By Joakim Espeland, CEO, QuadSAT
2020 has been a strange and challenging year for all of us. Whilst it has been dominated by the global pandemic, and all the concerns that have brought, it has also been the year that the satellite industry learned to adapt. At QuadSAT, we were no exception. However, out of the chaos of this year, there have been some positives, so with so much negativity, we thought we would end the year with a couple of the good things we will take away from this year:
1. We learnt to demo virtually
As with many companies, we had to quickly adapt to a virtual environment for absolutely everything. With lots of tests planned for this year, we had to quickly rethink the way we met our customers and demonstrated our solution. Although we look forward to meeting in person again, we have managed to deliver our demos to global stakeholders in a virtual environment, which certainly saves a great deal of time compared to travelling across the world.
This year we secured the largest venture investment in a Danish drone tech company in history. As ever, we are grateful to our investors. Seraphim Capital, the world’s first venture fund dedicated to SpaceTech, and Vaekstfonden, the Danish state’s investment fund, are once again investing, having been with us since the first round of investments.
3. We have had more time for research and development
Having more time on our hands has given us the chance to fully immerse ourselves in developments. Thanks to that, coupled with the investment, we have been able to truly accelerate product development and testing. This has helped us fine-tune our product, as well as looking into other areas where our product can solve challenges. One example of this is recent tests we held together with Terma that demonstrated our drone solution’s ability to test and validate radar system performance at the site where the radar is deployed.
4. We are ready to bring the product to market
Thanks to the development and testing time we can transition our current technology – offered as a service now – to be sold as a product for third-party users. Our product will be ready for commercial launch in March 2021, much sooner than would have otherwise been possible. The commercial product will make the process of testing much quicker, simpler, and more cost-effective, with the opportunity to own private test facilities operating in the air instead of investing money in real estate and advanced test facilities. It will also free up valuable time for research institutes and universities that are currently carrying out much of this testing. In turn, this will allow these organisations more time to work on new research to further other innovations in satcoms.
2020 has certainly been a difficult year, however, the satellite industry has risen to the challenge. At QuadSAT, we have managed to extract some positives from a year without travel, but we are excited for a return to normality and cannot wait to get back out in the world to meet industry friends and colleagues. In the meantime, get in touch if you would like a virtual demo.
You can read our fuller year in review in the latest Sat Magazine.
