Resupplying space stations, cleaning up space debris or even organizing the circulation of satellites… These are the issues that many “newspace” start-ups are working on. »
Several of them have set foot in the territory of the Bordeaux metropolis in recent months. Initiated by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, Bordeaux Métropole and the city of Saint-Médard-en-Jalles, as well as ArianeGroup, Dassault and Thales, the innovation center Way4Space serves precisely to attract these space gems to the region, and to bring together this constantly growing aerospace sector.
Way4Space is organizing a series of meetings with international experts until Friday evening, around the themes of work and logistics in space. 20 minutes asked its director, Philippe Troyas.
What are the latest “newspace” start-ups to have established themselves in Bordeaux metropolis?
Among the new players arriving, we have The Exploration Company, which has space cargo projects for transport in orbit, Aerospacelab, a nice satellite company, HyPrSpace, which has been there for several years already and which wants to make rockets to hybrid propulsion, or even Dark, which plans to remove waste that threatens space infrastructure, and which has announced its intention to set up on the Bordeaux airport site… Way4Space is contacted regularly by this type of companies to come and settle here.
The symposium that you are organizing in Mérignac deals in particular with space logistics, how can we define it?
Space logistics is all the means that would make it possible to work and produce in space, like gas stations in space. It is not the same thing as space logistics, which includes the management of flows to transport equipment. This new orbital economy that we feel is possible has reached a stage where many private players are appearing, and many countries are interested in this subject. In today’s promising space activities, there is the active removal of debris, or even transport and resupply operations. Ultimately, those who are capable of carrying cargo will be able to carry out human transport. Because if this economy in space develops, it will take many men to come and repair, even if we have to do as many things as possible with robots in this hostile environment.
Do you think that one day we will go to work in space, like we go to work today in our factory or in our office?
It’s a little early to say, but we can definitely imagine it. Today, we send astronauts who are a kind of super-trained, super-intelligent athletes, capable of doing everything like piloting, conducting scientific experiments, manipulating machines in the ISS… But tomorrow, if we have activity in space, we will also have to be able to send a plumber, a guy who will connect, weld, what we call a “space worker”. Which raises a whole bunch of questions about the rights and protection of these future space workers…
You also address other themes during the conference, such as scientific research in weightlessness, is this another area that is also very attractive?
Yes, we also have a company owned by Bordeaux resident Nicolas Gaume, who has already carried out commercial experiments in the field. Space Cargo Unlimited is known for sending Castle Petrus to the ISS (International Space Station). At the same time, she sent vine plants into space to see how the absence of gravity could modify these plants. After months of tests on land, reproduction by cloning, it turns out that their capacity to resist climate change would be better than conventional terrestrial plants. This, subject to the last tests to be carried out, let us therefore remain cautious. But here is a concrete commercial application, which deals with the problem of adapting Bordeaux grape varieties to warming.
What explains the attractiveness of the Bordeaux metropolis, and more broadly of the region, for these new companies?
There are several factors. It turns out that in New Aquitaine, we have a political environment that favors innovation, and at the metropolitan level very active services to provide all logistical and land resources, with activity zones like the IOM (Operation of Metropolitan Interest) Bordeaux Aeroparc. We have quite a few schools that specialize in aerospace, from Poitiers where there is the Higher School of Aeronautics and Space, to the Basque Country with the Estia engineering school, including Elisa Aerospace in Saint-Jean-d’Illac near Bordeaux… Finally, we have a large employment area, with Arianegroup and its 3,400 people, Dassault, which has a space activity, and even Thales.