, but at most They will stay in orbit for five years. This quality allows, even from Earth, in contrast to the possibilities of many years ago, to introduce technological improvements into on-board systems.

In fact, they are designed so that when the time comes, they perform controlled de-orbit maneuvers and burn up upon re-entry into the atmosphere, thus avoiding the accumulation of space debris and minimizing possible risks of collision with other objects.

Origins and support

Six years after its creation, Sateliot is just waiting for the billing to start, although it has already has concluded contracts worth over 200 million euros with more than 400 clients from more than 50 countries worldwideor. This launch marks an increase in growth forecast and a Series B equity funding round. Its business plan includes. turnover will be 500 million euros in 2027 and 1,000 million in 2030, with over 60% Ebitda.

In fact, throughout its history, Sateliot has managed to attract a total of 25 million euros, of which six million came from Banco Santander. The European Union, through the InvestEU fund, has also provided economic support for its activities.

This roadmap for developing your business strategy is a message that requires the trust of the market and the aerospace sector. Sateliot is a Spanish company that In its shareholding, Indra and Cellnex are industrial partners. with a share of 10.5% and 3.5% respectively. Also from Sepides, with approximately 5% of the capital.

“It was a difficult road. Our main task was to turn pats on the back into economic support. However, during all this time we convinced and demonstrated to investors that this idea has a future, which in just a few days we will turn into the present,” concludes Sanpera.