Kuva Space

Kuva Space is a New-Space start-up company based in Finland that plans to build the world’s most extensive hyperspectral constellation of 100 nanosatellites to capture the molecular composition of materials at scale on vegetation and soil. The space-borne data will be transformed into actionable insights that customers can access via an AI-driven data platform.

The company will play a critical role in land and water management, monitoring carbon emissions and measurement of carbon sequestration and have a noticeable impact in the field of climate action.

Kuva Space currently has three satellites active in orbit. ‘Hello World’, the world’s highest performing, miniaturized NIR hyperspectral satellite has been in orbit since December 2018. In June 2021 W-Cube satellite was orbited, housing a W-band radio transmitter for a ESA mission. In August that same year ‘Sunstorm’ Cube-sat was launched for another ESA mission to detect X-ray pulses from coronal mass ejections.

Company History

Kuva Space was previously known as Reaktor Space Lab that was founded in April 2016 by entrepreneur Jarkko Antila. Reaktor Space Lab was part of the Reaktor Group, a technology company for software engineering, embedded systems and robotics experts based in Helsinki. In September 2021 the company was renamed Kuva Space.

On November 29^th, 2018 launch operator ISRO orbited the 2U Cube-sat ‘Hello World’, the world’s highest performing, miniaturized NIR hyperspectral satellite, on a PSLV rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota India.

On June 30^th, 2021 W-Cube satellite was launched on the Transporter-2 Rideshare mission on a Falcon 9 rocket operated by launch operator SpaceX, from the Cape Canaveral launch base in Florida, USA. The W-Cube satellite housed a W-band radio transmitter for an ESA mission.

On August 17^th, 2021 ‘Sunstorm’ Cube-sat was launched for another ESA mission to detect X-ray pulses from coronal mass ejections. The satellite was orbited on the Arianespace Vega (VV19) rocket from the Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana.

On October 5^th, 2021 Kuva Space raised 4.2 million euros (4.85 million USD) to finance the constellation of commercial hyperspectral Cube-sats to gather imagery in the 400 to 1,100 nanometer band. The company’s second generation will observe imagery from 400 to 2,500 nanometers. The funding was supported by Voima Ventures, Nordic FoodTech Venture Capital, the European Space Agency (ESA) InCubed program and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Ltd.

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Resources

www.kuvaspace.com
www.reaktor.com
www.businessfinland.fi
www.spacenews.com  edition October 6^th, 2021
www.nordic9.com  edition October 4^th, 2021
www.spaceref.com  edition April 20^th, 2022
www.pitchbook.com
www.esa.int
www.isro.gov.in
www.nanosats.eu
www.thehub.io
www.aalto.fi