Exclusive. The Bulgarian EnduroSat settles in Toulouse with its shared satellites
The Franco-American Loft Orbital is no longer the only one within the Toulouse space ecosystem to offer a solution of satellites with shared services, or in other words space carpooling or even satellite carpooling. According to information from The gallerythe Bulgarian EnduroSat has just moved to Toulouse with the firm intention of developing there as well.
Founded in Sofia in 2015, the company – which employs 115 people in the capital of Bulgaria – has now opened a French subsidiary which will be based in the Pink City. A real step forward for this young company which has, until now, managed to develop without an established space ecosystem in its country of origin.
“We are arriving in Toulouse with humility, ambition and excitement. We will first of all create an R&D team there, on certain aspects. It will be made up of 10 to 20 people within 12 to 18 months”, specifies Emmanuel Sauzay, the Director of Growth for EnduroSat, whose Toulouse teams will initially take up residence in the Village by CA in Toulouse.
This Toulousain, formerly an employee of Airbus Defense and Space, arrived only a few months ago within the Bulgarian company with a triple mission: to manage the French subsidiary, to support the structuring of the company internally in its growth phase and grow your business.
The Toulousain Emmanuel Sauzay was notably recruited by EnduroSat to manage the French subsidiary of the Bulgarian company (Credits: EnduroSat).
Soon a production of satellites in Toulouse?
If, ultimately, the value proposition on the space market is similar to that of Loft Orbital, their approach to the market is very different. “They left on satellites bigger than ours, 150 kg. We are on nanosatellites, from 6u to 12u, and we will be offering 16u from 2023“, adds Emmanuel Sauzay.
Moreover, if their ambition is the same, namely to limit the number of satellites in space and therefore to fight against the proliferation of space debris by pooling satellites on behalf of customers responsible for providing the payload, their method of the satellite supply is also different. Loft Orbital buys satellites from other New Space players and then takes care of developing the software interface to make the link between the payload of the customer(s) provided on the satellite and this one. As for EnduroSat, which was the former manufacturer of equipment for nanosatellites and then manufacturer of satellites itself before tackling this shared satellite market, it is the company that produces the satellites for its space carpooling missions.
“Beyond doing R&D, we come to Toulouse to forge partnerships with key space players, and why not eventually, produce some of our satellites there (…) Today, we produce them all in Bulgaria (…) Currently, we are having discussions with a certain number of French players, both for business and for the supplier side of equipment for our satellites”, reveals the director of growth of EnduroSat.
Customers at the rendezvous
Currently in preparation for a fundraiser, the Bulgarian company founded by Raycho Raychev does not communicate on its turnover, “but we have been doing twice or even three times from year to year since 2020“, specifies Emmanuel Sauzay. Nevertheless, some elements attest to the fact that EnduroSat is in full growth.
First of all, the Bulgarian New Space actor, now from Toulouse, has just launched his first shared satellite, in May, with Space X. On board? Two payloads, including one for the IBM group. Another launch is already scheduled for the end of 2022 and it is already full in its payload transport capacity. Same observation for the two other following launches. In total, EnduroSat has already launched eight shared satellite launch phases on the market, with rather short deadlines thanks to collaborations with various launchers such as Isar Aerospace.
“We want to offer our customers a launch ground every three months, which can include several satellites. The idea is to have four series of launches each year”, explains the director of growth.
With an entry ticket of 250,000 euros, including the integration of the payload and its operation for the first three years, the coffers can quickly fill up for EnduroSat.