The sky’s the limit: U of O grads’ spacecraft refuelling system set for takeoff

July 15, 2024

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An Ottawa-born startup that is building the world’s first “automated service stations” for spacecraft has landed a coveted spot in a San Francisco-based accelerator program as it prepares for its maiden mission next year. Founded in 2022, Spaceium is the brainchild of rocket engineers Ashi Dissanayake and Reza Fetanat. The University of Ottawa graduates and self-confessed “space nerds” are designing an unmanned system that can refuel and repair space vehicles such as satellites and moon landers while they are in orbit. The company plans to deliver its first refuelling and repair station – which will be big enough to hold the contents of roughly three or four suitcases – into low-Earth orbit next year on a servicing vehicle launched by Australian firm Space Machines Co. Dissanayake and Fetanat are now running their five-person venture from California. Spaceium recently joined Y Combinator, a San Francisco-based tech startup accelerator and venture capital fund that pairs promising startups with seasoned business mentors and provides US$500,000 in seed funding. “It has been a dream for us to get into YC,” Dissanayake told Techopia in an interview on Monday, explaining that fewer than one per cent of applicants are accepted into the prestigious program, whose graduates include Airbnb, Doordash and Instacart. It’s the latest step in an entrepreneurial journey that began a few years ago when Dissanayake and Fetanat were building and refurbishing rockets for aerospace clients and decided to tackle a couple of the industry’s major pain points. Currently, any vehicles that travel into space need to carry all the fuel they need for their return journey with them. Fuel such as liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and methane makes up as much as 95 per cent of a spacecraft’s launch weight, limiting the vehicles’ carrying capacity and operational efficiency. In addition, just about anything that goes wrong with a craft when it’s in space can only be fixed back here on Earth. When objects like satellites go down, “it’s the end of their life,” explained Dissanayake. She and Fetanat hope to change that. Spaceium’s system keeps cryogenic fuel at temperatures as low as -176 degrees Celsius, meaning it can be stored for years without “boiling off” into the cosmos. In addition, the startup is currently developing a 1.5-metre robotic arm that can both refuel and repair vehicles while they’re in orbit – eliminating the need for costly wholesale replacements when craft break down. While the company’s first unit will have room for just one 10-kilogram tank of liquid oxygen, Spaceium expects to have multiple units containing several tons of fuel in orbit by 2026 and build up to a total capacity of at least 10 metric tons by 2030. Meanwhile, it’s already looking at launching stations into geostationary orbit, more than 35,000 kilometers above the Earth, and eventually into lunar orbit and beyond to accommodate space travel of all kinds. Originally bootstrapped, Spaceium has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding in addition to the recent cash infusion from Y Combinator. Dissanayake and Fetanat say they’re focused on getting the product off the ground but hope to start actively seeking fresh capital in the next few months. Whether they will return to their base in Kanata North after the Y Combinator program ends in October is still up in the air, Fetanat said. Factors such as access to talent and funding will play major roles in their decision. For now, he explained, Spaceium’s team is engaged in “a lot of grinding” as the countdown to its first mission continues. “There have been hiccups, of course. The stuff we are doing right now hasn’t been done before. It’s just a lot of learning, a lot of testing, a lot of nights when we don’t sleep.”