WASHINGTON — A startup has raised a seed round of funding to develop customized satellites with the help of artificial intelligence as an alternative choice to standardized buses.
Los Angeles-based Proteus Space announced Oct. 10 that it raised a $4.2 million seed round led by Moonshots Capital. Other investors participating within the round included Lavrock Ventures, The Veteran Fund, Mana Ventures, AIN Ventures, Capital Factory and Industrious Ventures.
Proteus will use the funding to advance its technology to enable rapid development of customized small satellites using AI, which the corporate argues can rapidly shorten the time to develop those satellites without requiring payloads to verify to requirements of a more standardized satellite.
“You’ll be able to’t win the brand new space race when it takes you three years to get to the starting line,” said David Kervin, chief executive of Proteus Space, in an interview. “The entire goal here is to find yourself in a spot where any person can are available in and say, ‘I need a bus built,’ and 6 months later they’ve something able to launch.”
Company executives say that they expect to find a way to finish the design of a customized satellite in 30 days, versus the 18 months of traditional approaches. Machine learning can assist speed up the iterative phases of satellite design, they argue, while other AI approaches like deep learning could eventually help discover design solutions more quickly than a human could.
“We’re really focused on rapidly designing latest buses for brand new sorts of payloads to proliferate that technology as quickly as possible,” he said. “We’re talking about latest sorts of buses with the identical or less risk than a typical bus.”
The corporate has disclosed few details in regards to the capabilities of the satellites they expect to provide beyond them being ESPA-class, weighing a pair hundred kilograms. The corporate expects to provide those satellites using some amount of additive manufacturing, said Terry Gdoutos, vice chairman of spacecraft systems, based on the designs that result, but may even incorporate traditional manufacturing techniques.
“You have got to be very selective with when it is smart to make use of that,” said Andrew Shapiro, chief technology officer of Proteus Space, of additive manufacturing. “We’re very careful about using it when it’s appropriate.”
The funding will enable the seven-person startup to rent more developers to create the end-to-end satellite design system and construct out its manufacturing capability. An initial version of that system must be operational by next summer, Kervin said.
Proteus Space is targeting industrial and government customers who would favor to design a satellite around their payload fairly than modify their payload to adapt to a standardized satellite. Kervin said the corporate has a pipeline of about $100 million of potential business from each startups and established space corporations, in addition to government agencies, even though it has yet to announce any contracts.
That approach attracted investors like Moonshots Capital. “We were impressed by the Proteus Space technical concepts and mission focus,” said Craig Cummings, general partner at Moonshots Capital and member of the board of directors of Proteus Space, in a press release. “We’re confident their extraordinary leadership, domain expertise, and determined resolve will carry the corporate to success.”