Whether earth observation, communication or navigation – many industries have been working with data from space travel for years. In view of global networking (Internet of Things), autonomous driving and the analysis of climate change, such services are becoming increasingly important. Basically, space travel offers what everyone needs. The industry association BDI, which discovered the business with satellites, rockets and big space data years ago, wants to take this into account and now raise the industry to a new level.
At an internal hybrid event, the BDI is setting up a New Space initiative this Wednesday. With around 30 founding members, it’s about much more than New Space. In addition to start-ups and aerospace groups such as Airbus and OHB, the initiative is also joining companies from outside the industry such as the software group SAP, the reinsurance company Munich Re, the raw materials company K + S and the automotive association VDA for the first time.
“The cross-sector and cross-industry initiative forms a unique amalgamation,” says BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang. “Our goal is to make Germany and Europe fit for the digital transformation, the energy transition and Industry 4.0.” The BDI is concerned that technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Space-X are pushing into space in the USA. “Germany and Europe shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past and the resulting data dependency,” said Lang. “The members of the initiative are united by a spirit of optimism and the conviction that New Space will make our country more digital, greener and more innovative,” says the managing director of the initiative, Matthias Wachter. “We are already looking forward to developing sustainable applications from the data that we generate in space,” New Space will also benefit from this, according to SAP.
The BDI has been campaigning for New Space with events and position papers for a long time, and has also proposed a German launch site for small rockets. Four working groups will now deal with topics such as the Space Act, Industry 4.0, cybersecurity, sustainability, climate protection or mobility in order to better network the industries.
“In the future, every company will go into space travel.”
While Munich Re has been using satellite data for risk management and insuring satellites for years, the automotive industry has also discovered space travel. The Chinese car company Geely is even building its own satellite network for autonomous driving, while the Porsche Holding is investing in the rocket manufacturer Isar Aerospace. Now the automobile association VDA is participating in the initiative. “The automotive industry is in a historic transformation,” says VDA Managing Director Joachim Damasky, who leads among other things satellite-based communication, new position and navigation systems as well as manufacturing processes. For climate-neutral mobility, alternative drives, automation and networking, innovative technologies are necessary – “a win-win situation between our industry and the space industry,” said Damasky. “The approach of the BDI to integrate leading German companies from user industries is very welcome,” says space lawyer Ingo Baumann, whose law firm BHO Legal is also one of the founders of the initiative.
Forestry is also a beneficiary of space data. The Munich start-up Ororatech wants to set up a satellite network to detect forest fires at an early stage. What he appreciates about the initiative is that “there are also companies from outside the sector”, says founder Thomas Grübler, “that’s what’s exciting”. He anticipates an increasing need for space technologies. “In the future, every company will go into space travel in order to use their data for their climate goals.” The initiative is said to be “the ideal exchange platform” for space data. Agriculture has been using navigation signals for precision farming for a long time in order to optimize the use of resources. With the initiative “we want to network better with industry and participate in the latest developments in the market,” says Fabian Wendenburg, Managing Director of the Association of Family Businesses Land and Forest.
The initiative was founded at a time when it is still unclear what role space travel will play in the future government. The topic only takes up a few lines in the coalition agreement, but space travel and new space are therefore considered to be “central future technologies”. These could “make an enormous contribution to climate and environmental protection,” says green space expert Dieter Janecek. “However, the new federal government must work to further improve the framework conditions for space start-ups.”