Blackswan Space releases a sneak peek of its end-to-end autonomy platform called ACE. ACE is dedicated for satellite mission integrators and operators to make their life much easier by saving their time, reducing risks and enabling new capabilities in the growing in space economy.
“From day one our goal was to make satellites, satellite design and operations more autonomous. This is obviously a challenging task that requires not only developing new software but integrating multidisciplinary parts and thoroughly testing them according to industry standards” said Marius Klimavičius, CEO and co-founder of Blackswan Space.
ACE is currently comprised of two main parts: 1) The Mission Design Simulator or MDS – a sandbox tool for our customers to test their space missions in a 3D environment and generate synthetic data 2) flight software building blocks including the Vision Based Navigation system that enable autonomous satellite operations. This enables our customers to go from an initial idea to flight ready code using one platform instead of many different tools and processes, saving time and costs. The missions enabled by ACE range from on-board satellite management to in-orbit servicing, debris removal and in space assembly.
“Our global network of partners, customers and investors has enabled us to develop the core parts of ACE by giving us access to their expertise, feedback and dedicated testing facilities. We still have a lot of work ahead of us before ACE could be fully adopted to the growing number of satellites in orbit. Nevertheless, our team is confident and highly dedicated to making satellites autonomous” – Marius Klimavičius
The company is planning to test the core parts of ACE in orbit in 2024 -2026 timeframe and is open for collaboration with other teams around the world working on growing the in-space economy and the many exciting missions that autonomous satellite operations enable.