As several PhD students of the University of Strasbourg (France) expressed interest on Smallsat applications and business opportunities, a series of training sessions and workshops took place on the ISU campus between 19 – 29 March 2024. The EuroSpaceHub team supported this session as it fits perfectly with the objective in training students and future academics of different technical and scientific disciplines in business and entrepreneurship aspects of NewSpace.
After an introduction on the role of Smallsats in the NewSpace environment, initial courses concentrated on the general engineering principles of integrating a dedicated payload in a Smallsat. In view of the PhD level of the students, emphasis was placed on scientific and earth observation payload integration. As an example of a student project the Smallsat developed at IRS (Stuttgart) was demonstrated by the developers of Stuttgart University, as well as the results. A second part of the training concentrated therefore on the broad scope of applications possible with smallsats and the potential markets. A workshop on the Smallsat applications took place at the UniStra Observatory.
With these prerequisites and knowledge, emphasis was put on the innovation, business and entrepreneurial aspects of smallsat applications. Besides dedicated lectures on space economy markets and financing the creation of start-ups, the different equity sources were highlighted with a special emphasis on joining an incubator. As an example, the CEO of a smallsat related start-up was linked remotely with the participants to share his experience.
Lectures were given by faculty of ISU and UniStra (Strasbourg University) with support of the space department (IRS) of the University of Stuttgart. Nine PhD student candidates of four nationalities followed the session, which was integrated in their PhD curriculum.
Lecture of Smallsat Business to PhD Students of the University of Strasbourg