Astrocast is a Swiss satellite communications company based in Lausanne. It aims to establish a global satellite network for IoT applications.

History

Astrocast was founded in 2014[1] by EPFL alumni, and employed 70 people in 2021.[2] It launched its first five satellites in December 2018 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket,[3] and another five in June 2021.[4] It aims to operate a full network of 100 satellites by 2024.[2] Astrocast's nanosatellites are CubeSats, cubes 10 cm (3.9 in) large.[3]

Astrocast is backed by venture capital firm Adit Ventures, Airbus SE's venture arm and the European Space Agency.[5] In June 2022, Astrocast announced that it was acquiring Hiber, an Amsterdam-based IoT space tech company.[6]

Satellites launched

As of January 2023 the company has launched two test satellites and four batches of operational satellites, for a total of 19 spacecraft currently in orbit around the Earth.

Flight No. Mission COSPAR ID Launch date Launch vehicle Orbit altitude Inclination Number
deployed		 Deorbited
Test satellites
1 Astrocast 0.1 Kiwi 2018-099AS 3 December 2018 Falcon 9 Block 5 548 km x 562 km 97.6° 1 0
2 Astrocast 0.2 Hawaii 2019-018F 1 April 2019 PSLV-QL 1 1
Operational satellites
3 Astrocast 0101-0105 2021-006 24 January 2021 Falcon 9 Block 5 521 km x 533 km 97.4° 5 0
4 Astrocast 0201-0205 2021-059 30 June 2021 Falcon 9 Block 5 510 km x 530 km 97.6° 5 0
5 Astrocast 0301-0304 2022-158 26 November 2022 PSLV-XL 504 km x 517 km 97.4° 4 0
6 Astrocast 0401-0404 2023-001 3 January 2023 Falcon 9 Block 5 540 km x 550 km 97.6° 2[lower-alpha 1] 0
  1. ↑ 4 have been launched, but only two have been deployed from the ION-SCV tug that carried themso far.

    References

    1. ↑ "Astrocast SA". Company register of the canton of Vaud. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
    2. 1 2 Grundlehner, Werner (24 June 2021). "Ein Schweizer Raumfahrtunternehmen fliegt an die Börse". NZZ.
    3. 1 2 Malewar, Amit (2018-12-04). "Astrocast successfully launches its first satellite". Tech Explorist. Archived from the original on 2021-07-09. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
    4. ↑ "SpaceX launches Transporter-2 Falcon 9 rideshare mission". SpaceFlight Insider. 2021-06-30. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
    5. ↑ Caleb Henry (September 4, 2019). "Astrocast raises $9.2 million, grows target IoT constellation size to 80 satellites". Space News. Retrieved July 4, 2023.
    6. ↑ "Hiber, an Amsterdam-based IoT space tech startup, will be acquired by Astrocast". Insider Apps. Retrieved 2022-06-07.
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