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Thousands of satellites orbit above our heads and thousands more should be added in the near future. The promoters of the new space conquest, such as the French company ‘Prométhée’, dedicated to the “new space”, claim to “want to help better monitor and control climate change, democratize space and have the ability to have its data under control, in his country”. Olivier Piepsz, its president, is the guest of Escala in Paris.
‘Prométhée’ or Prometheus is a French company born in 2020 dedicated to the construction of nanosatellites. The company claims to want to help the countries of Africa and Latin America to achieve their digital sovereignty and resilience from nano earth observation satellites.
Its president, Olivier Piepsz, affirms that “both notions are very important”, since he considers that resilience at an environmental level is no longer the subject of debate: “With global warming there are enormous risks and challenges to find solutions to sequester carbon. Have A monitoring of energy sources and information sources requires satellites to have control of local life, with a global vision”.
The new space for new players
Working in space involves the use of concepts that come out of everyday language, such as “geo-intelligence” or the “new space”. Olivier Piepsz clarifies: “The ‘new space’ – new space – is to open space to new players. It is the result of new technology, the hybridization of digital and the reduction in costs per kilo in orbit, because today nowadays not only very important companies can work and manufacture solutions in space, but also small ones, with audacity and great reactivity, working in complementarity with these large companies to test new technologies, and thus advance more quickly”.
‘Prométhée’ recently announced that its first satellite will fly in October 2023, to have the first constellation of satellites in 2025. But what will be the characteristics of a nano satellite produced by the company? “The idea of democratization is very important because before it was a minority that controlled the space. With the ‘new space’ that changes; it is a democratization at the infrastructure level, and then we are going to address the users. It is to send the data from space observation to a personal telephone. A bit like the Internet revolution of the 1990s. We want to make the Earth observation revolution now,” replies the former vice president of the international management of the French company ‘Safran’ for Latin America.
With regard to the thorny problem of regulation, the person in charge of Prometheus points out: “There is regulation on frequencies; on earth observation there is much less regulation, and with this democratization many more people can send satellites into space. But as it is of an environmental problem, it is very important to be responsible and, later, to organize that the satellite, at the end of its life, returns and leaves space”.
This “new conquest” poses risks. The American company ‘One Web’ assures that it will launch 600 satellites in the next three years; ‘Boeing’ announces the launch of 2,400 satellites; Samsung bets on launching 4,000 and Elon Musk 12,000. We are talking about multiplying by five the number of satellites currently in orbit, with consequences that could be irreversible.
And it’s not all. Astronomers and other specialists complain that these devices disturb their space observation work, since the satellites give off light, ultraviolet rays. Optimistic, Piepsz replies that “surely, in the 17th century, when electricity was invented, there were astronomers who said that light was useless because vision was worse. You have to be responsible and think that this system will bring solutions to globally improve the water, soil contamination, smart cities, garbage, etc. The most important thing is to build with a responsible vision”.
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