The British company SpaceChain, together with consortium partners, received a grant of £440,000 for the joint development of a decentralized satellite infrastructure (DSI) based on blockchain-based equipment.
Milestone brings together SpaceChain, Addvalue Innovation and @AlbaOrbital on a mission to democratise access to space innovations. #newspaceeconomyhttps://t.co/g5OmEsxrLj
— SpaceChain Foundation (@SpaceChain) December 10, 2020
The SpaceChain, Addvalue Innovation Pte Ltd, and Alba Orbital became winners of the EUREKA Globalstarsl competition, announced for representatives of 14 countries. The funding was provided by its organizer, the European agency coordinating research, EUREKA, together with Enterprise Singapore and Innovate UK.
According to the statement, the DSI will be formed as a network of spacecraft owned by multiple parties from different jurisdictions, operating in low Earth orbit. The project aims to reduce barriers to entry into the space sector, as well as close the gap between technologies and data.
It is envisaged that the DSI architecture and blockchain will provide a secure, reliable real-time link for managing satellites.
“The infrastructure is designed to facilitate the development of commercial use cases that connect space resource providers, satellite applications, and fintech companies via a secure, low-latency network,” the statement said.
It notes that the innovation was made possible thanks to SpaceChain software, Alba Orbital’s Unicorn-2 platform for CubeSat-class nanosatellites, and real-time communications enabled by Addvalue’s inter-satellite data transfer system.
“Space exploration projects are immense in scale and require close collaboration and partnerships, and this milestone opens up new opportunities for creating commercial solutions that leverage space applications and blockchain,” says SpaceChain’s Chief Commercial Officer Nick Tradgen.
Earlier the company received a grant from the European Space Agency for research into a satellite cryptocurrency wallet system.
In August, SpaceChain successfully conducted a bitcoin transaction using multisignature technology on equipment deployed on the International Space Station.
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