A story of starting a satellite mission
Written by Kaupo Voormansik, CEO of KappaZeta
How it began
It all started in November 2021 when TalTech space programme manager Rauno Gordon convened all the interested parties to discuss the idea of a new „Estonian satellite“. We met with the other enthusiasts on several occasions to discuss ideas — the common denominator being the desire to develop a mission useful for Estonia. Soon enough I was able to convince everyone that building a new satellite to observe just Estonia is not the way to go. Instead, we should think about how to use satellite remote sensing to benefit the world. Most of the other participants at the meeting seemed to agree.
We had been thinking of the idea of enriching the Sentinel-1 dataset for a long time. At first, we hoped ESA would do it by adding the height dimension using accompanying missions to Sentinel-1 and by making the next generation fully polarimetric. Discussions on this topic showed that ESA was not planning to do it themselves but would be willing to support third parties who develop such a mission. OK, great — I pitched this idea at the next „Estonian satellite“ meeting and it was accepted quite well. Adding a small and relatively inexpensive companion to enhance the data of a large and important mission seemed both feasible and meaningful. After one or two more meetings, I realized that in order to make it actually happen, I have to take the lead. To stand up and say that we (i.e KappaZeta) will start organising it, and others will then join too. We had what was necessary to get the snowball rolling — systematic knowledge about SAR, personal experience from developing ESTCube-1, an understanding of the Earth observation market and about the importance of the dataset to be developed. As the last and very important component, we also had a decent network within the Estonian and other European countries’ space technology and remote sensing communities, to bring the entire vision into reality. Today’s KappaZeta could not do it alone, but with help from friends — absolutely!
If you’re interested in the technical content of the planned mission, please see the abstract from the Finnish Satellite Workshop Remote Sensing seminar: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rhppDdSWLjU7CXeanmLWo1Vl4xLE3h8_/view.
In the beginning of the story, I referred to the „Estonian satellite“ using quotation marks, but despite all our national pride, we shouldn’t emphasize its nationality. The more countries that consider the Sentinel-1 accompanying satellite constellation to be their own, the better. Satellite remote sensing is inherently global and international cooperation its key to success, helping to avoid unnecessary fragmentation and duplication, and helping to progress further together. A satellite that is suitable for gathering data about Estonia is just as capable of doing the same for all other countries of the world.
Gathering feedback
By now, we’ve been preparing the mission for about a year without any dedicated budget and we’ve started involving the first investors. This has been exciting for the most part, but not without smaller drawbacks. The first surprising experience was the unbelievably supportive reception of the idea by ESA experts at informal discussions. We received many practical suggestions for both work organisation and involving international partners.
To sum up the feedback received so far, it seems that successful people and organisations are willing to help and encourage our ambitions. They want us to succeed and are willing to provide good advice and sometimes their own effort and personal contacts. The ones who have been critical of the mission concept seem to be the ones with less success. But we’re not going to focus on them. What was the Asian saying — see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil?
One of the best experiences from the preparatory phase happened last autumn. The founder and CEO of a rapidly growing Estonian tech company with a valuation of hundreds of millions, finds an hour from his busy schedule for us. Within five minutes we „reach the same wavelength“, followed by an incredibly intense exchange of information. He quickly grasps what we want to do, we receive practical tips and contacts to help us implement the mission. I leave with a great feeling — he sincerely wants us to succeed and will cheer us on along the way.
Some interesting stories and criticism
One of the most interesting critical remarks came from a good colleague: „Your undertaking has too much of a community feel to it“. I would say that’s completely intentional. KappaZeta is a do-good company with a mission and that’s no secret. We’re convinced that an open approach will be successful, as opposed to being afraid, trying to hide, building walls wherever possible, keeping our work and plans a secret. The Copernicus programme, which the new mission would complement, is a success largely thanks to its open philosophy.
All interested parties need to know that the door for discussing cooperation is open, be that for benefitting from the planned data or for collaborating on satellite development. Experience from the first Estonian satellite project ESTCube-1 taught me many lessons that led to this conclusion. I’m glad that I never started criticising the new „aliens“ who had just joined the team and didn’t seem very reliable at first sight. Many of them later surprised the entire team, proving to be thorough and careful engineers that could always be relied upon. The second lesson was that each person plays their own role and not every person has to be very profoundly involved in development. For example, one ESTCube-1 member never stood out with great engineering results but brought a friend to the team who became one of the core developers. All of this demonstrates the power of community, which is enormous. Everyone needs to feel welcome to join and contribute. This is especially important in the beginning, when the entire competence to complete a mission doesn’t already exist within the team.
More criticism on the same note: „It doesn’t matter that you have a lot of friends!“. It matters tremendously! One person alone, however smart, and capable, could not get a lot done. Looking at the lively and supportive cooperation between Estonian startups, it seems that most people have understood this already long ago. From our experiences, we can thank the SuperAngel accelerator, ESA BIC Estonia, the Estonian Founders Society, and the Estonian Space Office.
To sum all of this up — there’s still a lot of work ahead, but there aren’t any fundamental obstacles preventing the mission from becoming a reality. The only thing that might make us reconsider our plans, would be if a better alternative technology were to appear. As long as our planned mission (bistatic SAR interferometry using accompanying satellites) provides the best combination of high accuracy, global coverage, and a reasonable price for measuring the global forest biomass, we will be working onwards.
Today, we have verbal agreements to raise 2,35 million euros in investments. Hopefully, we can publish official news about it soon. I extend my sincere gratitude to all our team members, advisors, the future investors, and the constructive critics.
